Yeah, it’s that time of the year, when we are writing and reading a bunch of overview posts, just like this one. And I’m not saying this as a bad thing. Not at all. I really like to see the yearly overview of my friends, family and people I’m working with and I’m following.
Disclaimer: you’ll see a list of things with a very short description and a bunch of embedded Instagram photos.
Originally I’ve started the draft right after I’ve published the Oveview of 2015 post and the idea was to update it from time to time. As you can see the archive of 2016, there are only a few published posts, so you can see how this idea went over the year. That said, a few of the goals from 2015 were not completed, such as reading and writing more, but I’ve managed to accomplish a good number of things.
DevriX in 2016
On January I wrote about my 5 year anniversary at DevriX and how amazing time I’m having there. Almost an year later the things are even better and I’m very proud to be part of the this amazing team!
This year we’ve upgraded and improved our internal work process, we’ve expand the list of professional WordPress services we are offering. We’ve improved our content and we have created an articles page, where you can find our tutorials and blog posts.
We’ve redesigned most of our pages, we’ve added a bunch of landing pages, improved the menu structure and so many other things. We’ve added a few more items to our portfolio and case studies. Even if we haven’t introduce it supper official, we’ve started our DevriX Shop, where you can find more than a dozen WordPress plugins and extensions.
Of course, this year we’ve talked, attended and sponsored a number of WordCamps and events.
We’ve worked on a number of interesting projects, onboard new clients and partners and I’m looking forward to see what’s gonna happen in 2017.
WordCamps,WordPress meetups and other conferences
This year was a full of events and it was going be easier to share more details with you if I was blogged about them, but since I haven’t I’ll share the list with you.
WordCamp Belgrade 2016
Alex, Mario and I went to WordCamp Belgrade and because we love the Serbian community, DevriX was also a sponsor of the event.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGlY-HFQvYg/
It was a great event and we had a lot fun moments, we eat some delicious things
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGYobwiwvaY/
Smoke shisha in some interesting places and many many good memories 🙂
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGM-CchQvTP/
WordCamp Europe 2016
What can I say about this event? It was an unforgettable experience! Back then this was the biggest WordCamp, so you can imagine how awesome was the atmosphere. We’ve spent a few amazing days at the beautiful Vienna and I got so much fun catching up with friends, meeting new people, listening to some great talks, stories and inspirational discussions with the attendees.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHCLTbZhMmi/
Mario had a great talk, sharing his experience with managing remote people, giving some real examples from interviews, work culture and some tips. If you haven’t watched the presentation, I strongly recommend you!
Full packed rooms with so many great talks
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHHCdzxhn5P/
We had some fun exploring Vienna
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHKkNeChq2r/
and of course, exploring the local shisha bars 🙂
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHMd7wzB_pR/
Bulgaria PHP Conference 2016
I’ve attended to Bulgaria PHP Conference 2016 I had the chance to meet and talk with amazing people like Cal Evans, Michelangelo van Dam and the whole PHP community. It was a really interesting event and I’m looking forward to see the next conference, hopefully next year!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BLT21oeFJT1/
WordCamp Sofia 2016
Last year I was part of the organization team and this was such a great experience. I’ve learned a lot of things organizing event with that scale. This year I’ve decided to apply to speak and once I’ve received the approval email, I’ve started preparing my presentation.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMBEMtuFpJE/
The event was a really well organized and we had so much fun at our boot, since DevriX was sponsoring the event. This was the first WordCamp for a few of the local folks and I believe they really enjoyed it.
Once the video is published on WordPress.tv, I’ll write a blog post and upload my presentation, sharing more details about the talk 🙂
Contributing back to WordPress
After submitting my first patch last year, this year I’ve managed to submit a patch to to 2 of the 3 WordPress releases, something I’m really proud of!
This year, during the WordPress Translation Day, I became a translation editor for the Bulgarian version of Akismet, one of the most popular WordPress plugins out there. This with a combination of my contributions to the Core, speaking at WordCamp Sofia 2016, helping, moderating and answering in Bulgarian WordPress forum, being an admin of WordPress Bulgaria in Facebook and helping with the organization of Sofia WordPress User Group I freely can say it was a good year for giving back to WordPress.
I’m looking forward to see what I’ll managed to do in 2017 🙂
Personal
In personal aspect I’m very happy to share with you that one of the major goals from 2016 is completed. We’ve managed to complete the reconstruction of the 2nd floor of my house and finally we’ve moved in with Beni. It was something we were waiting for quite some time, but now once everything is done, we are really, really happy :)))
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDvfdA8wveD/
Of course, this can’t be finished if we don’t have a nice shisha 🙂
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOK10YvFhZZ/
Some Christmas spirit
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOdIdxnFA7C/
I had the chance to watch a few of my favourite players, such as Ronnie O’Sullivan
https://www.instagram.com/p/BK_URfLBOyj/
Cristiano Ronaldo and the whole Real Madrid team, live at Santiago Bernabeu
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMgLjw9l9bC/
What a moment!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMwWa61F4fH/
and many more beautiful moments!
One of the things I really like to see is my Pocket stats. For the last 2 years, I’m one of their top 5% readers. Even if this year the stats are not impressive as 2015’s the number of articles I’ve read this year is really good!
Goals for 2017
Last year I’ve promised to myself to start having a better work-life balance, I want to improve this even more in 2017. Also I’ve promised to improve my development and management skills and even I see a good improvement during 2016, I’m gonna work on this even harder this year, because I’m kind of person that always wants to get better and better.
The list for 2017 is not super surprising and most of these things are the typical cliches we are promising every year. However, I strongly believe that if I managed to accomplish them, I’ll have a really good year ahead. So here’s is it:
- Learn a new technology and/or programming language. Even if I really love to work with WordPress, I want to learn something new and expand my set of skills.
- Exercising more often (yeah, that’s one of the cliches we are mentioned every year). Even I’m playing football at least one time a week, I still want to increase that number and probably start with another sport too. 🙂
- Start blogging more often. Yeah, yeah, I know!
- To update and improve my personal blog. Probably a new theme or a small redesign, we’ll see.
- Spending more time with friends and family. Yeas, yet another cliche, but for me, that’s something really important.
What’s your new year resolution? What you’ve managed to accomplish this year? Share your posts below in the comments.
Happy New Year, see you in 2017!
Leave a Reply