It is that time, the end of the year, when l am privileged enough to be able to take off until early January and be with my family back in Spain and then with my partner and friends in London. In this next two weeks I will be in my hometown of Ferrol, Ferrol is in the North Atlantic of Spain in the region of Galicia. Not too many people seem to be awared of this, but this area of Spain has very much continental climate more similar to England than the general most touristic areas, even that this might not sound great it makes it a unique place for amazing local source food products, beautiful landscape, and amazing history. When I come home, I used this time as basically doing nothing, I enjoy the "dolce far niente": go for good food, spend time with my sister, go for runs and walks and lately I have taken on surfing. This December will mean going into the 15 Celsius degrees Atlantic which makes the whole experience not only a sport for the body but the mind and character. Then I will - if all the strikes allow - go back to London and spend NYE in my house in London and some nice days before starting 2023 with lots of energy.
This last year has been very eventful in terms of work, technology in construction and accomplished and half accomplished goals...
2022 brought back a bit of work travel and personal travel. I was able to attend and speak for first time at TechX (an internal Autodesk conference) about Product Management complexity in the context of AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) and particularly construction, then I was able to also attend AU (Autodesk University) which was a great experience to meet Tandem team. I do feel this year I have focused a lot on how to develop and improve my skills in product management more, I have joined product groups with external companies, focused many of my reads and podcasts on the subject and read some particularly good articles. I have also been super lucky to join Tandem and start to work in Digital Twin technology and develop a product from an early stage as when I originally joined Autodesk. I think I have discovered in the last almost 4 years in product management that early-stage product management is something that I deeply enjoy compared to legacy or existing product management. Some of my favourites resources of product management this year have been:
Newsletter: Lenny Rachitsky
Newsletter: John Cutler
Podcast: Women in Product
Book: Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
In the technology field, ConTech and AEC, it has been an exciting year! It has been a long time since I experienced this level of excitement, see opportunities everywhere and find that the change that is so much needed is coming. I have particularly loved to see the rise of many interesting start-ups. I am an advocate of technology for the architecture, engineering and construction industry and seeing projects that can make real change is extremely exciting. Another part of it is how the tech itself, the progress in computing power, edge technology and all the hype with AI/ML has been very entertaining and exciting to watch. Will be great to see what materialized in 2023 and funny enough as technology has excited me a lot in my professional in my personal life, I see myself increasingly detached from it.
I feel that social media has become this negative odd monster orchestrated by their owners and profiteers: twitter become Elon and his financed AI newsletters, LinkedIn is no longer about work but about stories of "how I made it", Instagram is a constant add/buy platform and, has anyone used Facebook, Snapchat? TikTok is something I uninstalled a long time ago and keep my distance for very intentionally...hope is the end of social media as we know it and becomes the new "cigarettes" who smokes anymore?
Instead, I have been more attracted to reading, writing and sports. This year I was able to finish some books which is very unusual for me as I tend to read articles but not so many books. I became obsessed with Dune after the movie and have been reading those. Still far from the number of books that I would like to read but I will keep improving in that half-accomplished goal. Regarding sports, I have continued CrossFit and football and this year I started surfing, which is now my new favourite activity in the entire world and has me re-thinking all my life choices. I am also wondering if I could potentially? Maybe? Perhaps? sign up for a triathlon before I turn 40??? I am 37 but feel it will push me to improve my cycling and swimming and will help me to be more outdoors out and about. Anyone have any advice?
In the next weeks I will be setting my goals for next quarter and will write a bit of what I expect of 2023. Also feel free to go back in this blog and read to kill some sofa reading time. In the meantime hope everyone has a nice break and will leave this entrance with a quote from Dune:
“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune
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