Reflecting Year 2023 (Technology | Business | Personal)

The time of the year when I look back in time, to year 2023, reflecting my Year 2023 (Technology | Business | Personal). The Year 2023 is a mixed bag of results and outcomes, some worthy points to note, as well as challenging, volatile and difficult economic conditions for running a business. Although 2023 is like the first full year of recovery from the global pandemic (2020 to 2022), it’s anything but a bed of roses for many of us in my personal opinion.

Technology

First and foremost, kickstarting off on one of my key sectors, technology writing and coverage, under two main categories of consumer technology and enterprise/business technology. Before I go share more on those two technology sectors, I would like to apologise for those articles coverage that I promised to complete in Q4 2023. I am going to work on them in January 2024 as I kickstart my technology writing and media news coverage for Year 2024.

Consumer Technology

This sector has been pretty much stable and consistent, I will always remind myself not to be complacent, continuously keep in touch and be relevant to consumer technology trends, growth and changes (although they can be quite a handful to take in at times).

Whether I would expand, it would be depending on new media engagements with new brands or reconnecting with previous brands that had somehow dropped me off the radar. As I finally enter into the database of some agencies, there might be new areas of expansion and interests such startups or fin-tech related industries.

Enterprise/Business Technology

This sector has been growing and expanding at a comfortable pace, due to the complexities and technical expertise required for some of those enterprise technology sectors. I have to be selective as some enterprise technology areas are beyond my technology expertise and knowledge.

Year 2023 was significant for me conducting In-depth interviews and discussions on the topic of AI and technological impacts. Therefore, I am going to do more in-depth interviews and discussions for this new Year 2024.

Business

Digital Marketing / Social Media Marketing

I have yet to fully diversify this sector fully into other business interests or industries. While I am working on my own content creation side of things and photography, I have been and still looking out for new opportunities in other business that I can bring this into play.

Startups industry 

I have a keen interest in this sector for a few years, in Q3 and Q4, I had chats with some startups and followed developments in the startups industry. The startups industry is an industry of greater interest, I do not mind working or partnering with startups through my content creation, social media marketing, photography, videography and writing.

Media Relations

In the field of media relations with brands and agencies, the status quo is usually pretty good for those agencies and brands that I work closely with, some brands and agencies have been engaging for a period of time. As for the agencies that I recently engaged and worked with in the past 1-2 years, they would take a bit more time to build up the working relationship.

Personal

On a personal note and observations from a personal basis and perspective, there were a few recurring frustrating things that had been bugging me over the years. They seemed to have escalated in recent times. Here are a brief summary of them without going too deep into details and explanations:

• People don’t read
• People don’t want to understand you, they want you to understand them instead
• Passing judgement is getting more common, uncalled for at times
• People assume things
• Sometimes you are more on social on social media than me and you say I am very busy on social media
• Human communications are getting worse
• Communications and friendships are strained by social media, egos and narcissism
• Human memory is like becoming more like goldfish and they blame it on brain fog arising from the global pandemic period
• FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is getting stronger and worse

Yearly Theme 2023 – Transform

My Yearly Theme 2023 (Technology | Business | Personal) was “Transform”, looking back at year 2023 in review and reflection, I did manage to transform my enterprise/business technology sector. This was growing and expanding at a comfortable pace, something that I expected since this sector is not the easiest to cover and write about. My in-depth interviews and discussions on key technology topics gave me an area that I would expand further in 2024, more interviews and in-depth discussions.

I have yet to fully transform my digital marketing/social media marketing into my business services along with my content creation and commercial photography. On entering into the startups scene, there were some small headways, I am planning to make more in-route into this field in 2024, part of diversification of my business, and where I can bring my content creation, writing, photography services and technology experiences into startups field.

Reflecting Year 2023 (Photography | Travel | Creative | Heritage)

My year 2023 in reflection and review for my photography, travel, creative and heritage sectors are  written and published separately on my TGH Photography and Travel website. Since the two websites are operating in distinct fields, there are quite a fair bit of review and reflections written inside them too.

Looking ahead in 2024 (Technology | Business | Personal)

Looking ahead in 2024 (Technology | Business | Personal), I would be sharing more information and details in my Yearly Theme 2024 (Technology | Business | Personal), this approach is unique and can be very different as compared to the goals and objectives approach that I learnt previously.

Wishing all a Happy New Year 2024! Thank you for your support and encouragement!