2016 yearnote

2016 has become a byword for misery for almost everyone. But my dreadful year started nine days early, when I ragequit my job three days before Christmas with nothing to go to.

OK, so it started months before then, with all the things that led to me ragequitting my job three days before Christmas.

So what happened next? Inspired by Alex ‘Blangry’ Blandford’s and Jukesie’s 2016 retrospectives, here’s my own year in review.

• When things were falling apart, I found solace in yoga. This surprised me as much as anyone; I always thought yoga was bullshit. Om.
• Started my own company. It’s a year old today.
• Endured a miserable period of unemployment. It lasted six hours and 22 minutes. Then the excellent Jason Caplin asked me to join the team at UK Trade and Investment. So I said yes. Then I went to the pub.
• Realising I’d have to wait for security clearance, I did what any newly unemployed person would; I went on holiday. I learned about David Bowie’s death the moment I landed in Bali and turned my phone on. I found myself strangely moved by this all, cried after reading this blog post by James Ward, listened to Conversation Piece on repeat, then ended up dancing to Bowie under the stars with some Australians I’d only just met, and never spoke to again. I ate good food, made new friends, and chilled at the Yoga Barn. It was the recuperation I needed after a horrible few months.
• Joined an innovation team, the Ideas Lab at UKTI, designing and testing potential services for UK exporters. Learned a lot about service design, prototyping, agile, running a small business, exporting, and winging it.

• Visited Melbourne for the first time to do a keynote at Enterprise Tech Fest on enterprise social networks. Loved Melbourne immediately. I’d live there if it weren’t so far away.
• It was in Melbourne that I finally started drinking coffee. Because jetlag.
• Went to Singapore twice, and got to meet my week-old cousin Poppy on the second trip. I really miss Singapore.
• Cheered my beautiful, brilliant husband over the line when he ran the London Marathon in April in just 3:55.
• Resolved to travel more in Europe. Went to Iceland with Ann Kempster. Ate fish, bought hats, watched whales and saw many beautiful things. We liked Iceland a lot.
• I turned thirty-six. I am now over the median age of Londoners.
• Finally took pension stuff seriously and started investing. It’s an excuse to download more apps and complain about UX.
• After the referendum, found myself slap-bang in the middle of one of the biggest Machinery of Government changes in decades. Mark Hazelby asked me to join his team to design social media and digital engagement to support export, inward investment and trade. It’s been quite a ride.
• Went to Bilbao with Ann to find out how many Michelin Stars one can work through in a single weekend (answer: four). Our 25-course meal at Azurmendi was simply extraordinary.
• Finally developed a sustained gym-going habit. Started weightlifting. I can now deadlift more than my own bodyweight.
• Visited South Korea. Crossed the North-South Korea Demilitarized Zone. A deeply odd experience.
• Holidayed in Japan. Ate okonomiyaki in Hiroshima, hiked in the stunning Iya Valley, visited a village where all the villagers have been replaced with scarecrows, saw one of my favourite bands in Osaka, sang karaoke in Shibuya, was served sake by a monkey in a kimono and had my electronics blessed in a temple in Akihabra.
• While we were there, successfully summited Mount Fuji, out of climbing season. Getting down again was much, much worse. Japan is exhausting and utterly brilliant.
• Launched a website, GREAT.gov.uk, working with some of the most talented and frankly brilliant people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.
• Went to Stockholm twice to speak at events. Achieved a hitherto unknown levels of speaker/screen size disproportionality.
• Visited my local hospital more times this year than in the previous ten combined. This experience has made me absolutely exasperated with NHS admin systems and convinced there must be a better way of doing it.
• Celebrated five years of marriage to David.
• Was a contributing author to Sharepoint Intranets-in-a-Box. It’s both the dullest and the most lucrative of the three things I’ve had published; there’s probably a lesson there.
• Had a long weekend in snowy, freezing northern Norway. Saw the Northern Lights. Went dog-sledding, which it turns out is tremendous fun.
• Got back into blogging after a slow 2015. In October our Intranetizen blog team were awarded the Diamond Award for our contribution to the intranet community. And at the close of the year I was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices in the UK. So I blogged about blogging, and have resolved to do more of that in 2017. Onwards!

Quant:

• Flights taken: 22
• Countries visited: 9
• Clients: 6
• Conferences spoken at: 4
• Jobs quit: 0
• Intranet redevelopments: 1
• Blog posts published: 16
• Gyms joined: 2
• Sports injuries: 1
• Umbrellas lost: 0
• Hats lost: 5+
• Weight lost: 3.7kg
• Weight lifted: 70kg
• Times voted: 5
• Times disappointed with voting outcome: 2
• Post-It notes used: 2,000 (approx)

Aims for next year:

• Finally get a new kitchen
• Get better at saying no to things

Blockers:

• Idiots