Writing a review of the year reminds me of doing the dreaded yearly appraisal.
How the hell can I remember what happened in Jan when it is now Dec?
Regardless, as I scroll back on my Google Photos, I shall attempt to do just that.
Also I didn’t last year when I should have since I did 2015 and 2016.
Let’s jump into the professional positives:
- Visits (as of 26th Dec 2018) is standing at 57,913. 15.8% increase over 2017.
- Published 38 new blog posts. Almost halved of my output in 2016 as I was still writing primarily for HR Digital Today over 1H of 2018.
- Published the 2018 Singapore HR Tech Market Map, my most visited post of the year.
- Monetised the blog via sponsored postings and banner ads.
- Scored my first paid speaking engagement to share about HR Tech to a group of HR folks.
- First judging panel involvement at HR Tech Summit Tech Den.
- Shifted to a new office.
- Attended my first HR Tech conference (in India).
- Commissioned by Adecco Group X to do up HR Tech Market Maps for China, Thailand, Australia and Japan (unreleased).
- Invited to speak about HR Tech in Bangkok.
- Engaged by People Matters as their marketing partner for TechHR 2019.Became a contributor on ChannelNewsAsia. My commentary on “What to do when the HR recruiter ghosts you” has more than 12k shares on social.
- Completed 158km of run over Q4 2018 to-date. Currently running 4km 3 times a week.
- Extended my (unguided) meditation practices to twice a day, 15-minutes each. If you are starting out, this is a good free app – Oak.
- Un-tethered myself from Facebook by mass unfollow all my friends and Liked Pages. My feed now is just news update. (Pro tip: Use Nudge to automatically mass unfollow)
At this point, you are still reading the Instagram side of my life. There will always be down to accompany the ups.
Instead of letting my monkey brain go crazy and lament me how much of a loser I am for such mistakes, I tried to reflect upon them objectively and learn.
Like what Loki said in Avengers: Infinity Stones, experience is experience.
- Dabbled in crypto-currency and got burned with no ash remaining. Reminded of what Warren Buffett always say – Don’t invest in things you don’t understand.
- Over-relied on services that comes with government subsidy. When that stopped, so did revenue. Should have diversified while our cash cow was still around.
- Death of senior consultant compounded the situation. Life is short.
- Sale of Career Hero didn’t materialised.
Before I started on the negatives, I was expecting to list down a couple of dozen but struggled from the 4th.
And it dawned on me that my 2018 is pretty good.
And I’m sure if you do a serious audit of your year, it might be too.
2019
For 2019, you can look forward to my 2019 version of the HR Tech Market Map (done in collaboration with HRTech.sg)
I will be at TechHR 2019 and HR Tech Summit 2019 so you can look forward to my coverage.
With Singapore buzzing with HR Tech events in 2019, you can definitely expect a lot of limelight in this space.
Finally, I like to thank you for your support. This blog can only be possible with your interest and I hope to bring you even better writing in 2019.
