2020, and a happy new year

Keeping up with TPC tradition, here’s a reflection on 2020 and future TPC perspectives.

Happy new year 2021

2020 oh my…

2020 turned out to be a very different year all together. COVID-19 forced all of us in difficult situations. Lock down, working from home, and for some contracting the virus and yet others lost their lives or the lives of loved ones.

The biggest changes that happened to me were related to a “work from home 100%” situation. With a second lock-down in NL at the moment we have both kids at home as well. And even though it’s difficult and there’s times where I wished I could just turn on the mute button on the little critters… I am also very happy that I see them this much.

Because that is a plus side, I would have never been able to see my wife and kids this much and be a part of their lives with my job and travel schedules as they were before lock-down.

There was stress

The situation forces everyone to prioritize and work harder and more then usual. With the home situation (young kids) that meant working in evenings and taking care of the kids during the days sometimes. And guess when I worked on the Blog or YouTube the most? That’s right, the evenings…

So I needed to prioritize the time remaining between “time off”, “Blog time” and “YouTube”. Most of the time it was time off to wind down. But when I worked it was mostly on the YouTube channel. Which had some great results, which I’m diving into in a moment.

Biggest things for the blog in 2020

Not much has happened really. 8 posts in total, with a big gap after Juli where I announced my third year as an MVP. Most notable articles this year were the announcement of Project for the Web (a modern way to schedule projects), my product review for the PMP Deep dive e-learning course (including a discount for you) and my 2 favorite project reports, the Online edition.

Project for the Web has changed a lot since it’s release in Octpber 20219. And with monthly increments we are sure to see some big changes happening in 2021 as well.

Th PMP Deep dive e-learning course was a blast! I had a lot of fun reviewing the course and discussing it with Eric Verzuh. And Eric if you read this, I’m always open for more collaboration with you and wish you the very best. And if you are learning for your PMP, this course is a great resource.

The most succesful article to date is my article about 3 reports in MS Project. In an effort to ride this succestrain I created a follow up article which focussed on the online options to create great reports. The 2 favorite reports article is doing great, but isn’t a winner yet :-). But seeing the other article is already 4 years old I have the time haha.

Combining the newsletters

One other thing that changed for the better: I combined the Blog and YouTube newsletters. From now on you will find just one “The Project Corner Newsletter”. Because, basically there’s still only one TPC! So instead of me deviding my efforts and creating 2 bi-monthly newsletters there will now be just 1 newsletter that talks about changes on TPC (all channels) and what I found interesting on the web in the last couple of months.

If you aren’t subscribed yet I’d love to have you on the list, and did I mention the 60+ files that you get as a gift? Here’s the link:

The Project Corner Newsletter 2020

The YouTube channel

By the end of the year there are 59 (or maybe I made it a round 60 who knows) video’s on the channel. I am closing in on 1.000 followers and consider the channel a big succes!

There are a couple of playlists on there to make life easier for viewers. I’ve categorized them specifically for what they include:

The year 2021

With the current state of the world as it is I’m not going to make any bold statements on what’s to come.

I’m going to continue blogging and YouTube”ing” whenever time permits. This is probably going to be way less then the desired amount. But I’ll cut myself some slack.

On the blog I’ll continue exploring the Power Platform in relation to the PPM field. On YouTube I’ll continue to explore Power BI visuals in that same context. And I’m going to get more focus on the new things coming in regards to for instance Project for the Web.

Wishing you the very best year possible!

– Erik van Hurck –