It’s the end of the year so it’s the perfect time to look back see where I improved, and were I was lacking. It was a big year. 2019 was a year of a lot of changes. Looking back, 2019 was far more exciting than 2018. Reminiscing about 2018, I realized that I was very unhappy. In 2019 that changed.
Making Moves
The biggest change in 2019 was that I moved again. This time to New York City. I moved to Brooklyn in March of 2019. I had found out in February. My boss pulled me into a secret meeting to tell me that my marketing agency was opening a new office on Madison Avenue, and they wanted me to help start it and provide some stability. My adrenaline started pumping the moment he said it.
I enjoy thinking back to last February when I was terrified about this new life and new person I would inevitably become. My fist time in NYC was to look for an apartment. That’s wild. I remember the first time I spent the night in my NYC apartment. I was nervous. I was excited. I was in over my head. I loved it.
I’ve fallen in love with New York. It’s amazing to be walking quickly down the street listening to a podcast then you look up, and there’s the Empire State Building.
Job Changes
The reason my marketing agency moved to New York was to attract talent. And it took some time, but the New York office has grown. I have a new analytics manager, and he’s taking the analytics department in a new direction. Previously we used Tableau and a private storage company for our data and reporting. We are now moving to become an agency that uses Datarama. This is going to change things. My blog is very much centered around Tableau data visualizations.
The skill set I’ve been working for the past few years has now gone out the window. It’s exciting. But it’s also worrisome going into the unknown. Datarama is a all-in-one data solution. It’s lacks the customization and by extension the creativity of Tableau. Tableau is a flawed product, but it is ubiquitous and I am concerned what it will do career-wise. But there’s a good chance this frees up time for me to increase my skills in other areas. There is some adventure in this aspect of my life.
Or they could be setting it up so they can fire me. Seems unlikely, but it’s crossed my mind.
Social
I ended my Facebook profile. It’s a waste of time and full of boring morons. I ended up getting on Twitter though! It’s full of entertaining morons, which is much better.
Side Projects
I’ve always worked on side projects, but this year I did more non-private side projects. On this blog I added several Tableau Tutorials, added an email list(It’s five people. Two of which are my sister.), and added a few portfolio projects.
I made two websites. One for my girlfriend, Mairead McArdle, and one for my college friend, Derek Fields. Using the skills I developed making this site to help out the people I care about. Both of their websites get essentially no traffic. But, the websites are there for them to use if they need.
I made an eCommerce store: Pickleball Boutique. During Thanksgiving my parents were going crazy about a new game they started playing called pickleball. They’re obsessed about it. The sport really grabs people. I figured if their passionate about it, other will be too. The site just went live a few days ago. It was a new type of project for me. I had to contact suppliers and get legal documents. I’m now running ads for the site, so we’ll see how it turns out. Expect a post about it in the near future.
Comedy
I’ve had a love hate relationship with comedy this year. In 2018 I wasn’t able to do much improv, because I was in Harrisburg. Not much of a comedy market there. However, I’m in NYC now. So there are a lot of improv opportunities. I’m almost done with the UCB curriculum. UCB has been a bit of a mixed bag. I think they’re far too focused on game, and not enough on characters. I like characters more. Once I’m done with UCB, I think I’m going to try and do classes at the PIT.
A failure that embarrasses me. I signed up for a stand up comedy class. I bailed out it. That was several hundred dollars down the drain. That might have been the nail int he stand up coffin. I don’t like stand up anymore. For some reason, it hangs over me that I should do stand up. I don’t enjoy going to the shows, and I don’t watch it that much on Netflix. It might be a vestigial interest I need to remove. It’s baggage.
Overall
2019 was an exciting year. I moved to the big city. I have done some big city things. Skill sets across the board increased: Data, Marketing, Comedy, Web Development. This past year has felt like the type of year that was about growth and realization. It feels like 2020 will be the year where that growth will bear fruit.