Shooting at Bubbles

2009 is looking for the exit door.

2010 is anxiously waiting to start kicking us in the ass.

Looking back:

Yup I’m still a unrepentant procrastinator which means more often than not those emails I always say I’ll get to in the afternoons – they’re still waiting, buried deep in other emails waiting to be answered.

I am still paying the price for my grand rebranding experiment that happened right on top on my experimental magazine style format and I still haven’t recovered from either one.

The fact that people don’t like cranky old fart’s poking holes in their hot bubble dreams is substantiated for another year. It’s a hard realization that one has to come to that one’s appeal is limited when you don’t play along nice with the other mavens and gurus.

I’m not a Brogan, nor a Gray and especially not a Scoble but I am lucky enough to count two out of the three as people who respect what I have to say. So being cranky and willing to go against the grain is still worth it.

For the rest of all that good stuff like massive pageviews, speaking gigs, conferences left right and center – well they didn’t happen either which is to be expected when you live in the boondocks of any country other than Silicon Valley. Mind you it would help if I had an e-book about Twitter, Facebook, Social Media, or if I was able to mix up some nauseating warm and fuzzy pabulum that all the positive people seem to be able to sell.

But you know what? Even with all that 2009 was a fantastic year for me and I don’t regret a single decision or procrastinated minute of it.

Looking forward

Simple rule: it can all change tomorrow.

Either the change is good where everything gets better – or even stays the same, or it can be like 2009 never brought the changes it did.

I can only hope that 2010 is even partially as good to me as the past year has been but there are some things that I would really like to see happen.

It goes without saying really that I hope I finally recover from the rebranding and magazine format experiments – I miss those 15,000 to 30,000 visitors that I use to have.

I really want to finally get around to putting that first e-book together after all it would be a shame to waste such a good title. Who knows maybe it could be the start of a regular thing for me.

The other big thing I would really like to see happen in this next year is maybe hauling my sorry ass to a few tech conferences. Before that can happen though there are some personal things that need to be taken care of first (I may yet write about them but for now only my closest friends know what holds me back). This is also the same reason I haven’t branched out to doing video which I really want to do as well.

Things that won’t change

My honesty.

You may not agree with me and that is great but I will not be changing how I talk or write about things that happen in the tech industry just to enamor myself to a whole bunch of important people. If I did then I would be lying to myself and more importantly to you. That isn’t acceptable.

My crankiness.

Sorry but that is who I am. If you do or say things that I think are dumb I’m going to call you out on it – bluntly. I don’t have patience for stupidity or brown-nosing of any kind. Sycophants make me want to puke.

My friendship

Friendship is not people who I follow or follow me on places like Twitter or Facebook. Friendship is earned not from clicking on a Submit button but by time and conversation. If I call you my good friend you can count on one thing – me. It won’t be that avatar following you and me around. It will be me – the person who will go to bat for you when I think you have been done wrong. It is the person who will also tell you – privately – if I think you have done wrong. That is friendship – that is me.

In the end

2009 has been a great year in a lot of ways for me and I have loved every minute. It is absolutely fantastic that I am able to earn a living writing about the things that excite me, piss me off and generally make each day worth getting up for.

But I am under no illusions – it could be gone tomorrow. That doesn’t mean though that I won’t keep striving to improve what I do because to me that is the most important thing in life besides constantly learning.

So thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey – good and bad. I hope that this next year will continue to be good to us all and I hope at the end of it I will be able to look back and call a few more of you a “good friend”/