2009 Goals

Following on from my predictions for 2009, let me follow Joel's lead and try to turn Seth's comment into a meme. So without further ado, here are my goals for 2009 (whether they're SMART or not is an exercise to the reader and yours truly).

Find Gainful Employment
As those of you who are faithful readers know, I found myself affected by the Credit Earthquake and am currently seeking gainful employment. My #1 goal is thus to find myself once again part of the gainfully employed section of society (and if you think you can help that goal, feel free to contact me).

Extend Asynchronous Communications To The Masses
My #2 goal is to seek an end to polling; it's inefficient, it doesn't scale, it doesn't smell right, and it's not necessary. Expect more posts here about this, as well as ceaseless and boring arguments elsewhere about how we, as software engineers, have alternatives, and should seek and embrace them.

Help AMQP 1.0 Along
Many of you found me through my ramblings on about AMQP 0-10. I believe in AMQP, and believe proprietary protocols are doomed to the dustbin of history. As such, I am setting my #3 goal to be to do everything in my effort to give us, in the community, a workable, interoperable AMQP specification that we can use to achieve my #2 goal above. This means that I'm actually being less ranty and more constructive in my relationship with people helping to get AMQP 1.0 along; have no fears, my innate lack of tact hasn't disappeared, I'm just subsuming it towards the greater good.

Fix My Flat
Usually this would go on my (much-neglected) non-technical blog, but most of the readers there read this as well. My flat is a vast collection of Fail. We've spent two years (since we moved in) trying to resolve the Fail into a cascade of Win. My #4 goal is thus to have a fully functioning flat, with all major services working.

Get Zoo to Cash-Flow Positive
Again, a non-technical subject, but many readers know that we setup and run a registered UK animal conservation charity (the Rare Species Conservation Trust), in part to operate the zoo that my partner operates, the Rare Species Conservation Centre. After a massive, multi-year financial and time investment, I believe that this is the year that the zoo will pay for itself and (as we originally envisaged):

• Help us fund the in-situ wildlife conservation work that we've devoted so much of our lives to;
• Continue our mission of educating the UK public in the plight of the animals that have touched our lives and are worthy of protection in the wild.

We're trying to help undo the trauma that man has inflicted on some of the rarest, most endangered, most misunderstood animals on Earth, and I hope that this is the year that our efforts to educate the UK public are rewarded and we can turn back to our main goal: helping in-situ wildlife conservation efforts.

It's only a few goals, and several of them are under way, so maybe I'll actually hit my goals this year after all.