It’s the end of the year and we’ve all been bombarded with lists. From november on, things like Spotify wrapped started appearing (even though the year hadn’t ended yet). It feels like the last month doesn’t count anymore, even though there’s a lot that can be done in december. That’s why I’m waiting until the last day of this festive month to write and publish my review.
Before you read on…
If this is the n’th blog you’ve read where people are showing off how cool they are or what they’ve done, remember that there’s a lot that people don’t write about. Remember that the hard times are usually kept private and you only see and read what people want you to read. Remember it’s ok to have just survived this year.
Events
This year had a nice amount of events that I was either speaking at or attended/volunteered. It made for a fun year of learning and connecting with people, even though the latter will remain a struggle. Every event stood out for some reason and all of them have special, cherished memories. I can only hope to keep this going in the coming year as the ones I’ve been to are all amazing. Call me lucky (though I’m not Luke ;))
Organising
This year marked the start of my local user group; focused on the Microsoft Data Platform and meeting about once every two months. It’s still a bit of a struggle to find the right balance and timing but in general feedback is good. The points that were given back to improve (for instance entry to the building) are taken seriously and we’ll do our utmost to follow up. We? Yes, at the end of the year I decided that it’s not the smartest move to do it all on my own but ask for help. Ynte Jan Kuindersma is now the co-organiser and is a great help. We just decided on the dates for next year, the call for speakers will open as soon as possible. We’re trying something new next year as well. (Cliffhanger! ;))
Blogs
This year marked the sixth year since I started blogging and this year I broke to 10.000 visitors barrier. Something that amazed me to no end. I won’t get into all the details but a small matrix to show the growth of this blog.
| Year | Visitors | Views |
| 2018 | 85 | 102 |
| 2019 | 210 | 305 |
| 2020 | 1450 | 1714 |
| 2021 | 1217 | 1817 |
| 2022 | 5908 | 8537 |
| 2023 | 10.966 | 16.911 |
The reason I’m showcasing this is not to show off how popular I am, the reason is to show you perseverance helps. Between 2018 and 2022 the amount of visitors and views wasn’t all that high, I can only hope the people visiting and reading got something out of it. It was only in the fifth year numbers really started to rise. So if you’re in your second or third year of blogging, keep at it! Keep practising the skill. My main goal when writing blogs on a technical edge case is to hopefully help a user somewhere late at night trying to find a cause and solution for an issue that came up when they have the night shift. If there’s just one person whose day became a bit easier because of a blog, it serves its purpose. The blogging will continue of course, if only to help my remind me on how to do things.
Volunteering
As some of you know I’m a volunteer in speedskating, something I’ve been doing since 2002 or something like that. It’s always been fun and there were always positive responses making it all worthwhile. This is the part that returned the energy with interest and made it fun to do. For the last few years, the responses from the speedskaters have diminished to almost zero. They seem to take it all for granted. Now with a lot of bickering between the different disciplines (marathon and speedskating foremost) and the different layers of ‘management’ hardly communicating anymore, I’m wondering more and more why I’m still investing time and energy. The amount of people participating in the sport is diminishing; a few people seem to be preoccupied with leaving something behind to secure their immortality rather than promoting the sport; the local council is on the fence when it comes to building a new track (the current one is about to fall apart). All in all, a lot of insecurities and bad vibes that are getting hard to handle. Maybe it’s time for others to step up after 20 odd years.
Work
My work is reflected in my blogs. And there’s been some changes in that department. Still working for the same employer, almost 12,5 years now, but constantly changing. I’ve learned to speak my mind, offer my opinion on technology (new and old). At the beginning of this year, I was singled out because of my online presence (and not so much for the technical content it was all about). This is all fun and games, in the end I’m mostly trying to share knowledge and inspire people to try things out. My series on Fabric is one of those things. This new toolset is changing the way we work and I’m really happy a number of coworkers is picking up on this. The best thing is that different specialities come together on a common ground and share the same dataset without difficulties. The coming year will probably feature some or more Fabric related things but hopefully some on-premises SQL Server as well; it’s where I entered the data community and something that I still really like working with.
Community
As a data person, it’s impossible to function without the community. The blogs, the books, the training; it’s all originating from people in the data community. They (you) are all amazing people!
Thank you for being there.
Finally
If this is the n’th blog you’ve read where people are showing off how cool they are or what they’ve done, remember that there’s a lot that people don’t write about. Remember that the hard times are usually kept private and you only see and read what people want you to read. Remember it’s ok to have just survived this year. And it’s ok to just survive next year. As Rie Merrit said to me “we’re all rowing upstream”, and that’s a metaphor that stuck with me the entire year. If you got through this year, well done you!
I wish you a very happy, healthy and peaceful new year.
Reitse's blog 