What’s this? A blog post on a Weekend? Have you gone mad?

Maybe. I’ve been hinting at something for a few weeks now, and the time has finally come to come clean.

Big changes are coming.

— Rodney N – The Jira Guy (@theJiraguy) October 28, 2021

Unfortunately, due to me being crazy busy behind the scenes, there will be no article this week. However, I'll have an announcement over the next few days to explain why! Sorry!

— Rodney N – The Jira Guy (@theJiraguy) November 10, 2021

So here it is. Yesterday was my last day with Coyote Creek Consulting. But, I should be clear, I left on good terms, and in fact, we are working on a continued partnership between the Blog and Coyote Creek – just this time without the encumbrance of me being an employee.

No, I left because I’m going to be starting a new gig as of Monday.

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Yep. I’ve made no secret that I enjoy playing video games in my downtime. I’ve even posted a few pictures from various games on the blog.  

Now I’ll have a chance to put my Jira Administration Skills to use to help make some of the games I’ve enjoyed. However, that is not what I’m most excited about in this new role. It’s the fact that as part of it, I will be mentoring a team of up-and-coming Jira Guys and Gals. Well, more direct mentoring than I do here with you.  

However, I’ve had to be very careful about both when and how I announced this change. The last thing I wanted to do was torpedo this new opportunity by being careless in the lead-up to it. 

What does this mean for the blog?

Honestly, not a lot changes for the blog. Being “The Jira Guy” was a huge reason I was selected for this role, and my new Manager sees value in me continuing in this role. I’ll have to speak with the new company’s PR department about specifics, but we are pretty sure the rules are the same ones I already follow, so things should continue as normal.

That being said, I have a few upcoming collaborations I am working on that I am excited to share when they are ready. I can tell you that I will be presenting to the Bangalore ACE group on “How to spot Bottlenecks in your Jira system.” This coming Tuesday. This event will be virtual, so I encourage you all to join if the time works out for you. You can sign up here.

Team 2022

Looking forward to Team 2022, I can say that if I feel it’s safe, I do intend to attend. But right now, that feels like a reasonably uncertain IF. Given my HOCM, my doctors are very concerned about me catching COVID; but I have the vaccine, including the booster, so that is in my favor. So right now, I’m taking a wait-and-see approach, and there will be more news on this in the coming months. 

Call for ideas

In the short term, I have an extended vacation with my wife coming up at the beginning of December. So I am working on content to cover the gap, but I can ask you one thing. The hardest part of writing any post is coming up with an idea. Once I have the idea, the whole process moves along pretty quickly, so most of the writing process these days comes in finding what I’m writing on. This situation is where you come in. It’s been a while since I have done this, but if you would like me to write about something, please use the contact form above to let me know. If I accept your idea, I will give you credit in the intro and link to any social media profiles you provide. Likewise, I will also throw in this “The Jira Guy” laptop sticker if you want to share your address with me.

New People?

In the meantime, I am looking for ways to grow the blog further. I know one of the factors that limit growth is that I can only post once a week. This is mainly because I do not work on the blog full-time, and if I try to do more than one blog post in a given week while maintaining my duties at my day job, I am exhausted. So, I think to grow the blog, I will need to bring on more people to write. As for who they are and what they write about, that is still being worked out. This isn’t a call for volunteers; the way I see it, this is a “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” situation. But don’t be surprised if you eventually see another name in the Author slot. 

So how is the blog doing?

As for growth, let’s talk numbers. It’s been a while since I’ve done this, but I’ve never held the blog’s performance as a secret. And to be honest, we’ve seen some great numbers come back over the past few months. For example, last month, we had 6,185 page views – which was a new record month. And almost despite not writing a new post last week, the numbers weren’t too much different than the previous week. I want to think that’s from all of you going back and reading my old post, which was a bit of foreshadowing of this post. 

However, in past years I tend to notice a slump going into November and ending in January. It’s the holidays, and (at least in the U.S.) no one much wants to think about work during the Holidays. Fair enough. So I’m not sure if we’ll continue this hot streak into December, but I still intend to release content for you. You can look forward to my annual “Jira Admin gift guide” – I’m already looking for items for that list. 

Closing Thoughts

The past year has been an amazing experience. This blog has been an amazing experience and has put me into a position where some incredible opportunities presented to me. And all that is powered by you. I’m both eager and excited to rejoin you as a Day-to-day Jira Admin – and fully understand how that has changed over the past few years. Here’s to the year ahead. 

As always, you can find my social media links on Linktree. In addition, you can also find links to previous articles, valuable resources from Atlassian, and links to support me directly.  I’ll always appreciate a cup of coffee thrown my way!

Don’t forget, if you have a topic you would like me to write about, click the contact page in the menu and let me know – I love hearing your ideas! 

You can also subscribe directly to the blog. Doing so will ensure any new post I publish is emailed directly to your inbox. You can find the form below to sign up!  

But until next time, my name is Rodney, asking, “Have you updated your Jira issues today?”

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