This is that time of year where people do all kinds of posts – from retrospectives to upcoming plans, from taking a break to writing more than they have all year.

Honestly, I’m a fan of reading it all.

And though I don’t normally do a retrospective post (though I’m thinking of going back and following-up on the developer fitness post from last year), I do have plans for what I’m aiming to do come the new year regarding general stuff online so I thought now would be the usual time to do that.

For starters, I’m going to move on from WordPress. Peace out. It’s been great, but it’s time to move on to new things! ✌️

That’s not true at all. There are some new things I’m looking to introduce, though.

Plans for 2017

Before jumping into the things that I’m aiming to tackle in the coming year, I want to share this that has been one the most involved years in WordPress I’ve had likely since I’ve been in the industry.

Plans for 2017: WordCamp San Diego 2016

No, I didn’t have anything committed to Core or anything like that (but that’s not really on my list of goals at the moment), but I did get to do the following:

  • Travel for two WordCamps – one to San Diego and one in Philadelphia (yeah, that one for which I’ve yet to blog) – versus simply sticking to my local WordCamp.
  • Speak at various meetups in my area, participate in various interviews and podcasts, and so on,
  • Start a new blog,
  • Grow my business from zero to two contractors.
  • Run two successful classes for Start Here,
  • And contribute roughly 50 tutorials to Tuts+ around concepts for WordPress.

As far as WordPress is concerned, I’m content with the amount of work I’ve done but I never really feel done (if that makes sense) because there’s always the next thing I want to do.

Plans for 2017: Launched a new blog in 2016.

And that’s what plans for the next year can bring.

1. React and React Native

One of the most important things that developers can do to expand their perspective, ways of thinking continually and general skillset is to get involved with something outside of their core comfort zone.

For many of us, we work in the realm of PHP, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. All of that is great especially because I don’t think they are going anywhere.

But I’ve been watching, researching, and tracking with React for about eight months now and I’m convinced that this is the particular technology I want to pursue in the coming year.

Plans for 2017: React

This doesn’t mean I don’t have my reservations about it (we’re back to mixing languages in with one another already?), but I’m excited about what can be done with it.

This isn’t meant as a way to expand beyond WordPress. Instead, it’s meant as a way to build some things that are standalone (and that maybe never see the light of day) and bring some things back to WordPress that will help contribute to the type of work I already do.

I’m also interested in React Native. I’ve had a few false starts with getting into mobile development all the way to the point where I wasn’t sure that’s even what I wanted to touch.

Plans for 2017: React Native

But since tinkering with both Objective-C, Swift, and now React Native, I’m interested in continuing to learn the latter if for no other reason than to expand my skill set.

2. Revamping This Blog

This particular blog has turned into something far more than I imagined it would have given that I never really set out to make it anything more than a public journal of things I was learning.

Back in 2007, when I was “officially” starting my career, that’s exactly what it was. And, over the years, it morphed into more and more into what it is today. Through it, I’ve been able to share what I’ve learned through experience, learned from others, meet a lot of interesting people, and share various things I find interesting, useful, or worth following.

But it’s also been in its current state for too long, and I want to continue to grow it beyond where it is now. No, I don’t plan to change much about what I’m talking about or anything like that, but I am looking into doing the following:

  • Introducing a re-design,
  • Offering premium content or perhaps a members only area,
  • Exploring partnerships that I think are valuable for WordPress developers,
  • And more.

I’ll be blogging every day because I enjoy it and because I find it an excellent way to share information I’ve learned, to solicit feedback (sometimes – I know, I’ve been closing comments as of late :), and because I enjoy writing.

Thanks for reading, by the way. If a post is published on to the web and no one reads it, is it really published?

3. Three Primary Areas of Pressware

Finally, Pressware is going to be focused on three particular areas next year.

Plans for 2017: Pressware

I’m not going to detail these on this site as it’s outside of what I generally talk about but given that it’s my business based on WordPress it seems to make sense to include it.

The short of it is this:

  1. A suite of plugins focused specifically towards bloggers,
  2. Custom solutions for small businesses and individuals,
  3. Consulting (which generally amounts of code reviews and general high-level conversations about how to achieve things in WordPress versus another platform).

For what it’s worth, I’ve been taking the growth phase of Pressware exceptionally slow – and by design – and with Eric and Toby on board, it makes sense to divide up work this way and to begin to focus on each of these areas simultaneously.

I’m grateful to have a team of others with whom to divide up the work, and I’m eager to see what the coming year brings us.

So on to 2017

And, as far as all things WordPress and career related, that’s what I plan on doing in the coming year.

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I rarely send them out, but when I do, I make sure they include something worth reading (plus you can always unsubscribe). Oh, and no, I don’t sell your email addresses (not until someone offers me $1mm, anyway ).

With that said, I’m eager to hear what you’re looking to do in 2017 either with technology or something else. So don’t hesitate to let me know via Twitter.