Question of the Week: What's been a highlight of your year?

Professional highlight is still having a job that is fun and where I can learn to do more cool things with data… and make maps.

My personal highlight is managing to get my 3rd Dan black belt in Taekwon-Do last weekend, just in time for my 61st birthday.

I’m not sure if this counts as a highlight or more than a realization:

I want to go back to making nice things. A couple of years ago I did a photoshoot with some friends (cosplayers who craft a lot of their costumes and props) and in their workshop they had a sticker with that text: “I just want to make nice things”. That resonated with me.

I still consider myself to be a cartographer, even though my map output has decreased over the years and at my annual cartography conference in october I was once again blown away by the skill and creativity of others. As I am equally blown away by the skill and creativity of some of the people in the FME community, both past and present.

I found I am happiest when I get to do those things that challenge me on a creative or technical level.

And I do realize I am making nice things. We have developed our own FME training materials over the past 2-3 years and I am very proud of those and the maps that we did produce were very well received (we’ve played a small, probably invisible, part in a big, high-profile, project that is hopefully going to be public in 2025)

But yeah, I want to work towards getting to the point where I can regularly say: “damn, I did good!” 

Thanks for coming to my TED talk 

Professional : The use of Copilot for absolutely almost everything.

Personal : Complete my time in Europe and comeback home.

Happy Birthday and congratulations!

I personally was a fan of this TED Talk! 

The 12 Days of FME, Balloon contest was a blast!

professional: Building my Startup company (Evoteck Geospatial Consult) and looking forward to partnering with FME to deliver more GIS and Data Integration projects across various sectors in African Continent.

Personal: Using the FME 12 Days Contest as leisure activities to show my creativity skills.

​@marcust Happy birthday in advance Sir, I hope you will share some cakes, I believe FME lizard can deliver it to me in Nigeria 😀

It’s been a highlight for me too!

Great to hear!

Thank you :)

Thank you :)