Another challenging year during which I achieved more than I thought I would.

TYPO3

• Did a fair bit of spruiking for The TYPO3 Guidebook.
• Contributed to the TYPO3 Official Documentation as part of the Documentation Team, including writing docs for the Admin Panel.
• Initiated the Microcopy and UI Text special interest group (with workshops from Roger Sheen of Infotexture), which was later enfolded into the UX Inititative.
• As part of OSP:
  • Worked in the Content Team to contribute to articles published on typo3.org.
  • Helped create the TYPO3 Community Language & Writing Guide.

The Good Docs project

• Resigned from the Steering Committee.
• Hung out on the periphery, popping up on Slack and helping out with the Chronologue Working Group.

I hope to be able to devote more time to this project next year.

Events

• TYPO3 Online Days 2021 presented The TYPO3 Guidebook - a community-sourced writing project 📢
• Contributed to an Author Q&A on Twitter.
• Write the Docs Prague 2021 presented How to write a book for (and with) an open source community 📢
• DevRelCon presented Channeling a community to write a book 📢
• Attended Write the Docs Australia & India super meetup.

Speaking and improving my speaking skills

• Spoke regularly on the Open Strategy Partners podcast: Communicate, Connect, Grow. My favourite episode so far is PAX.
  • Listen on Spotify (or wherever you like to listen to podcasts 😄)
  • Watch on YouTube
• Spoke at several conferences and events this year, which was great practice.
• Spoke on the Developer Advocate Stories podcast. An abysmal failure, and a salutary lesson to speak from the heart ♥ rather than trying to memorise my speaking points. When I inevitably forgot them (two seconds in!!), I went into freefall and no words came at all.
• Interviewed my colleagues for a podcast episode about Developer Relations, which has not yet aired.
• Actively researched speaking techniques and vocal skills to improve how I come across on video and audio. Most notably Emmanuella Grace and Chrstine Canters. I read heaps of books, online articles and listened to loads of podcasts.

Firsts

This year I conquered a few things I had never done before:

• Migrated my blog from WordPress to GitHub Pages. This was both a painful and satisfying process.
• Social listening and making connections. This is the human side to consuming content online, and being involved in different communities. I felt happy and privileged to be able to connect people and tasks across communities, and share celebrations of success.
• Twitter and social posting. Suffice it to say, I’m not a natural at this. Tweeting on behalf of Open Strategy Partners, as well as writing Facebook and Linked In posts was a task added to my weekly list. I subscribed to many and various newsletters to find fodder for this task.
• Evaluated conference proposals for the Write the Docs Australia & India conference. This was an enjoyable process, not diminished by the fact that the conference was cancelled and replaced by a ‘super meetup’. I hope to be able to do this again.

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Image credits: Mountain photo by @billelmoula from Pexels