Moving to Leipzig and the year ahead

Late 2023 ended with a move to Leipzig. The move was driven by a switch back to full-time contracting in June 2023, and the desire to move to a bigger city again.

Leipzig provides a medium-sized city with an amazing cultural legacy, especially so around music. The public transport links are good and the swap from the Southern German connections of Switzerland, Austria, and the Black Forest, is for Eastern Europe and Northern Germany.

There are still challenges ahead I am sure (my immigration status here in Germany always feels very fragile as a contractor; my second to last new start in a new country coincided with the beginning of a worldwide pandemic…). So I don’t always feel confident moving to a place and saying, here I am, this is where you are going to find me for the next few years but I am hoping I can say this with Leipzig.

Opportunities in Leipzig?

My current contract is a long-term contract working in the Web3 space, but it also offers me time during my week to look at other projects.

In Leipzig I am hoping to attend some meetups and there are always personal projects I am working on contributing to my field of expertise.

I am hoping while I am here I will get the opportunity to meet like-minded digital preservation and open-source software folk. Possibly at conventions, or just around and about and possibly getting together to talk about new ideas, projects, and tooling.

I will keep an eye out for local events and opportunities too. I hope the proximity of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek will attract the odd conference or seminar.

I have been looking at Wikidata related tooling for the last few years and I have also been exploring the decentralized web, especially ActivityPub and Fediverse, and I’m keen to understand how to decentralize more of our work in archives and digital preservation.

Of course I will continue to look at avenues for democratizing the different aspects of digital preservation. I have been testing ideas about how to positively impact the environment that might turn into something fun (and hopefully also useful). I continue to think about didactic solutions for the field as well but I am also very happy to talk to people about working together or their needs.

Reach out!

If you’re in Leipzig or the area, say hi! It’d be great and see if there is anything we can work on together or even just to grab a coffee in the oldest coffee house in Germany.

Services

If you are an organization or company looking for more formal consultation, research, or training, then reach out via my services page to setup a conversation.

You can find out more about my skills via LinkedIn or my Curriculum Vitae.

The year ahead!

I’m happy to pause after the long move (moving 500km across Germany and finding short-term accommodation is hard!).

Professionally we’re doing some exciting things with Orcfax and Arkly.io — the different paradigms that we are working with make for a lot of novel solutions thinking.

I’m cooking up a few things for myself and working on one or two projects with other folk but it’s a little too early to talk about those just yet. As for engaging with the community, I’ll continue to stay abreast of what’s going on and trying to amplify the best work that is going on out there. I really haven’t an idea what to expect from the year ahead but I’m excited to see what comes up.

The year also begins with sad news personally and for the community so my thoughts are with many friends affected right now.

It is difficult to move on from there but I will wish the best new years possible for those reading and the best of health for the year ahead. Let’s see where the year takes us.