Thread by @Lethain

Wrote up my year in review post, comprised of mostly writing metrics :-)

lethain.com/2019-in-review/

65 blog posts (-10 YoY), 3 writing contributions outside of blog (+3 YoY: Increment, 97 Things EM Should Know, An Elegant Puzzle), An Elegant Puzzle sold 16.7k copies (7k Q2, 6k Q3, 3K Q4), 383k pageviews (+173k YoY) with 21% social, 40% direct&rss, 22% search, 1% email

Getting to write in different, non-blog mediums was the most fun I had writing this year, and something I hope I can continue next year. If you have writing projects that require non-book levels of effort, lmk!

My favorite pieces from 2019: Privilege’s upward-facing window, Reclaim unreasonable software, A forty year career, Founding Monocle Studios, Forecasting synthetic metrics, Why limiting work-in-progress works

lethain.com/all-posts/

Twitter reach up to 8k followers (+4.4k YoY), LinkedIn to 8.9k (+1.5k YoY). Social is great at driving *social* engagement (and book sales!) but surprised it's not driving higher percentage of reads (only 21%?!). For 2020 will weight even more on creation > distribution

Distribution medium du an is email lists, and I created one as lead up to AEP launch that sends out weekly writing. So far up to 1,316 subscribers driving very small amount of traffic. Choice to make whether to go in on newsletter-style content (more work) or keep as RSS alt

I gave two different talks this year, the first on evolving organizational process ( lethain.com/good-process-i… ) and the second on investing in technical infrastructure ( lethain.com/srecon-emea-20… ). I loved opty to give them, although suspect writing is higher leverage than speaking

I also spoke on ~8 podcasts as part of the AEP press/media/marketing campaign. These were amazing, and quite grateful to folks who hosted me

lethain.com/elegant-puzzle…

Did a lot of reading this year, mostly fiction but of the non-fiction I enjoyed: The Two-Income Trap, Escaping the Build Trap, Building Evolutionary Architectures, Soul of a New Machine

In early 2020, I am going to be joining a new company in a new role, which I'm extremely excited for, and will have more to share towards the end of January

Joining a new company means I won't be at Stripe, a major change for me. Stripe has been a deep, foundational experience. I've learned more and worked with better folks than I could have imagined. I'm both grateful for and changed--for the better!--by my tenure there

Finally, I thought a bit about goals for next year, and found that I really want to be thinking about goals for next decade! Some rough goals: (a) 3-5 folks I’ve supported go into C* role at 100+ person/$1B+ co's, (b) advise for 1-3 startups, (c) write 4 good posts/year

Hope y'all had amazing years, and love to read what you've been up to -- send your write ups and notes my way