2019 Accomplishments

The end of the calendar year is a good time for reflection. This year I’ve taken on a few initiatives (and furthered some ongoing goals). Here’s how I’m feeling about my professional and personal 2019 accomplishments.

Professional Work: Expanding Content Communications

I love content strategy because I love communication. Written or verbal, through gestures or actions, I find the way humans learn from and about one another and the world to be fascinating. It’s selfish, really. I’m just lucky that a topic so fun happens to help people as well.

This year I’ve increased my work in three areas: health literacy, mental health, and personalization. Health literacy is a topic I’ve been exploring for a few years. I’m more and more convinced that the key to improved “wellness” and health in general is health literacy. I seek out projects to improve health literacy for every population.

Mental health is a topic I’ve been similarly interested in, but this year I found new Mad*Pow projects that have expanded my knowledge. In addition, I’ve met some fantastic mentors to help me learn and grow in this area.

Lastly, I’m exploring the technology and content sides of personalization. Personalization is new to me, and I see it as a key to improving our ability to serve people – both in how we help impact peoples’ mental health, and improving healthcare in general through… you guessed it! Health literacy. It all comes together.

I look forward to learning more next year, continuing great projects at Mad*Pow, and speaking at conferences like HXD 2020 and giving webinars (like this one for GatherContent!).

It may not sound like much – just business as usual, as they say, but these 2019 accomplishments feel great.

Personal Work: Running and Reading

2019 was the 2nd year of my 50 States Challenge. I’ve now run half marathons in 13 states and seen some truly lovely areas of the country. While I didn’t meet some of my training goals (still can’t keep a sub-8 pace), I did have a lot of fun. My pre-race routine is smooth, and my race nutrition is significantly better than it was last year.

Since both my job and my personal life include frequent travel, it’s also a good excuse to do lots of reading. I’ll share my 2019 book list (as I have in the past), but hint: it’s a lot.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of my favorite books this year combines these two passions: Marathon Woman, by Kathrine Switzer. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

From 2019 Accomplishments to 2020

I’m not one for giant goals (though I do love to do lists), so as we enter 2020 I’m not setting any. But I am thinking about how I can grow as a person. I’m thinking about what excites me about the year to come. And I’m thinking about how much more we can accomplish to improve the world around us in 2020.