2010: New Year’s Resolutions

Wow, another year has come and gone. I feel like the past few months have just flown by… which is either really good or really bad depending on how you look at things.

As 2009 comes to a close, it’s a good time to look back and see how well we stuck to our New Year’s resolutions. Although I’m sure that I am not alone, I will be the first to stand up and say that (yet again) I’ve failed to complete all of my goals for this year.

This blog has been a very useful tool to document the accomplishments (and failures…) that I have achieved – and documenting my New Year’s resolutions is just another way to help myself stay focused on what I find important. I suppose “important” is somewhat of a relative term; it would seem that I am constantly shifting my focus towards some new goal. Priorities shift up and down on the list, but I suppose that’s just life.

So how did I do in 2009? According to my New Year’s resolutions for 2009, I guess I did alright:

1. I did not learn Silverlight, and I’ll be honest and say that I probably won’t ever spend the time to learn it. I have come to terms with the fact that I’m a developer (NOT a designer) and thus Silverlight / Flash aren’t the best way to spend my time. I actually did sign up for a Flash class at the local community college, but it was cancelled due to low enrollment. I’m taking that as a sign from God.
2. I did redesign my website! Although I did briefly attempt to create multiple sub-domains and online demos, I found that the redesign helped bring in some extra work. I never got around to the other details, but I’m not convinced that I even needed them.

The question now becomes: “What are my resolutions for 2010?”

In 2010, I hope to:

1. Double the amount of freelance work I generated in 2009. This will be achieved by: spending some money on local advertising, continued networking with local web development companies, and possibly creating an email newsletter when I have a large enough client base.
2. Change my use of social media. I have already started to do this… but I want to use social media sites strictly as professional tools. I plan to limit my use of Twitter, LinkedIn and the wide variety of message boards I visit so that I only post professional (i.e. “useful”) content. Facebook is a notable exception – I like that it’s a network of friends, and I don’t want them all to think I’m a total square.
3. Give at least two professional presentations. I spoke at an LCNUG meeting earlier this year and I attempted to create an ExtJS user group for the greater Chicago area. I won’t say that either presentation was amazing – and I know that I can do a bit better.
4. Use more photos on my blog. Personally, I like blogs that have photos. I don’t know if you (i.e. my readers) actually care, so if you have an opinion definitely let me know.

If anyone else has suggestions for what you’d like to see me accomplish this year… I’m all ears!