A look back on 2023
Reflecting on a manic year marked with beginnings and endings, plus highlights of some of the things I've written, spoken about, explored and learned.
Dear Friends,
2023 was a year of change. At least for me personally.
Back when I worked at Cornerstone, we had a leadership coach who liked to remind us that it’s not change people don’t like, it’s the psychological discomfort that comes along with change we don’t like. Looking back on this year, I had a lot of discomfort. But it wasn’t all bad - it was a year of transition, of beginnings and endings. And growth.
This was the first full year getting my consulting company Tenger Ways off the ground, my first year without the stability of being a full-time employee at a well-established company. At home I saw my kids growing up fast, this being the last year we’ll have my oldest daughter still at home before she goes to college. Professionally, I’ve moved even further away from my love of building software, but it’s made room to explore other areas like writing and podcasting.
2023 felt a bit manic- more divergence than convergence. I’m ready for a calmer, more focused 2024, but before looking forward, I’ll look back and attempt to capture the highlights of this past year.
Things I’ve Written
I wrote a lot this year. By the numbers, I published 7 new blogs on Medium, 2 on Paragraph, 8 for work, 1 as a guest on Mirror, plus all the posts on this substack.
Co-authored a guidance paper titled Talking Business, published in the Fall 2013 edition of the DevOps Enterprise Journal Fall. The premise is that as technology professionals move into leadership roles, they need to develop strong business skills in addition to their technical skills.
Hannibal: No Atheists In Our Foxhole -A short story as part of the Philosophical Foxes NFT Narrative project. This was the first fiction I wrote since when…. college 25 years ago? Or was it high school? It was one of the more challenging things I’ve done recently but it was also energizing. Tapping into the creative part of brain was rewarding and it made me wonder whether more corporate professionals should be writing fiction for the fun of it.
Farcaster Fall: An Ode to the Season that Outshines Them All - An essay I wrote about the spirit of creation as part of the Farcaster Fall creativity challenge.
3 more serious, professional blogs: Not Just Another Tech Project, The Best Company Wide Communication Platform, DevOps Enterprise Summit
4 less serious, more personal blogs: Minimum Viable Podcast, Farcaster as a Scenius, Notes from Mongolia, Wishes for our Children
Podcasts and Speaking Engagements
Four Old College Friends - Recorded and put out six episodes of a podcast with 3 of my old college friends. This project is a classic example of creating for the sake of creating.
GM Farcaster - We’ve done 39 episodes already and will hit 40 before EOY. Hosting a live stream podcast 3x a week with someone I met at a tech conference was not on my bingo card for this year, but here we are.
DevOps for Business Operations, a 25 minute talk about the emerging practice of applying devops principles and practices to business operations, as part of the DevOps Connect: DevSecOps 2023 event in June.
Interviewed by Trac Bannon, a friend from the DevOps community, on her Real technologist podcast.
Work Highlights
Year 1 of starting Tenger Ways, a people first technology consulting company.
Served 7 clients, all happy and referenceable.
Wrote 8 blog posts, including 2 client case studies.
Lots of learning - in addition to figuring out the best way to package 20+ years of hands-on operator experience into consulting services, I had to learn all the small things to get a business off the ground - my fair share of legal, accounting, finance and other general administrative work; not to mention realizing that being a founder means being full time in business development and sales.
Misc. Things I Did/ Learned/ Experienced
Breathwork - In the early part of the year I joined some internet friends for a series of about 6-8 virtual breathwork sessions. Each session was about 45 minutes long and would typically progress through a series of breath holds from 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
FarcastHER channel lead - My commitment to women’s empowerment was visible enough in Farcaster to be asked to lead the women’s channel. It’s a very young, emerging community but it’s been great to see it grow. Thinking about putting some more formal structure in place next year with documented mission, goals, values, etc.
Continued learning more about crypto by being an active participant. This year I joined my first DAO (Purple), used L2s (Optimism, Base, Zora), created my first NFT (followed by my second and third), sent crypto on Daimo, and applied for and received several grants including: 1.0 ETH split with Nounish Prof for GM Farcaster from Purple’s Retro Funding Round; received 0.5 ETH for my Farcaster as a Scenius blot post for Best Overall Essay from the FarCon Essay Contest; received $22.17 from 55 contributors on Optimism in a quadratic funding round sponsored by Purple and Meta Cartel on GitCoin How We Connect: Media Art and Content; and submitted the virtual meetups I organized for FarcastHER to Purple’s Retro Funding Round for Channels.
Travel: Two family vacations this year - one to Aspen, CO for spring skiing, and one in Southeast Asia seeing Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. Got away for a week with just my husband to enjoy summer mountain living in Park City, Utah. Hopped down to Austin, TX for a college visit with my daughter. Had work trips to Tucson, AZ, Glendale, CA and Rochester, NY. And visited Portland, Boston and Las Vegas for tech community events and conferences.
Reunions - Met up with old Aon colleagues after not seeing them for over a decade and old Cornerstone ones after not seeing them for over a year.
Random events from my personal life are always a good opportunity to learn things - like the overly and unnecessarily complicated college application process, the overly and unnecessarily complicated process for getting healthcare as an individual when your cobra benefits run out, and the overly and unnecessarily complicated healthcare system when parents start aging.
Featured in this Mailchain community series article written by Riley beans about my approach to community building and my journey from DevOps to Crypto.
Books I’ve read
The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro - Described as a fantasy book set in post Arthurian England, it’s not a topic I would normally be interested in. But I’ve enjoyed other books by the author and when I saw one of my favorite substack writers recommend it, I went for it and I’m really glad I did. Without giving away spoilers, it was such a delightful story that made me think a lot about human nature and hard problems. Definitely recommend it.
Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson - I’ve owned a Tesla since 2013 and have followed Elon’s story, but I have even more appreciation (actually more like wonder or awe) for him after reading the detail in the book. Especially enjoyed seeing how similar Elons algorithm is to the DevOps practices I’m so passionate about.
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, Michael Lewis
The Visual MBA, Jason Barron - recommended by Courtney Kissler when we were researching our DevOps paper. Easy read, didn’t learn anything too new, but a good reinforcement of topics I’ve picked up.
Wiring the Winning Organization, Gene Kim and Steven Spear. The term Social Circuitry is introduced and they present slowification, simplification, and amplification as methods for creating high performing businesses. I was invited to read an early edition and give feedback, which was really cool because I got a glimpse into how books are written and edited.
Never, Ken Follett - Historical fiction but set in present day. Geopolitics between America and China, with North Korea and Africa in the scene.
The Paris Apartment, Lucy Foley
Verity, Colleen Hoover
Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, Tom Holland- I listed this even though I didn’t finish it. Dan Romero recommended this book enough times on MOZ, saying history of Christianity explains so much of current day, that I picked it up. Might finish it next year.
That’s it from me, for now. Are you doing your 2023 reflections? What are you most proud of this past year? Wishing you all a wonderful last week of 2023.
A note to my subscribers:
Thank you for supporting my writing and journey. If you’d like to get in touch you can reply to me here, or find me on X and farcaster.
Until next time, keep putting good into the world. —adrienne🌏❤️
What a spectacular year. Congrats on having achieved all that.
I hope 2024 brings you all you deserve. And to be clear: I think that will all be great things.