2017 Review and 2018 Blog Goals

This past week, I’ve been looking back on DataVeld posts from 2017 and thinking ahead toward next year.

Goals for 2018:

1. More consistency – I write when I have an opportunity to write and do not follow a schedule. I would like to post regularly rather than publish a few quick posts one month and then nothing for awhile. At my 2017 pace, that would likely mean two posts per month. It also means having more patience to spread out posts and schedule them rather than publishing as soon as something is finished.
2. Less mapping – What’s that you say? That’s why you’re here?… I’ve recently been working on a whitepaper for BlueGranite on maps in Power BI. As much as I love working with geospatial data, I feel like I’ll need a break from writing about the subject once that work is published. There’s obviously more to creating reports than maps.
3. More variety – I would like to write about more of the technologies that I use on projects in addition to the current focus on Power BI. I’ve learned much more in particular about Azure Data Factory V1 and V2, Data Lake Store, Data Lake Analytics, Cognitive Services, and other Azure techs this past year. Readers will likely see additional topics surface on DataVeld related to Azure.

2017 in Review:

Although it has never been a stated focus, the DataVeld blog quickly become a “Power BI blog”. Excluding this recap post, out of 24 total posts in 2017:

• 21 posts considered Microsoft Power BI in some capacity
• 2 posts mentioned R Tools for Visual Studio
• 1 post was a “thank you” for the Microsoft MVP Award

My most popular post this year was 10 Ways to Create Maps in Microsoft Power BI, which was an update to 2016’s 5 Ways to Create Maps in Microsoft Power BI. Look for 15 Ways in 2018…

Apart from organic and social media, my top referrals this year came from kasperonbi.com and this YouTube video from Curbal. Thank you to Kasper de Jonge, Ruth Martinez, and others for linking here!

How did readers find DataVeld in 2017? Around 85% of traffic came from organic search, and here are the top ten search terms:

1. power bi custom maps
2. topojson
3. powerbi geojson
4. power bi r maps
5. power bi color codes
6. power bi shape map
7. topojson maps
8. dataveld
9. microsoft professional program data science is it worth it?
10. power bi color palette

If I was not convinced that I had a “Power BI Blog” beforehand, looking at my most prevalent organic search terms confirms it.

Thank you everyone for your readership in 2017, and have a Happy New Year!