My 2011 Manifesto: Status Update at Mid-Year

Towards the end of 2009, I started the practice of writing a personal manifesto: a set of rules and guidelines for me to live by. I use this blog, as many of you may or may not know, as my own personal diary. Even though my blog has evolved to a smorgasbord that blends my personal journey and a storytelling process whereby I share my life in Vancouver, the restaurants I eat at, the performing arts shows I see, the places I travel too, and bits and pieces of different events in Vancouver and all over the province, it is still my own personal canvas. It’s mine, and mine only, no one else’s. My 2010 focused on my own personal growth. And grow I did. And in what way! My 2011 saw me make myself a priority and that meant that I began saying NO (“sorry, I can’t” the polite way) so much more it actually became an automatic response. Ooops.

ACADEMIA: RESEARCH AND TEACHING

My teaching at UBC became the cornerstone of my 2010 and the foundation of an incredibly successful 2011. I was offered to teach all four courses I had always wanted to teach (Public Policy, Environmental Politics & Policy, Global Environmental Politics and the Comparative Politics of Public Policy). My research agenda (which for a while I felt had been stale) got kicked into high gear again. I started collaborating with a number of colleagues and building the foundation for new projects. I have been doing the academic conference circuit for the better part of 2011 and I have presented papers at conferences in Edmonton, Calgary, Seattle, and attended research meetings in Montreal (with the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation). I also have 7 papers in progress in various stages of development. And in 2012 for the very first time, I will be teaching Latin American Environmental Politics, a course I’ve wanted to teach ever since I was a PhD student (and for the first few years of my PhD).

CONSULTING

My consulting also continued to thrive. I continued working with The Community Against Preventable Injuries. As I mentioned in an earlier post, 2011 has been nothing short of amazing in the professional realm. In 2011 I began partnering to work in a project with Invoke Media to help move the City of Surrey forward with their social media strategy. I am positively impressed. Both with the willingness of the City of Surrey Mayor, staff and Council to further their social media skills and implement some innovative projects, and with the expertise, skills and collaborative spirit of the Invoke Media team (Allison Vail, Peter Lanfear, Kate LeGresley). This project blends my social media and public policy expertise quite nicely and I’ve had a lot of fun with it.

COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS, PUBLIC SPEAKING AND BOOK WRITING

2011 also has given me the opportunity to partner in social media projects with some of my closest friends, which is an interesting turn of events. I co-wrote an e-book with Arieanna Schweber (Communities That Rock), and we’re in the process of creating the proposal to turn it into a full-fledged book. I co-taught 2 workshops and gave a keynote for WorkSafe BC alongside Rebecca Bollwitt , and I gave two workshops on social media in public policy along Kate LeGresley from Invoke. For the City of Surrey, I co-wrote the successful proposal with Grace Carter (who now works in a senior interactive position for Aritzia). All four of them are close friends of mine and it was thrilling to work with people you’ve been friends for a while, and maintain such strong professional respect.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP, COWORKING AND THE NETWORK HUB

For The Network Hub, it has been an exciting year too (you may remember that I’m a Senior Advisor to their Board). We took (well, Jay, Minna and John in consensus with my strategic advice) the plunge and decided to expand to New Westminster. Our new offices will be opening at River Market (near Westminster Quay). Gorgeous location, amazing project and we already are having people knock on our doors crossing their fingers that they’ll get a space in our new coworking location. So exciting!

VOLUNTEERISM: MENTAL HEALTH CAMP, FNOVAN AND THE VANCOUVER BLOGGER MEETUP

While I had been already focusing on trying to make this year the year where I focus only on me, and my own growth, I still volunteered. I collaborated with Erin Gee, Ashley Mangat and Niki Blasina on Fashion’s Night OUT on School (a fundraiser for Out on Schools) and while it was a great project, I feel that I could have done a better job than I did. Hopefully 2012 I’ll be more “on the ball”.

This year was a year of extreme personal loss and turmoil, both for me and for my good friend and co-organizer, Isabella Mori. We took the really drastic and sad decision to not hold Mental Health Camp Vancouver 2011 (obviously, trying to keep our own sanity and mental health). This was a REALLY hard decision to make, and we both were wavering and trying to keep it together and extract energy from nowhere to do the project. We just couldn’t do it. Not without compromising our own mental health, which would have been ironic.

(UPDATE – I had forgotten about the Vancouver Blogger Meetup!) I had almost decided to give up being the Organizer of the Vancouver Blogger Meetup (something I’ve been doing since April of 2008) simply because I was exhausted and overworked. But thanks to the awesomeness of Shane Birley and Jonathon Narvey (my Assistant Organizers) and the year-round sponsorship of space by The Network Hub (thank you!) we managed to reach and stabilize attendance at least at 40 people per meetup.

