2023 By The Numbers
We all love metrics, right?
Hello Friends in the Computer,
People are starting to post their Spotify Wrappeds and similar
so I thought I’d get into the action because I am nothing if not a trend chaser.
j/k I love any excuse to count stuff and make a metric out of it.
And yes I know we are waaaaaaay early on this and there’s still technically a month to go but honestly? I’m trying to wrap things up and coast as much as possible until 2024. (Future Sarah is gonna have a lot of clean up to do but that’s not MY problem.) So, without further ado….
2023 by the numbers
37 - number of newsletter/blog posts this year, which is not bad considering I don’t really….care or have any sort of content calendar/posting schedule. I was honestly surprised - that’s 3 a month! If I had ambition or a work ethic I’d be dangerous.
4 - Twitter alternatives attempted. I think I like Bluesky best. No it’s not perfect. Yes, you probably have one you like better. No, I don’t need to hear about why. If you want an invite to bluesky, let me know.
2 - number of giant legal conferences I attended (AALL and ILTA). Plus a couple one day events, both in person and virtual. Plus one Dad conference that I was the Plus One for. Next year will probably be the same, although assuming weather is good and I’m not sick, I will roll into TECHSHOW for at least the start up alley thing.
3644 - Miles I drove to get there (I’m not ready to fly yet if I can avoid it.) I’m glad all my big conference plans for next year are much closer to home (Two in Chicago and one a 4.5 hour drive from the farm)
1195 - dollars I spent on professional membership dues. I’ll figure out how much I spent on conferences when I do my taxes in April. I am very grateful to have gotten some scholarships/reimbursements on these but…whew.
a number too depressing to count but was A LOT - hours I spent providing free volunteer labor for these orgs as well as other professional “service”(e.g. someone with a legal tech company or legal aid org picks my brain on a zoom call.) I haven’t given away this much of my time since I was on the tenure track. To be clear, I don’t mind doing it and like helping people….I’m just worried people think I’m a sucker. Most notable work:
For the ABA, I’m on the Governing Council for the ABA Center for Innovation. I was on the writing committee for the Trends Report (yeah, that one - and I found out about all of THAT via Bob’s post) and contributed scrips for the Innovation & You web series.
For AALL, I mostly spent my time with the PLLIP Summit Planning Committee. I’m really proud of how the event turned out and I’m on this year’s committee again.
For ILTA, I’m on an Educational Planning commitee and our first event will be December 14 on Decoding Generative AI.
5987 - words I wrote in my Legal Tech competency thing. (The document I drafted it in is 23 pages, but the word count sounds more impressive.) This is another thing I did for free, and I can’t even claim volunteer hours for it - I did it for fun (for various definitions of fun.) I have been sort of ignoring it because Q4 of 2023 got away from me. I will get back on that sometime.
3 - podcasts I was a guest on. I love doing that! Please invite me to be on your podcast or I will be forced to do one myself where I have conversations with people in the vein of Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow Show. Working title: “Shooting the Shit with Sarah G.”
1 - law school class presentations. Again, I LOVE doing this so if you teach in any subject where someone who can ramble about legal technology, innovation, library science, or access to justice (plus the intersection of them) would be beneficial to your students, I’m your huckleberry. By which I mean I’m the human equivalent of the AV cart rolled into your classroom.
Easily 1000+ - number of LegalTech products I looked and had to at least in some minor way figure out what the heck they do. (This is actually how this post started - I thought about looking at my browser history and work spreadsheets and getting a more exact number and doing a product category breakdown and then I was like “that sounds like work and no one would actually care.”)
3 - Legal research company mergers I was happy(?) about. (vLex/Fastcase, Casetext/TR, Jurisage/CiteRite) Listen, without going into too much detail, go back in a time machine to 2011 and tell me that.
14 - number of tie-dye t-shirts added to my wardrobe. I have a lot of failed/not started arts and crafts projects this year, but I discovered a love of playing with tie dye. Plus, I really try to wear only natural fibers and tie dye is appropriate for many if not all occasions, so win-win.
17 - thrifted Vera Bradley bags that I flipped. I also bought a bunch of vintage corelle that technically I could resell for profit but I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I flirt with the idea of being more serious about flipping thrifted stuff but I’m too busy getting high on my own supply apparently.
3 - invasive medical tests I had to have because I had weird thing growing in me. It would have only been 2 but like a sucker I had to go to a hospital in July so had a new resident “practice” on me. (I’m fine, btw.)
4 - number of decent size vacations I took this year. I love travel and always have and since I had a lot of flexibility in my time schedule (PTSD flashback to previous jobs where I had to count hours of leave..) I decided to take advantage of it. I am in stealth mode on a travel writing - influencer cash grab media creation project, which if I tell you all about means it’s not that stealth, but most of you probably have up reading this post a few entries ago.
2 - visits to DisneyWorld. Shut up.
1 - books read. No, I KNOW. I used to read books all the time and then I fell out of the habit. I’m not sure what I do in its place…probably read social media and watch YouTube. I think if I make any resolution for 2024, it’s going to be to read more long form work. Bee Tee Dubs, the book I read was Spare by Prince Harry and if I had to have read any book, I’m glad it was that one. If anyone ever wants to gossip about royalty (especially UK, but I’m conversant in most European houses plus a few Asian ones) with someone who acknowledges how problematic the institution of royalty is, hit me up!
So that was a snapshot of my 2024, at least through December 3. It was a good year. I hope your year was good too.
If I can’t think of anything else to write this year, have a good one and I’ll talk to you in 2024.
Take care,
Sarah