Looking back - a year of learning

With the year drawing to a close, and 51 weeks completed I wanted to use this final entry of the year to reflect on what maintaining this blog has taught me over the last 12 months.

When first researching topics for this blog in November 2019 I could not have imagined how the world would be forced to change once countries began to close down. My subjects were initially focused on the technological breakthroughs and highlights from the Gartner Hype Cycle, interlaced with articles that had caught my interest, but would then grow from the technologies of the moment, with some inevitably influenced by the pandemic. 

These are the major lessons I learned along the way;

The 5 [or 7] Ps

Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance - or however you want to say it - is true in every arena and blog writing is no different. In order to ensure I was able to complete weekly blogs over the course of the year I knew I would need to have a plan to produce the content and keep to the purpose of the blog.

I did this by beginning with titles. There were a number of subjects I knew I would want to write about, even if the content wasn't worked out yet. Getting these thoughts down in title form gave me a starting point to work from. 

Once I had a dozen or so titles I then began some preparations for the year, working to complete 4 or 5 blog posts before kicking off in January. This provided a sort of buffer of content that gave me some leeway when it came to busy weeks at work / family holidays and those very occasional times where perhaps motivation was lacking.

This got the ball rolling and as new ideas came up I would add to the list and prioritise accordingly, which leads to the next lesson; the practical tech. 

Get the tech right

Given I assumed I would not be in any fixed location for the entire year I knew I would need tech to help out with the maintenance, curation and hosting for my blog. Having used Squarespace for my personal website previously I upgraded to their latest platform which meant the design and functionality was all out of the box; no development required and no website admin.

Next, I needed somewhere to keep the ideas and draft the posts. Squarespace offer an app for this but needing to be online to connect to the site seemed a drawback, and that it doesn't really serve as a word processor / note taker. So instead I turned my personal favourite application; Microsoft OneNote. Having a personal notebook that can be accessed offline or online, across laptop, phone, iPad and even in-browser I knew I would never be without the ideas tab to drop something in to develop when I had more time.

So, posts written up and prepared for release I had one more content-related challenge; Images. While a catchy title might grab the attention of some, an intriguing image is going to do a whole lot more. As I was looking for a professional look to the site I didn't want to have to take and edit photos myself. I also didn't have my own images for a lot of the topics I would be writing about - not working in a CRISPR lab for example! Enter Pexels. The royalty-free stock photos and images site. With a search engine for any topic there are countless talented contributors who have skill in photography and editing that gave each post a professional look. I say that with the knowledge that I saw the same image I had used for a post in February pop up from a company LinkedIn post in May. Clearly this is a popular resource!

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It has been a strange year, with Covid-related subjects pushing a lot of the traditional stories off the front page for a lot of media outlets. This has meant working harder to find those stories of interest and trying to find scientific and technology publications that weren't just providing another political commentary on how this or that government were doing things right / wrong!

And I think it has gone fairly well. Discipline has been a key component - committing to anything on a regular basis for such a long time requires the right mindset and resolve. I had to make sure I dedicated time in my schedule each week to complete posts and finish the year with this consistency.

Finishing doesn't mean the end of the blog but it does mean I won't be continuing with the same regularity of posts. I have learned to keep an eye on news coming out of the scientific and technology communities and already have a few follow ups to previous posts I am tracking with interest.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and any of my other posts this year and I wish all a happy and prosperous 2021. Hopefully at some point we'll all be allowed out again!