Being more structured about the meetup, scheduling it rigorously to the second Wednesday of every month, and mixing both social events and learning events has actually had a very positive effect on the Meetup. Thanks Shane, Jonathon and The Network Hub – I will continue to be the Organizer simply because I have a great team and great members of the Vancouver Blogger Meetup (it’s a free meetup, by the way and no previous knowledge is required).

MY PERSONAL GROWTH

This is where I think I’ve achieved the most growth. Looking over my “Personal Life” tag, I realize that yes, I wrote a little too many posts saying I was exhausted. But towards April of 2011 I found that I was less, and less tired. Teaching a 1-2-1 load (as I’m teaching this year) is exhausting, but I’m absolutely thrilled to be doing it.

Putting my well being before others
I’ve learned how to say no, although I’m by no means perfect at this. I’ve began rejecting invites to dozens of events, and I’m still in the process of adjusting to giving myself the freedom to NOT do something, or NOT to write about something, or NOT to attend. And I’ve also had a few guest-bloggers. And my traffic (which I know nobody is supposed to care about) has not gone down. IT HAS GROWN. A LOT.

My good friend Derek’s death impacted me the most this year. It was that what made me realize that I am on loan on this planet, and that if I don’t take care of myself, nobody will. In fact, so many of my close friends (Derek, Airdrie, Minna, Jay, obviously JT and more) insisted so much that I need to take care of myself that focusing on this goal (putting myself first before others) has been much easier.

Improving my photography
While I totally wanted to buy myself a DSLR, I realized that because 2011 was the year of the budget, I would need to spend my money on academic travel and equipment for my consulting and research. Therefore, I stayed with my trusty point-and-shoot cameras. Despite this relative equipment shortfall, my photography has been improving quite dramatically. I think that I’ve refined my eye, and I’m quite happy with it.

Having time to read
This has been quite a challenge, but because I need to prepare lectures and I’m co-authoring papers, I now have to be again on top of the academic literature. Because of this fact, I have also realized that I can’t blog that much (much of the frequent posts you are seeing are posts I’ve already pre-written in my rather non-frequent spare time, and thus I have had the chance to not overwhelm myself with content).

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

I have mentioned to a number of friends that I’m going to go one of two routes with my two lives, and specifically with my academic and social media lives (route #1: hire help or route # 2: slow down/take a break). My consulting and academic lives are the priority, social media is a second-tier priority for me now. I do want to keep blogging on my personal site (this, Hummingbird604.com) but I don’t want to feel the pressure to cover events, etc. nor do I want to have my academic life have a negative impact (time-wise). So I’ve decided that I’m going to give hiring paid interns for my blog (and selling ad space to partially pay for the stipend) a whirl. If that doesn’t work, I think I’m either going to reduce the frequency of postings or simply, send Hummingbird604.com for a sabbatical.

My academic research is flourishing, my teaching is going extremely well, and I maintain at the very least one full consulting project that keeps me busy (and funds some of my fun activities). I love Hummingbird604.com, I love what being the Hummingbird has given me, but I’m not going to prioritize writing this blog over other parts of my life. There is so much competition in the Vancouver blogosphere, so much tension, passive-aggressive notes and so many online attacks, fights and struggles for something as simple as writing a blog post or getting invited (or not) to an event, that I am really tired of the drama that social media itself brings along. It’s a very powerful tool but it’s also a tool that can be misused.

I have no need to go out and seek opportunities for my blog. I get pitched hundreds of times a week and I’ve established a great network of people who realize that my blog is a good outlet for their projects. I know for a fact there’s a lot of people out there who feel a need that I don’t feel: they NEED to go out, attend events, write about them ALL THE TIME, be EVERYWHERE. They can do that. I don’t. I am really, really happy with the opportunities that having a decently and relatively high-traffic blog affords me. I am content with what I have. I am not the biggest or most popular blogger in Vancouver or in Canada, and I’m quite ok with it.

I don’t have everything I want, but I love EVERYTHING I have.

Moving forward, I think I’ve got the best deal of them all: I can choose the projects I want, I have the best clients, I work with the best people and have some of the brightest students in Canada. Really, what more can I ask for? Well, health, of course. I’m very happy to continue to exercise 6 days a week, spend time with my friends. My well-being is my priority, and nobody else’s. My Mom is here visiting me for a full month and I’m taking all the time I need to spend with her and travel around. I’m very, very happy. Despite all the pain that I’ve had to suffer, I am incredibly happy.

And that feels… AMAZING.

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Related posts:

1. My 2011 year in review: Focusing on myself before helping others
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3. 2011: The year of the budget
4. Happy New Year 2011
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