We're close to wrapping up 2024, and just like last years I'll do a little look back and think about what 2025 might have in store for me.
2024
2024 was mostly a normal year where life just went its merry way. Both personally and professionally I continued on the way I did in 2023, and while it was at times incredibly busy and sometimes challenging to organize calendars, there were also enough more calm moments to recover and enjoy everything I am privileged enough to have.
Qubix started the year again with a new and (very) ambitious growth target, aiming to grow in number of employees, revenue, and profit. Unfortunately, we were unable to grow the business from 15 to 19 people as we intended. There are many possible explanations for this, which we are looking into and adjusting so we can get new people in and keep our current group happy for 2025 and beyond. Numbers for revenue and profit aren't in yet, but the "feeling" is good so in that regard we consider it to have been a successful year.
Our "exciting big project that would lead to a product" has been a challenging endeavor in many regards, and the team is still hard at work with it. 2025 will be the year of the first implementations, which will be challenging and glorious for everyone involved!
In my personal life, things were a lot slower compared to 2023. Last year we did big garden improvements, but this year we gave the front yard a little makeover and put some tiling on the driveway. Esthetically, it was a lot more pleasing, and a lot nicer to park the car on, but we had it all done by professionals so not a lot of effort was required from my side 😅
My kids are getting to the age where we start enjoying things together. I still am at every soccer game of my son (when I'm in the country 😅), will not miss any of their school plays, or dance recitals. Both have acquired a love for Lego that I recognize from somewhere, which is a good excuse for me to buy my own sets again. During the year my son and I build the Lego Titanic together, 9090 pieces of pure joy. Well almost, it gets a tad repetitive in the end but we managed and very much enjoyed this bonding time!
In the summer we did a 14-day vacation in a house in France, with my extended family: my parents, my partner and 2 kids, my sister and partner, my brother and wife and kid. It comes with the usual challenges of living together with a bunch of people you usually don't share a limited amount of space with (😅) but in the end it was a great vacation with people I care a lot about.
It was also the first long trip with the electric car and the family, but all fears were unfounded. With the exception of one tiny mishap (my own fault entirely), it was a very easy 1100km trip. It requires some planning and adjustments, but nothing problematic. I'm looking forward to doing it all again!
I spent another year in the Microsoft Community, still focusing mainly on all aspects of Business Applications but also keeping my eye on Microsoft 365 (you never forget your first love, right?). In the beginning of July I get awarded my 6th Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award, keeping my dual categories. While I had some doubts in 2023 about the program, I'm still very proud to have been awarded and I got a bit more laid-back on the program itself.
I decided that I might not always like the direction this award is taking, but it's also nothing I can control so I decided to let it go (more). For as long as they have me, I'll accept the MVP Award and be proud of this achievement!
For the first time since receiving my first award I haven't significantly changed how I contributed back to the community, so that's a surprise. Either I have found the way I enjoy having an impact, or I have become complacent. I guess only the future will tell 😉
- Blogging had a tiny little uptick for a tiny little period. I finally got that blog upgrade done, and it has led me to write down 4 posts in the first 2 months. And then I didn't blog for 8 more months 🤷♂️
- My side-projects have been on life-saving mode mostly. In these last couple of weeks I fixed some issues, finally merged the open PR's, and responded to issues and questions. You can find them at spfx-msgraph-peoplesearch, spfx-lightbox-image-gallery, and azuredevops-buildagents.
- I haven't stopped sharing feedback, I participated in certain private feedbacks (and have felt like I really could make a difference there), but I was way less "public" with my more harsh feedback. I used the face-time at MVP Summit and Microsoft Ignite to share the more direct feedback pieces.
- I traveled a lot again, speaking at conferences, participating in content selection processes, etc. More after the pictures!
I was on stage at 12 conferences this year (down from 15 in 2023), attended MVP Summit in Seattle, and Microsoft Ignite in Chicago. At those 12 conferences, I delivered 15 sessions combined (with 9 unique sessions over the year). Two of these events were virtual, which meant I had to travel 10 times to speak at a conference and 2 more times to participate. Wow.
Besides going on stage, I also participated in the content selection of 5 events and helped a friend with organizing her conference (and overall being supportive of all my community friends who take on the challenge of putting a conference together).
It was an incredible honor to be considered to have the deep knowledge on certain topics to be invited on stage, and additionally to have the broader knowledge required to help put together a balanced conference program. Once again an incredible thank you to all organizers that allow me to do all this!
It's always very satisfying to reflect on the past year and write down the fun parts of what happened. I think it was a pretty successful year again, in all parts of my life. I'm very grateful for where my life is at the moment, and for the people who make that possible. Let's continue that in 2025!
2025
This is always the much shorter part of the post as I don't do well with New Year's resolutions, but let's see what I'm aiming for in 2025:
- Keep moving forward with Qubix, with similar ambitions and goals.
- Keep this blog alive, but I'm no longer promising I will find a consistent publishing schedule again 🤣
- Actively enjoying family time. Appreciate the big and small things we do together, the trips we are fortunate enough to take and the experiences we get to share.
- Finally building my own Lego sets, the unopened boxes continue filling my home office: The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell™, NASA Artemis Space Launch System, Bumblebee, Darth Vader helmet, and Hogwarts Express™ – Collectors' Edition. It's already a lot and I also bought The Ice Castle and The Little Mermaid Royal Clamshell to build (although that might have to wait until she is a little older), and have Jabba's Sail Barge™ on my wishlist 😅
- Stay active within the Microsoft community, in a similar way as before! I'm hoping to continue doing content selection for those conferences, hope they will still have me. My full conference schedule until Summer has already been decided (with the exception of one more conference I am hoping to be selected for and some that can't the published yet), so head over to my calendar to see where you can find me on stage in 2025!
Time to get this year wrapped up, and I'll see you at the other side! Come say hi when you see me at some conference in 2025!