Every year about this time I do a review of my forum activity over the past year. This summary provides some insight into the amount of time I expend on element14 activities and it also provides insight into how well the forum motivates me to participate. (pretty well 
)
So far this year:
- created 57 blogs - more than 1 per week
- created 83 videos - about 1 every 4 days
- spawned 10 discussions
- generated 6 polls
- applied for 7 road tests - successful on 6
- made 3 design challenge proposals - 2 were successful, plus I was successful with one from 2016 that was completed in 2017. Of the 3 I worked on this year, 2 finished in first place and 1 was a second place finish.
- participated in 3 project14 contests - all 3 were winners
- participated in "Share the Scare" with a Flying Purple People Eater
My proposals and projects have been extraordinarily successful this year which just makes it that much more enjoyable, but learning new technologies in an encouraging environment is priceless.
It may sound like I spend all my time on these activities, but I also play for several sports teams every week and hold down a pretty demanding full-time job.
It really helps to have a saint for a wife, although I should mention she has even more projects on the go than I do.
Here are some of my highlights from 2017 on element14:
Invisible Hazardous Environmental Factors Monitoring System
Texas Instruments FDC2214 Capacitance to Digital - Road Test
Rohde & Schwarz RTB2004 Road Test
Amphenol Air Quality Engineering Dev Kit
Keysight E36313A Poer Supply Road Test
All this work has resulted in nominations for Member of the Year, Project of the Year, Road Tester of the Year, & Project14 of the Year.
I feel it is a great honor to be nominated in any of these categories, especially since there were so many other outstanding contributors this year.
The element14 Community Member Awards winners were announced and I was awarded Member of the Year, Project of the Year and tied for Road Tester of the Year. What an honour.
These awards are especially meaningful to me, largely because of the high caliber of the other nominees and their contributions, but also because the significance of any achievement is proportional to how much effort was required. It took over 4 decades of training for me to learn enough to be in the running and it took a whole year of concentrated effort to make it to the short list and it took a lot of luck that people liked the projects I tackled. There are very few achievements that require this much work and extremely few achievements of this magnitude that I would have a chance to attempt and I deeply treasure the accomplishment. To reach a pinnacle in one's chosen field of endeavor in the presence of one's respected colleagues is a truly priceless feeling. I hope that feeling comes across well enough to inspire others to have a go at it.
Top Comments
Thanks Doug for the great year of interesting projects. I really enjoyed looking over your shoulder, so to speak, while you worked your magic.
John
Well done Doug! Great achievements this year.
Cosmin
Love the summary, it really puts the amount of work you do into perspective!!
Dale