Ok so I just thought I would put this little post together to coincide with the release of the ‘Jonnychipz In Conversation with John Lunn video’ and the release of my last Jonnychipz Weekly video for 2021, which kind of sounds a tad egotistical! However, like a lot of people in and around the community, we have all been on and are still on our own journeys of exploration, learning, career growth, personal growth etc. Whatever the journey is, this is a little bit about mine and what I am pledging for the next 12 months.

You can catch my latest Jonnychipz Weekly Episode here!

First off I just wanted to review last years wrap up which can be found here, this blog post was written on Christmas Day 2020:

When I remind myself of what I had achieved up to that point I look back in amazement. I also reflect on my goals for this year and whether I hit them or not!

So, lets kick off my 2021 review!

COVID

Yes, as we all know, COVID was (and still is) rife across the globe and we were all doing our best to stay healthy and carry on with our work and day to day life as best we could.

Again for me, and my immediate family, we have been relatively fortunate, and by that I mean, we still have our jobs and are able to work from home and for me it meant I could focus more on the Tech Community world that I had found and fallen in love with!

I had committed to producing 2 YouTube videos per month, aiming for 321 subscribers and aiming for 2021 twitter followers as well as create at least one Azure specific blog post per month during this time so how did I get on?

What have I achieved in the last 12 months?

First, I cannot believe that it has been 12 months since I completed a round of 100Days Of Cloud, and where it has driven me to. In bullet point for, here are a selection of the achievements over the last 12 months:

• Regular YouTube Shows reaching there 1 year anniversary:
  • ‘In Conversation With’ 50+ shows, with over 50 hours of conversations across with awesome people from across the tech industry
  • ‘Jonnychipz Weekly’ now on episode 52 covering Azure News and Updates, Community Call outs, Jonnychipz on the Side and a slot around the Welsh Azure User Group
  • Booth shows have had a cadence of an episode of each released every week on a Friday morning and evening without fail (well maybe one or two technical gremlins!)
• YouTube Subscribers up to 750+
• Twitter Followers up to 3250+
• Regular Blogging
• I have hit my targets for speaking at user groups and/or virtual events
• The Welsh Azure User Group membership has grown on MeetUp, Twitter and LinkedIn and has produced another 12 monthly events including one in person event!
• I became an MCT
• I learned a lot of new skills!
• Certification completed: AZ-220, SC-900 and AZ-700
• I was awarded the Microsoft Azure MVP award

All of these achievements have been both fun and engaging to achieve over the last 12 months, but they haven’t come without sacrifice. The support of my family has been phenomenal, and although we have reported back to a little bit of normality, there have without a doubt been times where I missed out on a family film night, or missed a sporting activity of the kids due to commitments to community activity.

Now its not as though I advocate spending every hour fixated on a goal, but equally you need to realise that anything you are looking to achieve doesn’t come neatly gift wrapped and you have to work and put the effort in, this is where sacrifice plays its part. For me it has been about finding the balance of time and when to find time for myself to take a break.

I don’t think I got that mix right all the time and hey, I’m still learning myself, so I’m not going to be too hard on myself for that.

After my amazing family, I need to point out how much the community does indeed Rock! Without the support, banter, friendships I have had with all the amazing community peeps out there I wouldn’t be writing this post today.

Thank you to everyone in the tech community for being so supportive and helpful!

A final thanks go out to my place of work, my work colleagues and line management for helping me achieve all that I have over the last 12 months.

Bitter Sweet

For those that have been following on my journey and seeing some of the above achievements play out in real time over the year, you will also know that I have experienced the most profoundly saddening and upsetting point in my life to date with the loss of my Mum back in May this year.

There isn’t a day that goes by that she isn’t in my thoughts and even writing this blog about my yearly wrap up brings a tear to my eye. At a time of the year that we should all be around family, there is one gaping hole in mine this year that I am learning how to cope with.

Thank you for everyone that offered me support during this time.

Bringing it back around

So I thought I would close out this post with a few targets to hit over the next 12 months however, I cannot commit to the same level of time in 2022:

• Broaden to multi-cloud and do some AWS and GCP learnings
• YouTube – Hit 2k subscribers
• Twitter – Hit 5k followers
• WAUG – Continue with Virtual and aim to get back to Face to Face events in time.
• Continue to post a blog every month
• Complete and achieve at least 4 more Certifications
• Support and promote the awesome work that people in our community are doing!
• Renew MVP

Most of all, I want to have fun doing this work over the next 12 months!

Thank you to everyone for their valued support over 2021, and here is to a fantastic 2022 for us all!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!