Last year, I did a wrap up post of the year (also 2011 and 2010) to see where I landed from where I wanted to be.  At the end of that post, I came up with a number of goals for the year.  Now’s the time to see how I did with those goals.

2013 GOALS

1. Become a Microsoft Certified Trainer.  Fail.  I didn’t even try.  Not sure this is that much of a goal going forward.  Instead, I focused on the skills to present better and spent a lot of time looking at successful TED Talks and reviewing presentation books.
2. Focused Community.  Successful.  I had wanted to focus more on presenting in the North America North Central region for PASS.  I did get to Iowa, Minnesota, Fargo, Kansas, and Oklahoma – which is good coverage for the region.  I also, led the effort in putting together the first SQL Saturday in North Dakota at the Microsoft Campus in Fargo.  In total this year, I presented 30 different sessions and spoke at six different SQL Saturdays; including Chicago, Madison, Fargo, Kansas City, Iowa, and Minnesota.  The only dings I see in focusing on community is the lack of Minnesota SQL User Group meetings I’ve attended and that this year I retired from being the Region Mentor for the PASS North America North Central region.
3. Build Web Content.  Utter failure.  While I did publish over 190 blog posts in the past year, a majority of them were the Monday link re-cap and the Friday previous blog post refresher.  I only recorded a single video but still would like to push more on this.  I do have a few book projects in the works, but need to get those further down the road more before I blog about them.
4. Better Networking.   In or around the realm of failure.  I’ve been very off on connecting with people for most of the year.  I’ve been really less inclined to be social with people both in-person and through social networks.  This is probably fairly introversion related but I’m thinking a little less connectivity will help recharge my fuel cells and get me going again.
5. Better free and family time.  Success.  I’ve been spending a lot more time with the wife and kids compared to last year.  We’ve played a ton more board games, I’ve spent weekends banning myself from the office to spend time with my boys, and generally feel that the kids got a lot more quality time from me.
6. More Certifications.  Fail.  I just never made the time to cover the remaining SQL Server certifications.  With the cancellation of the MCM program, I’m even less inclined to put a focus in this area.  Though, I do still support the idea of what certifications provide and mean, so I’m still going to be looking at working on these.

ADDITIONAL 2013 ACCOMPLISHMENTS

There are a few of other things that I did this past year that I’m kind of happy about:

• Retained my MVP award for SQL Server for the fifth year
• Spoke at TechEd North America, SQL Connections, and Dev Connections.
• Contributed to “DBA JumpStart“, an ebook where 20 renowned SQL Server community experts look back on their successful careers, sharing their thoughts and advice on becoming an outstanding DBA.
• Accepted deliver a pre-con and regular session at the upcoming BA Conference
• Read 43 fiction books – you can see the list over at goodreads.

2014 Goals

1. Read 12 Technical Books.  This is something that I really do want to focus on.  If you’re not keeping up with technology, you’re falling behind.  The plan is to read 12 books and primarily focus on SQL Server internals, big data, and analytics.
2. More User Group Involvement. I made a list of all of the SQL Server chapters from the PASS website a few months back, this coming year, I’d like to do more with them to present sessions to them.  Most likely most would be remotely but when I travel I want see if I can get something to coincide with that travel.
3. Build Web Content.  I’m still planning to build some webcasts around the content on my blog.  Since I’m on the hook for 30 based on my annual goals with my buddies, it makes sense to keep this on the list.
4. Have Some Lunch.  A network is really only as good as the people that you actually know in it.  This year I’m hoping to have more lunches with the people in my network and get to really know people outside of e-mails and twitter.  For an introvert, this should prove to be interesting.
5. Bring Back the Blog.  I’ve been exceptionally slack on blogging in the last half of this year.  It isn’t for a lack of ideas, but a lack of focus.  So next year, the plan is to try and convert some of my aimless time to more focused time and then spend less time spinning my wheels.  We’ll see how that goes.

Blog Statistics

It’s always interesting to see what people are reading on my blog versus what I am writing.  The most popular collection of posts that I’ve published are the 31 Days of SSIS series I wrote back in 2011.  This year it represents 14 out of the 25 posts in the list.  Only 5 of the posts on the list were written in the last year.

Most Popular Single Day Post

5 SQL Server White Papers Every DBA Should Read.

Top 25 Posts per Google Analytics

1. 31 Days Of SSIS The Introduction (2011) [23,002 views]
2. 31 Days Of SSIS Raw Files Are Awesome (2011) [13,152 views]
3. 5 SQL Server White Papers Every DBA Should Read (2013) [9,352 views]
4. 31 Days Of SSIS In A Pdf (2012) [7,670 views]
5. The Side Effect Of NoLock (2012) [6,561 views]
6. 31 Days Of SSIS Generating Row Numbers (2011) [6,297 views]
7. Get Just The Tools SSMS Download (2013) [5,965 views]
8. 31 Days Of SSIS Environmental Variable (2011) [4,879 views]
9. 31 Days Of SSIS Using Breakpoints (2011) [4,615 views]
10. X-Query For The Non Expert Value (2010) [4,232 views]
11. Install Windows Server 2012 On VMware Workstation 8 (2013) [4,055 views]
12. Please No Trim (2010) [3,932 views]
13. 31 Days Of SSIS 10 Things About Expressions (2011) [3,845 views]
14. 31 Days Of SSIS Controlling Your Flow In The Control Flow (2011) [3,683 views]
15. 31 Days Of SSIS SQL Server Configuration (2011) [3,189 views]
16. Index Black Ops Part 2 Page IO Latch Page Latch (2010) [3,018 views]
17. 31 Days Of SSIS Pivot Transformation (2011) [2,901 views]
18. 31 Days Of SSIS Merge Join Is My Friend (2011) [2,843 views]
19. 31 Days Of SSIS Create Xml Document (2011) [2,721 views]
20. Determining File Group For A Table (2013) [2,648 views]
21. 31 Days Of SSIS Data Flow Breakpoints (2011) [2,604 views]
22. 31 Days Of SSIS dtsconfig Configuration (2011) [2,435 views]
23. SQL Server Checklist (update monthly) [2,339 views]
24. X-Query For The Non Expert Exist (2010) [2,313 views]
25. Five Virtual Labs For The SQL Server 2012 DBA (2013) [2,202 views]