We’re about to say goodbye to 2019 and as I normally do at this time of year, I’m taking the time to look back and get a retrospective perspective at what the year has brought into my life at both the personal and business levels.
What an amazing roller-coaster year it’s been!
It has been a full-on, jam-packed year, with a total of 115 days on the road, according to my journal. I knew I was busy, but I did not realize quite how busy it has been. As I flipped through my calendar, I counted everything up and the tally tells me that I’ve been to Singapore for 38 days, US for 35 days, and spent 42 days in various places in Europe.
This summer I also took my family with me to Singapore. It was the first time they had been to Asia and was a great way to combine work and family. They also got to meet the amazing people I work with.
It was one of our best vacations ever for sure! I was able to show them the remarkable little island country that has such an incredibly multicultural history and they lapped up the culture and thoroughly enjoyed experiencing the amazing array of food.
I love how much my kids love adventures, new cultures, and how open-minded they are. And it always makes me proud to see them using English when we travel since this is not our first language.
Speaking of family, this is the last year of primary school for my eldest son. So in between all the travel, it’s been a real teamwork effort for our family with the high school application process, tests, exams, etc. And it’s also going to be continued in the first few months of 2020!
Lots of stress for everyone, but it’s great for me to see how much he counts on me, and I’m so glad he can and does express how much he needs me. Despite my work commitments and travels, we have an excellent mother/son relationship and its real teamwork for sure!
Business Highlights
The first and foremost highlight is definitely our partnership with Synaptica and our new product, Discovery for SharePoint which extends SharePoint’s taxonomy capabilities (rich thesauri, non-hierarchical relationships, real synonyms, innovative user experience, enhanced search, etc.).
This agreement combined with our partnership with Straits Knowledge means we are able to provide complex, end-to-end knowledge management solutions on SharePoint and Office 365.
I always enjoy sharing my knowledge and a conference is a great opportunity on so many different levels. Some of the highlight events this year have been:
- European Collaboration Summit in Wiesbaden, Germany (May) – the best (and largest) community event ever. My session was so packed, that they had to lock the room with lots of people complaining they could not get in – how cool is that?
- SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas, NV (May)
- Innovations in Knowledge Organizations in Singapore – where I was also announced as a board member. Check out this blog post here for additional details.
- KMWorld / Enterprise Search & Discovery / Office 365 Symposium in Washington DC – where I not only presented a workshop but was also a keynote speaker with Dave Clarke, Synaptica + led 3 breakout sessions
Each of the conferences is totally different and it’s pretty much impossible to compare them. I enjoy them all and that’s why I choose to attend and present. They are also a wonderful opportunity to connect with colleagues from across the globe and to learn.
Sneak Peak of 2020
I’ve also been working on a new online course. It’s coming in the first quarter of 2020 and is all about Microsoft Search in Office 365. Registration opens soon!
Leave a Reply