2018 roundup

In keeping with my tradition, I am inviting you to take a look at the year which is about to end with me, as it pertains to me, my life, and the blog.

Where 2017 was a challenging year on the personal front, 2018 has been far easier. Though the year did see us dealing with some of the fallout from 2017, for the most part, the year has felt a lot better. The kids continue, relentlessly, to grow up, our oldest beginning first grade while the youngest took her place in the big kids’ department in kindergarten. Trips to see the extended family, as well as a big family vacation in Denmark has all been great fun, creating new memories to cherish.

Most of the month of May was spent writing, re-writing, and editing my end of module assignment for B327. I was happy and proud to receive a Pass Grade 2 on that. Passing that module also marked the end of my Open University studies, and I am expecting to graduate in London early next year. 

On the professional front, 2018 continued to be challenging as my employer has been reorganising in order to better deliver on our mission and goal of serving our customers to the best of our ability. Norsk Helsenett remains an interesting and exciting employer. While predicting the future continues to be a mug’s game, there are plenty of interesting and exciting tasks coming in the pipeline for us.

January saw five Apple-centric articles. February was a mix of reviews with an opinion-piece and a how-to for good measure. In March I wrote about my approach to GDPR compliance, added the eight instalment in my long-term review series of the Tesla Model S, as well as the realisation that the blog is now more than ten years old.

April brought my announcement of having demonetised the blog, a how-to, a review, and (not least) my decision to add an Android device to my mix of devices in use. In May, I continued talking about GDPR, added information about two-factor authentication on WordPress, and talked about company culture. June added another review, a how-to, and a couple of opinion pieces, one of which is the first of many talking about my views of process in general, and DevOps in specific.

July opened with my third running State of the Blog had a couple of how-tos, one specifically aimed at the rigorous demands for referencing in academia, as well as more stuff on DevOps. August saw me bemoaning the trend of DevOps being used as code for cloud, and celebrating my impending graduation, while September was mostly opinion pieces, with a how-to for variation.

In October, I talked about DevOps, and Twitter, and the ineptitude of recruiters, while I opened November with an opinion-piece arguing for (the need  for the) abnormalisation of working outside business hours, and continued with more thoughts on DevOps, as well as a couple of how-tos. December added yet more how-tos, opinion pieces, and has concluded with the piece you are currently reading.

Turning, as I usually do at about this point in the annual roundup article, to analytics, the data looks as follows:

• Monthly readership: 3’000
• Return visitor rate: 6.6%

Next, let’s look at geography:

1. United States (37%)
2. India (8%)
3. United Kingdom (7%)
4. Canada (5%)
5. Australia (5%)

Comparing the numbers to 2017, the decline that I noted then is continuing. I am also noting, however, that the numbers are not steadily declining, and if you refer to my State of the Blog article this year, you will see that I then saw an increase in monthly readership since both December and the year before. As always, I will note that I’m not doing this for the clicks or views, I’m doing it for myself.

I think I can fairly safely assume that part of the change I am seeing is due to the change in material, which has gone from technical to opinion-based. The challenge of retaining former readers, while gaining new ones is one which I am unsure of how to deal with (or if I should do so at all), and I would welcome thoughts in the comment field.