At the end of every year, I write a post to look back at the year that has passed, and forward to the year that will come. I’ve been doing this since the end of 2013. So here’s this year’s end-of-the-year-post.

2018

In 2017, I helped launch Peergroups. This website is still running, but we’ve found it challenging to attract new groups and to keep users coming back. So currently, development is at a minimum there. This is also the reason why the mobile app wasn’t released (yet). Even though I already had a working prototype, lack of funds meant that we’re sort of in maintenance mode.

I also mentioned how I hoped to write more for HitSubscribe, Erik Dietrich’s technical content marketing agency. About 25 posts later, I can say this has been a success story. And one that I’ve enjoyed. The team is great and is constantly increasing. I think there were about 6 authors when I started and I could read everything that came out of HitSubscribe. I think there are now more than 20 authors and several great editors in the team. I was lucky enough to meet the team in Chicago and drink some great beers with them. Here we are at Revolution Brewing:

If you’re interested in joining, let me know.

I also wrote about the Bruges Marathon. I’m proud to say I finished under my target of 4 hours 30 minutes (4:24 if I remember correctly), without having to switching to walking:

This was actually an insightful experience. I already went out running regularly, but less than once a week, and only about 9km. I think I had only run a maximum of 15km once. But I just entered and started training. Due to my busy schedule, I never really managed a “true marathon training schedule,” (i.e. 3-4 times a week), but nevertheless, I built up my training runs to 30km and I managed to finish the entire marathon. You can see my tracking here.

Worth mentioning: my brother was actually less sporty, and ran the Ghent marathon in worse weather and in a better time than me. Congrats to you bro!

This goes to show we can often do more than we think we can, if we set our minds to it and just train enough.

2019

So what will 2019 bring? With the marathon in mind, I’m going to try and give a talk somewhere. At a real conference. I’ve already done talks in the safety of teams and companies. This time, I would like to really do one at a conference. Like the marathon, I will just enter a proposal of something I would like to talk about, prepare as well as I can, and then see how it goes.

I will continue writing for HitSubscribe, though I hope to write some more for my own blog too.

As for anything else, who knows what 2019 will bring? I have some vague plans or ideas that I want to work on, but you never know what will change or come along your path. When the time is right, I’ll let you know.

Have a good 2019!