This website has been my place for thoughts and experiments, ideas and memories for close to a decade. The first article on here was written in March 2010 when I was building jQuery plugins and working at Aqueduct in London. I'm still going to keep my blog going here but I want to collect up and pull together the more in-depth content on the Pogo Kid website in a more structured way.

A Small history

The blog listing reads as a small history of web development over the last decade. The posts on here have been a window on my thoughts at the time. They may not have caused any great waves outside of my little sphere but show the many changes in our day-to-day responsibilities as front-end developers.

The change machine keeps going, I am currently working through the Certified Kubernetes Administrator course to hopefully do the exam by the end of the year. I'm sure there will be a number of articles as I work through the topics.

It's been such a beneficial thing for me to keep writing over the years. I've found that getting things out of my head has helped me understand many of the complexities I have faced. I have definitely started to recognise the significance of this blog on my mental health. I see that times when I haven't been writing there is an increase in my stress levels and a heightened level of anxiety in my day-to-day life.

So much of what is required of me seems to be making sense of a whirlwind of options and opinions. There is much uncertainty around the consequences of these decissions, but making the most of what I can see in front of me has always been the primary goal. Getting those options written down and sufficiently researched (without overloading myself) has made a big difference.

Transitioning

This last year has been a bit of a transitioning period. Let's rewind a bit to March 2017, I joined a startup called Seccl Technology as their Tech Lead, put everything into making that a success and Pogo Kid was put to the side for a while. The focus was intense as you would expect, no startup I've worked with has been a walk in the park. After I left in June 2019 (Seccl sold not long after), I decided that I needed some sort of separation between my thoughts, hobbies and experiments and the technical research and thought that forms the foundation of Pogo Kid's USP.

I've started to realise more about myself in this period since. I have done a lot of reflecting on how I "tick". I've found that I am a lot more introverted than I previously realised. I'm going to try and use that to my advantage rather than continue to force myself into situations (especially social ones) that leave me burnt out.

A Blog and More Structured Research

So after consulting with Pogo Kid for over five years now, this seems as good point as any to diverge this website and make a dedicated one for Pogo Kid. You will see more reflection within the articles on here and there will be more long-form research within the content on Pogo Kid.

I am looking forward to the new freedom that comes from this in the years to come.

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Unsplash