Mayans and moving on

As I’m sure we’re all aware, there’s yet another End of the World prediction for the 21st December. Dear readers, I would like to put your minds at ease, and say that whilst the date of the prediction is indeed accurate, as with all of these things the meaning has been misinterpreted over time. I’d like to take this opportunity to clear everything up – the Mayans were right and the 21st will indeed mark the end of a great age, but it will mark the last time I am in the office as an employee of Lightmaker (*small print official last day 24th, working from home) rather than fiery deaths for us all.

A few months ago I made the difficult decision that I wanted to do something different in 2013. I’ve been at Lightmaker seven and a half years, and whilst it’s certainly not a case of grass is greener, there are things that I want to do, things that I want to try, and risks that I want to take which I can’t do in my current role. Lightmaker has been brilliant for me, and has supported me from my work as a developer, through finishing my degree with the Open University, to the variety of responsibilities I’ve taken on up to the present day as Head of Technology. I’ve been given the opportunity to do many things which have really pushed me, and have learnt an awful lot, however it’s the right time to move on to something else.

I’ve been pretty quiet online recently, which is due in part to a huge strategic engagement working jointly with a company in London and a big telecoms company in California. It’s been incredibly intense, hence the lack of blogging, but has given me some valuable lessons which I’ll take forward into next year. Likewise I have also been working on some completely different projects with other clients, such as one for a higher education college, which has been a genuine pleasure thanks to the team we’re working with. The variety of projects, clients and technologies will be something that I will really miss, and I hope that I’ll be lucky enough to work with some of them again. My colleagues have been the absolute best thing about working at Lightmaker, with special mentions to #teamstrategy’s Andy Parker, Darren Ware and Paul Swain who welcomed me into their crazy world after I came up from a year in the downstairs underworld, and made 2012 an incredibly memorable, enjoyable year full of a lot of laughs. If in the future anyone is ever looking to hire talented people in the UX or analytics arenas, I would not hesitate to recommend any one of them.

My plans are to initially take a bit of time off in January. I’ve had a fairly easy ride of December as I’ve had to use up my remaining leave, but the rest of 2012 has been a tough year for a few reasons on the back of a pretty draining 2011, and I am very keen to take a pause and get back to what I want to be doing. Very geekily I’ve got a Trello board set up for everything I want to do (including stripping this site apart), and am really looking forward to it.

After January I will be working as a freelance digital consultant and developer until I find the right full time role. I do currently have some work booked in, but I’m keen to hear from anyone who would like to discuss any opportunities, either freelance or permanent. I want my next permanent move to be something which really excites me, and is properly considered in terms of where I want to get to in the future. I like being transparent, and I didn’t want to try to find this behind anyone at Lightmaker’s back. My contact details are all on my contact page, including my LinkedIn profile which has some information about what I do, but contact me for a CV if you need more detail.

I will also likely be taking on some small development projects, writing articles, and will be submitting speaking proposals. There are a couple of things in particular which I’m very hopeful will come off, so stay tuned on that front.

Here’s to a great 2013!

Header image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/rufo_83/313822473/