You do not have to be a genius to recognize that the year 2020 was a kind of different, when compared to all previous years of this site and my professional activities.
Beside the obvious Global Pandemic that took over the world starting with December of 2019 in China and eventually reaching Europe in February (or maybe earlier, who knows now), I have been dealing with other issues for the duration of the second half of the 2020.
Given that there were only online conferences since March, there were virtually no chances of speaking in person, and I confess to be not the biggest fan of the online presentation, since I prefer contact with the people – to see how my words are affecting them.
Half of the conferences I was invited/selected have canceled, and that in the second half of the year I had to cancel everything and anything, and so I took part in just 4 conferences in a whole year.
As a consequence of the lack of participation uncertainty and then impossibility, I had given just 4 presentations, clearly a huge anomaly for I have not had a year since 2013 where I would speak less then 15 times. Still a good number in my opinion about the year 2020. Given how hard was to prepare my last presentation of 2020 – which was on the Artificial Intelligence ethics (and soon I will post some thoughts about it) and had to be pre-recorded, which at the time was deeply complicated for me.
The Blogging
I have been more active then usual in the first part of the year and hence the total number of posts, even though the lowest in 7 years, is still remarkably high – 30. My last blog posts in 2020 was from August and many drafts were left unfinished, so it gives me more potential to finish them in 2021. :) I do not expect to over-perform this year, I expect to make it work.
As mentioned above I am looking to blog on some of the AI-related topics, plus the Azure Data Arc and even more Columnstore stuff, that I wished I had time to finish in 2020.
Blog Stats
I am rather happy with the number of visits of my blog, even though they are declining for the 4th year in a row, and indeed I blogged less. If some of the information I blogged about was useful, then my mission is fulfilled and everything besides that is just splashes and colours, which fade away.
2021
I am focusing on making my life work and making it enjoyable.
I do care less and less about the external stuff, focusing more on things that have meaning to me.
Life has taught me a couple of lessons in the second half of 2020.