Mission creeping into 2009
Predictions abound for digital media in 2009 (even in the government space) and I’m excited to see what the year will bring.
It’s also a good time to reflect on personal highlights of the year just ended and hopes for the one ahead. So for my first new year as a blogger I hope you’ll permit me the indulgence of a rose-tinted personal review of 2008 and my goals for 2009.
Or if you just want the executive summary: I tried to do too much at once in 2008 and, while I didn’t manage it all, it was a pretty productive year as a result of that ambition.
In 2009 I hope to do even more. A new job, a bunch of social media resolutions and a demanding toddler are among the things that will make sure the mission of this blog’s title continues to creep all year…
2008 highlights
- Starting this blog. So far with no regrets. It’s more time-consuming than I expected, but also much more rewarding. More about that in a later post.
- Using Twitter. Sporadically of late, but I’m still a fan of the power of Twitter to network, crowdsource and stay informed.
- Being an active participant in online and offline conversations about Whitehall web policy. Having a Minister who gets it.
- Delivering stuff at work. A new intranet with web 2.0 bells and whistles, merging and developing the separate web/intranet teams and adding Twitter, YouTube and Flickr to the arsenal.
- Growing my own. As a first time veg gardener, I am dead proud of my plot’s bumper crop of spuds, peas, courgettes, tomatoes, runners, lettuces, chillis, carrots, onions, beetroots, blackberries and one lone gooseberry from my back garden.
- Soft-boiling my own. I’m even more chuffed with my two pet hens who joined my family back in Easter and gave me hundreds of fresh, tasty eggs for breakfast.
- Being Dylan’s dad. Doing an all right job of it, I think. Re-discovering the world through his eyes . Loving every minute.
- Being one good man and true. In the summer I served on two juries, first on a GBH and secondly a knife possession case, and got so much out of the experience I want to become a magistrate – but will postpone applying for a few years yet.
- Other geeky life-changing moments include the old switcheroo from iRiver to iPod and from desktop PC to Macbook (I’m never looking back); launching Listopia with Log so resurrecting the better bits of my abandoned Idiotica; and discovering GTD, only to discover it’s not as easy as it sounds.
2009 hopes
- First and foremost, to do a great job in my new job. From February I will become Head of Digital Media at another Whitehall department. It’s a big role. I’m going to be busy. It’s going to be brilliant fun and bloody hard work and I have ambitions to make a real difference there.
- To listen and learn a lot at the UKGovweb Barcamp on 31st January as well as contributing in whatever ways I can.
- To assuage my growing social media guilt I hope to blog more (more frequently, more broadly, more interestingly), tweet more (with more interaction and less broadcast), comment more (I subscribe to 400+ blogs and want to join more of the conversations), share more (slides, documents, learnings), speak more (at conferences/events) and listen more (by spending more time reading than merely collecting RSS feeds). But without social media taking over my day.
- To be the best dad I can be. In so many ways it’s easier and more fulfilling now we’re out of the baby woods and into toddler hood but then again it was lovely when he just lay still. I expect tantrums, battles of will, and trying to fit my whole weekend into two precious, short naps. But he’s well worth it.
- To grow even more of my own. I’ll be blogging soon about my fruit and veg gardening plans for 2009, which may even include braving those brassicas.
- To eat better and drink less and exerc… blah
Have a happy new year and all the best for your own 2009. Feel free to plug your own new year reflections via a comment here.
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Hello, I'm Neil Williams. I'm a government web geek, a dad, a husband, a grower of veg, a keeper of hens and a lapsed comedy writer, roughly in that order. 
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