2013: My Year in Review

What an amazing year 2013 has been!

Over the past year, I’ve had a lot of changes in my life from leaving my full-time web developer job in March, connecting with our metro Detroit entrepreneur community, and returning to focus on user experience.

I’ve been very fortunate to meet some wonderful people along the way including:

• Amanda Lewan of Michipreneur
• Jared Spool of User Interface Engineering
• Anamarie Sabbagh of Startup Grind Detroit
• Derek Turner at Grand Circus
• Alyssa Goch, formerly of Curve Detroit
• Dan Santoscoy at Atomic Object
• Sam White of Shakespeare in Detroit
• Eric Malcolm at E Digital Design
• Cam Cecchini at Motor City Mobility
• Nathan Hughes at Detroit Labs
• Emily Hay from Hay There Social Media

I’m grateful for their support, guidance, and mentorship throughout the year.

In 2013, I completed several new web projects, began work on the redesigns for current clients, reconnected with people online and in our metro Detroit area, and finally met higher ed colleagues I’ve chatted with for years in person.

And after five years of chatting online and over the phone, I was thrilled to finally meet Christopher Schmitt and Ari Stiles in person.

Here are some of my highlights from 2013:

Web Projects

• Developed and launched four new sites
• Conducted over 40 consulting sessions for web work, social media, and digital marketing
• Began work on website redesigns for clients
• Conducted usability research for several organizations
• Launched WordPress training sessions

Writing and Curation

• Wrote and published 109 posts on this site, including 48 design and development resource posts. My most popular post was Project Management: Trello, Teambox, and BamBam, followed by my recap of Brad Frost’s Rosenfeld Media Summit presentation 7 Habits of Highly Effective Media Queries.
• Created 31 stories on Storify. Unfortunately, Storify closed down May 16, 2018. Some of the stories have been incorporated into this blog, others were deleted.
• Published over 12,000 tweets about web design, development, WordPress, user experience, productivity, and technology
• Participated in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) in November, publishing a post every day

Meetups and Conferences

• Helped to plan and organize over 30 events for Refresh Detroit, Metro Detroit WordPress, Detroit User Experience, and Free Lunch Friday. Took over lead role for group event when main leader backed out one week before event. Phew!
• Accepted the invitation from my friend Jodi Bollaert to join the leadership of Detroit User Experience, a new meetup group in metro Detroit focused on usability and user experience
• Organized the first World Usability Day Detroit evening event
• Attended five user experience conferences including World IA Day Ann Arbor, Rosenfeld Media UX Summit in Toledo, UX Thursday Detroit, Midwest UX in Grand Rapids, and World Usability Day Detroit.
• Attended two web development and design conferences including CSS Summit and Rustbelt Refresh
• Attended four WordCamps including WordCamp Phoenix, WordCamp San Francisco (virtually), WordCamp Columbus, and WordCamp Orlando
• On planning team for WordCamp Detroit (eventually canceled)
• Hosted for the fifth year, along with my friend Scott Williams at the University of Michigan, the meeting room for the Accessibility Summit conference.

Higher Education

• On planning team for the inaugural 2013 HighEdWeb Michigan conference
• Developed prototype for Washtenaw Community College online emergency crisis communication
• Created social media policy and plan for Washtenaw Community College
• Created Washtenaw Community College Spring 2013 Commencement social media plan

Thanks to everyone who made 2013 so wonderful.

I’m glad to work in an area, both online and geographical, where my friends and colleagues are so supportive and helpful.

And where I can share resources as well as some of my talents. I’m excited about what 2014 will bring!