I was unsure if to write a review post this year, however, I hope you may find something of interest, a small slice of inspiration for the year to come. This year not everything has worked out and I haven’t achieved as much as I would have hoped, but there have definitely been some highlights.

MVP Renewal and Summit

The MVP program is a great community of people who passionately share their interest in different Microsoft technologies. I was proud to have been renewed as an MVP in Azure during 2024 for my third year.

A highlight of the year was having the chance to visit Microsoft in Redmond for the first time as part of the annual MVP summit. It was a great opportunity to meet many of the other MVP’s and Microsoft staff who I had often spoken to online but had not ever met in person. A surprising delight was the chance to explore the massive Microsoft campus and Seattle more generally.

Sadly, this is not something I’m going to be able to do again in 2025, though I plan to attend the summit remotely.

Public Speaking

This year I continued to talk about blob storage at Azure Global, talk to developers at DDD southwest about the tips for a successful career in tech. More recently I’ve launched my talk on containerization hosting in Azure.

It’s great at each of these talks to engage with the audience and hear about other people’s experiences along with questions people might have. If you missed some of these, they are often available as a video via my events page.

I hope to continue to speak at events in 2025 and I am looking forward to the opportunity to speak at some of the larger events.

Web Site and Blog Posts

In 2024 I aimed to be more consistent with my blog posts, last year I posted one a month and this year I successfully did the same although was much more prepared and have released posts on roughly the same date each month. I am starting to see the building a routine around this task really helps me complete them.

One thing that motivates me to keep writing is seeing the feedback. I also enjoyed being able to take part in the community events like Azure spring clean, Azure back to school and the festive tech calendar.

My favorite was my post of the year was on Azure Metrics in Teams with Azure Functions and Adaptive Card Tables blending a number of technologies together. This post had lots of feedback and it was great to see others trying this technique.

Exam Renewals

This year I didn’t tackle any new certifications, I did however go through the renewal process for each of the exams that I had previously taken. If you haven’t done this before, it’s a straightforward process, done through the Microsoft learn website. I initially rushed one of my renewals and failed, however I was able to look again at the content, retake and successfully pass it.

I have found the Microsoft exam process a great way of learning topics in depth and I hope at some point in the future to tackle some of the other exams.

Social and YouTube

At the beginning of 2024 I decided to relaunch my YouTube channel, however this quickly ended. The first video turned out to be a success, however it took a lot of time and the second video never got published. I often find myself starting things only to abandon them quickly afterwards, but I may return to YouTube in the future.

This year has been the year of BlueSky and although I previously joined the platform, I hadn’t actively participated. This changed in late 2024 with a huge migration off people over to BlueSky from X. For now, I’m posting on both platforms. Although to be honest I’m spending most of my time over on BlueSky and may drop X in 2025.

Other bits

Beyond Microsoft technology a lot of other things have happened this year. I tried to tackle my RC hovercraft project again, traveled to Canada for the first time on Holiday (which was an amazing experience), and redesigned my home office. As part of this I bought a standing desk which although at first I was skeptical about has been great.

This year I have also learnt a lot about ADHD and found reading Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD really insightful. I am hoping that I can use many of the techniques as we move into 2025.

Conclusion

I hope you have enjoyed this post and found it interesting. I am looking forward to 2025 and I hope you are too. If you have any questions or comments then please feel free to reach out to me on Twitter, BlueSky or LinkedIn.