Normally, year-in-review stuff comes out in December, but for the first time in what might be a decade, I took real time off for the last two weeks of the year. I spent time with my parents and extended family, played games with my kids, and welcomed the new year in a “gnome home” on the edge of the Rocky Mountain National Forest.
It was lovely! A worthwhile reason, I hope, that I’m a little late sharing my biggest takeaway from last year and the thing I’m resolving to lean into this year: embracing creation.
Looking back, 2022 was a year full of significant creative projects for me:
In March,I released Digital Grace: Pouring Benevolence into an Outraged World — the second book in my series on purposeful social media use (Digital Kindness: Being Human in a Hyper-Connected World is the first) — with more books in development.
In June, a chapter I co-authored titled “Digital Marketing: Trust-Building Tool for Government Communicators” was published in Be a Digital Diplomat: Guide for Digital Diplomacy Practitioners by the European Digital Diplomacy Exchange (EDDE). EDDE is an intragovernmental network of government communicators supported and funded by a grant from the US State Department aimed at increasing members’ collective capacities to use digital communications to bolster democratic processes, create spaces for government-citizen engagement, and reduce the public space for, appetite for, and impact of digitally distributed disinformation. Other contributors include the head of the Oxford Digital Diplomacy Research Group, a former US State Department Public Diplomacy Officer, the Digital Communications Advisor to the Prime Minister of North Macedonia, and representatives of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.
In October, a co-creator and I released Vulnerable Creatures, a limited series, true-crime(ish) podcast exploring the case of a young autistic man accused of animal cruelty. It’s the result of three years of interviews, investigation, and commitment to reflecting the complexity of human experience and the systems we live within. The Autism Society of Colorado called it “groundbreaking” and the Podcast Review (a channel of the Los Angeles Review of Books) recommended it alongside podcasts from NPR, The Economist, and CNN.
Despite these creations, I found myself struggling to embrace an identity as a “creator.”
When asked what I do, I usually answer something along the lines of “I’m a community engagement strategist. I do strategic planning and strategic communications.”
I don’t think to say I’m an author or a podcaster or a speaker or a creator. For my whole career I’ve identified as a business person. Creating things was a hobby. In 2023, however, I’m going to try to rewire my automatic response and lead with my creator identity. I’m resolving to pursue creative projects as a bigger piece of my professional work.
Thank you for being part of this journey! The fact that so many of you voluntarily sign up to receive these newsletters is a tremendous encouragement to continue creating.
Wishing you all a wonderful 2023! (And I’d love to hear what identities you’re embracing this year!)