Evolution is a truth

“It is a truth universally acknowledged,..”

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

2022 was a year to both remember and forget. A year where personal lose went very deep, with my father passing, it marked that the last 4 years had been tough. In, 2019 we lost mum, 2 years of the pandemic took its toll on all of us, then 2022 my father…. So hopefully 2023 will be less painful in that sense. 
 
2022 isn’t all bad, we saw the return of in person conferences – and it was so good to have coffee and catch up. I personally had the pleasure of attending the Skywalker Ranch in San Francisco, meeting new people, and exchanging new ideas. There was the UKOUG event at the end of the year, returning to Birmingham – home to a great Christmas market. On a personal level, football (soccer to the USA audience) was in full flight, with an amazing county cup win, and continuing to grow the football analytics into ML as well as Graph technology. 
 
But this doesn’t answer that question, why are you blogging. Well, there is another great addition to 2022, that was the return/ fixing of the Oracle ACE program. It’s fair to say that the program itself has been on a journey, from very low points, to the very high of it returning to its roots. There have been some changes along the way, some will argue for the better and others saying they aren’t fair. Personally, I see them as evolution of a program, like all technology and processes, it’s adapting, maturing, and evolving. One of the changes was that blog’s written/ posted on your company website won’t count for points – it’s a contentious change to some – but it did make me rethink. I mean as it is, the blogs I write are often actually about how to or looking at the wider parts of ML/ AI. Thus, why not write these posts as external rather than as a company? Answer – there is no reason.  

2019 I stopped blogging, mainly to have more time with my Mum and care for my father, now that life has thrown it's curve balls, it's time to get back to it. Plus, I'm conscious that some still can't travel to conferences, so even though, my preferred approach to helping people is conferences, blogs absolutely have their place too.  

So, that’s why these blogs have come about, time to help expand who reads about Oracle ML and AI. No hidden agendas, no company posts, just simply feeding back to the community, hoping to engage more discussions and create new friendships. 
 
Wish me luck in 2023, it’s hopefully better than 2022, but also a new approach, an evolution into the writing market rather than the presenting market….