It's time for me time.

[swatts]

Happy New Year Darlings,

The last few years we've been frantically trying to fill in the gaps and keep the LabVIEW eco-system vibrant (and pleasant), and it has taken a toll. Fighting the corporate man is hard work and has no real reward beyond having nice people in your squad. This time of year is a good time to evaluate what makes us happy, what makes us unhappy and what strategies to put in place to maximise one and minimise the other.

If you heard me talk in the last year you will probably have heard me complaining about unpaid/voluntary work. 2023 had a ratio of unpaid:paid work that was very bad for my business. SSDC "lost" about £40,000 in 2023. That makes me unhappy as I worked quite hard.

I'm 57 now, probably got 13 more years in me if I'm lucky and I need to earn my retirement!

Do much less voluntary work (<Unhappy)

My voluntary work was ...

1. Community Training Initiative
2. GDevCon
3. NI Alliance partner CAB
4. Champs Forum / NI  - Trying to make NI appreciate LabVIEW and LabVIEW Developers
5. Talks
6. Blog

What shall I sacrifice?

1) Community Training Initiative - My interests coincide with this as I really want to crack Linux as a development target for SSDC. But other enthusiastic people have bought into the vision, I see this taking on it's own life.

2) GDevCon - Jenny does a lot of the hard work now, but I still put too many hours in GDevCon #4. I need to reduce this further in 2024. We probably need to enlarge/refresh the board for GDevCon Europe.

3) NI Alliance CAB sacrificed - fairly easy decision.

4) Champs Forum / NI - Dealing with corporate NI has not brought me happiness, I shall deal with them less in 2024.

5) Talks - I have some talks left in me, but maybe nothing new in 2024  - I'm really interested in concepts of happiness, success and the psychology of the graphical programmer. Much studying still to do.

6) Blog - My next large task is that I want to build Linux VMs and Linux on a small PC - I want to try different distros and record the journey, it may not be on this platform tho' - but will link from here.

Dealing with Corporate NI/Emerson (<Unhappy)

In 2000 I left the corporate world and I had several motivations for doing so. One of the biggest motivations was how intensely frustrating it is to deal with large organisations.

Along with my many failings I have a couple of super-powers. I can see the simple path and I can drag people along that path. You can fool yourself that using these powers makes you happy, but it doesn't. From now on anyone who wants me to use my super-powers will have to pay me!

New Stuff (>Happy)

DSH Workshops are trying something a bit different in that we are doing general business consulting, I really enjoy this and would like to do more of it.

More Software (>Happy)

I need to build more things in 2024.

More Vacations (>Happy)

I need to have more time away from work, and travel, I like travel.

I'd be interested in hearing your strategy for a happy 2024,

I'm actually quite hopeful that the pendulum will swing in our favour in 2024.

Lots of Love