Lots of people do these look back / look forward posts at the end of the year / beginning of the next year. At first I thought they were a little bit tacky, but as I got to think about it, I think it’s actually pretty valuable to get a bird’s eye view of the last year and the year to come; especially from a business point of view. So here I am, with my own belated “New Year” post.

2011 has been a year of big changes for me. In July, I moved from Montreal, QC (where I grew up and lived my whole life) to Vancouver, BC. The move was great, with a fun road-trip through the US to get here! As I moved 3000 miles across the country, I also made the jump to full-time freelancing. I was previously employed by Stresslimit Designand freelancing only on a part-time basis.

I couldn’t be happier where things are now. I (along with my partner Amy and our two dogs, Winston and Pepinot) live and work in a great apartment  in the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Village (now called the Village on False Creek). Here are some pictures:

Our building is the second from the right

Winston (the beagle) & Pepinot (the schnauzer)

Want to see more photos? Follow me on instagram (@jkudish) or here if you don’t have instagram.

Business has also been great since the jump to full time freelancing, with many new and interesting projects having come my way.

There’s a number of things I’d like to improve and start doing in 2012, from a developer point of view:

• Increase my contribution to open source projects (chiefly WordPress, but others too). I use countless of open source projects in my work. Projects that other developers volunteer their time and effort into. Though I’ve made some very minor contributions to WordPress in the past year, I’d like to contribute to the project (and possibly others) even more. I am now devoting approximately 5 hours a week to this.
• Improve my workflow when it comes to project management. Standardize various processes, improve (and hopefully reduce back & forth) communication with my clients, automate as much as possible, etc… I’ve even thought of building my own project management web app that would serve my (and possibly other devs) exact needs, but I am not convinced the investment will be worthwhile. In the mean time, I am using Basecamp with my clients and github for open source stuff.
• Start blogging more and sharing more of my thoughts and experiences with others. I’ve been too quiet and reserved in the past, and I’d like to change that. Two blog posts already in 2012, so that’s a good start 🙂 Now let’s keep it up!
• Come up with and release at least one web application (e.g. not a client site). I’ve got some ideas brewing and am toying with one in particular right now, codereview.cc, check it out ->
• Build more open-source WordPress plugins. I’m currently working with the team at Modern Tribe to bring you The Events Calendar and other plugins. I really enjoy working with them and their process, which only inspires me more to build plugins of my own.

So those are my plans for 2012. What are yours? Thoughts, questions, suggestions welcome!