For most of my professional career, I haven’t felt the need to have a web presence beyond my LinkedIn profile. However, now I’m taking advantage of an opportunity to finally set up a personal website. I have a few aims here:
- I enjoy learning new skills and tinkering with technology - but I don’t want to dive into something hideously complex and totally disjoint from my other interests. Building a static site falls in the sweet spot where I have some existing experience with front-end web development (at Enmass Energy), but the space is constrained enough that there’s a limit to how much time I need to invest in order to get a useful working result.
- Having a blog will motivate me to continue learning and exploring side projects, even if I only write for myself! I want to use regular (if infrequent) posting as a way to keep up momentum in improving my craft outside of paycheck work. I’ve found that I tend to push off personal development otherwise, which in the long run is not great for staying curious about what I do, let alone up-to-date. This will be good for helping me dive into and refine my thoughts on topics I find interesting.
- Having a LinkedIn profile is the bare minimum for a professional presence. Even a simple website is a good way to show off a little! That said, I don’t want to get too flashy with visual effects etc. because my passion doesn’t exactly lie in front-end design.
I already have a shortlist of topics that I want to write about, and I’m looking forward to doing so over the next several weeks. I’ll start with a brief look back at my experience setting up and deploying this site in the next post!