My work year finished Friday and with no real plans other than Christmas movies and reading comics for the next week or so I thought I’d try and round-up 2025.

TL;DR – It was fine.

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The highlight was of course my talk at Camp Digital. Getting promoted to keynote was a real honor – and almost made the absolute unhealthy mission I had turned the whole thing into worth it. Honestly I seriously malfunctioned a bit – I spent so much time thinking about it, writing, re-writing, rehearsing, rewriting, second guessing. It was bonkers.

Then it was over in 50 minutes and felt like five.

People seemed to enjoy it though and I am really proud of it…but god I’ll never do it again.

The talk also spawned a few blogposts for ideas that I couldn’t fit into the talk – and I briefly toyed with the idea of writing a [short] book but decided that wasn’t really on the cards.

So thanks again to the Nexer crew. Can’t wait for the 2026 edition when I can just chill and enjoy it properly.

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I’m ending the year in much better shape health wise than I started it – I definitely went off the rails for a bit at the backend of 2024 and ended up on even more medication at the start of the year (and that pretty much continues) and it took quite a lot of effort to get things back on an even keel. I went three months without an alcoholic drink (and continued to drink much less than previously) and went hard on the low carb lifestyle for a while though my discipline has slipped a bit recently. I lost quite a bit of weight though and definitely look healthier and my anxiety has been under control for the most part since the Spring.

Still did absolutely no exercise though – just don’t think I am ever going to be that guy. Even my walking/steps was lower this year as a lack of travel meant fewer trend busting days to boost the averages!

Anyway I feel okay and I definitely couldn’t say that a year ago and I feel like I have a handle on things – even if I need a bit of a discipline reboot again in 2026.

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I had a nice trip to Amsterdam in April – including attending the Users First conference which I enjoyed – and then a less enjoyable break in Brussels and Paris in late October (it was supposed to be a longer InterRail adventure but life – needing to pay for a new garden wall after someone drove into it and expensive dental work – got in the way.)

I’ve missed my usual trips to the US – especially at this time of the year – but my boycott seems likely to continue given the recent Visa/ESTA changes so I need to think of somewhere else I guess. Will I follow through with my desire to go to Japan or will I bottle it and end up in Canada?

As well as Camp Digital and the User First Conference I also attended Service Design in Government (where I felt for the first time I was not designer enough for much of the agenda and vibe) and Ripples (fka Agile in the City Bristol) which leaned into the (pop) psychology of agile and product a bit much for my tastes. Was lovely to see Emily in action though.

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I hit the 10 year anniversary of running my jobs newsletter in the summer and sent out 60 editions this year – reaching 450 emails since it became a newsletter rather than a blogpost series. More than 200 new people subscribed but with drop offs and unsubscribes actual growth has been almost entirely flat this year. Still a 65% open rate, 16% click rate for more than 2.5k subscribers is not too shabby.

That said, I have decided 2026 is going to be the last year. I am going to sunset it once I hit 500 editions. It has become pretty expensive, generates no money and due to jobs boards actually getting worse (and worse) alongside the fact that I’ve never been able to replace Twitter of Old as a source of good leads for vacancies it has become harder and more time consuming to do.

In the end we managed two out of the promised three Product for the People meet-ups. London and Birmingham were fantastic but we had to cancel Newcastle due to some logistical challenges.

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I started the year at GDS/GOVUK but finished there at the end of March and since then I have mainly been at MHCLG working with a couple of programmes (though due to some…let’s call them challenges…with the suppliers I needed to work through I ended up not working in April or July). I had ambitions of spending more time in a more advisory/coaching mode and working fewer days on average and I managed both of these – which was restorative. I leaned hard into my Village Elder persona but think I did some good. I helped some hard decisions get made, shared my takes on ways of working in a public service agile/product environment and provided my usual career counselling services.

A year ago I said;

Hopefully the market continues to warm up and some of the initiatives emerging from the Digital Centre and things like the National Data Library have a Jukesie shaped hole to fill. 

…and lo and behold I will start 2026 as Head of Products and Services for the National Data Library as a real Civil Servant to boot!

Still trying to come to terms with the rise of AI in my work life – I continue to have a complicated relationship with it and that doesn’t seem likely to change. Can’t see my new role making it any easier.

Also continue to feel a bit out of step with a lot of modern Product Management ‘craft’ although I’ve had a few reassuring conversations with fellow practitioners this year that suggests I am not alone.

Oh and I definitely did not get any better at using Miro/Mural etc this year!!

…and Teams continued to frustrate me.

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Anyhoo it was an okay year – I’ve ended it more healthy and excited about starting a new job soon. I’ve had fewer adventures but also no real crisis. 

I’ll take it.

Onwards.