Dominated by Christmas, the month of December often seems like a chance to relax a little, and churn out some blog posts looking either back at the past year, or making a few predictions for the next. And while I’m probably going to end up writing some variations on those themes, I also have a much better plan for December this year.

I’m going to be working harder than ever to take advantage of the fact some people will be easing off. Whilst I know a lot of great companies and individuals will be working as hard as they do for the rest of the year, if even 5% of the rest take a bit of a break, I need to be making the most of that opportunity!

TheWayoftheWeb:

In terms of freelancing and consultancy, I’ve got a small and growing number of clients, which is great news. But to make it truly sustainable I need to increase that number, so the fact that many companies will be looking to improve their content and digital marketing for 2011 is a great opportunity.

On that note, this blog will be more focused going forwards. I’ve had some very nice offers to contribute to some very good sites, and I’ve struggled to find topics which I didn’t already cover. But with my concentration on content creation and marketing for my own business, it makes sense to funnel some of my writing on the media, journalism and publishing onto some more relevant sites…

Personal Projects:

• OnlineRaceDriver.com: In under 12 months, the site has done really well with sustained growth in terms of content contributors and traffic. But the difference between a nice little blog and a publishing business comes down to the business model, which is something I want to prove can work for smaller sites.
• 140Char: I started 140Char almost 3 years ago now, and although it’s been great fun, the time and effort to run it hasn’t evolved into something which makes a good enough return. For the last month or two it’s been mainly dormant while I look at whether it continues with some big changes, transfers to new ownership, or the content gets archived on a free host for the time being.
• DPiP: The first two Peterborough meet-ups have gone well, and I’ve been talking to a couple of people about how we can involve DPiP into something which offers more educational and business opportunities alongside the social side of meeting local digital people for drinks. Most of that should be in place for the next meetup in January.
• 1-2 new projects: At the moment, I’ve probably got just enough time and space for one, possibly two, of the new projects and ideas I’m been discussing with a couple of people. In the next week or so it should be clear which is the best business proposition, and I should be able to start talking about what is going on.

So a pretty busy time. As ever, client projects come first, with OnlineRaceDriver remaining as an example of building a site and business with great content and some of the digital and social marketing techniques available for very little financial investment (time is another matter!). DPiP is very much something which will grow with the involvement of everyone that has expressed an interest, and I’m pretty confident one of the new projects will soon evolve into a productive business interest.

Of course, I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t make time for friends and family over the holiday period – especially as someone with a young family to indulge and spoil this year. But all the time I can be building a future for my family, that’s what I’ll be putting first this year!!!