I just finished the pitch letter for the third book. Unlike the prior two books, the next book is primarily based on material never published before. My goal is to finish the third book of the leadership trilogy this summer which means a fall publication. Yeah, we’ll see.

Enough about the future, let’s review this terrible no-good very bad year that finishes with the passing of Carrie Fisher.

2016 started big for this place with the publication of Shields Down which is another perfect example of me having zero idea what articles are going to resonate with you. The honest appraisal of how people quit was by far the most popular piece in an otherwise quiet publishing year.

The next article of significance came in May. The Cave Essentials was written in between Pinterest and Slack. I started and finished the herculean task of a complete re-organization of all the books shelves. This multi-day job was pure joy. I worry about the future of books, but when I hold them with my hands, I worry less.

How I Slack showed up in mid-July after I’d started at Slack. This documentation of early Slack-learnings still captures the essentials of my Slack workflow. Part 2 is still kicking around my head. I remain stunned how much Slack’s own Slack and the Rands Leadership Slack have cauterized email from my life.

In late August, I published The Half Life of Joy. I wish I’d spent more time on the chart. It looks like a 4-year old doodled it.

The third edition of Managing Humans landed in September. This cover is my favorite. I removed chapters I hated. I freshened chapters that needed new life and perspective. I suspect I will continue to revise this book every three years until management doesn’t matter.

How to Recruit was a beast to write. In particular, the graph in the middle which depicts my recruiting model felt like accessible hard earned experience. However, for hours invested, the piece did not resonate as I expected further proving you should spend less time thinking what resonates and more time writing.

Finally, Five Leadership Hacks showed up in early December. It’s based on a talk I wrote for the second iteration of Calibrate called The Impossible Job. A simple concept with clickbait-ish title did well. In fact, the basic concept was the inspiration for the next book.

38 short form and long pieces written last year. Meh. I didn’t count articles written in 2015, but my sense is that I did less writing than the prior year. However, I feel we’ll have plenty to discuss in 2017.

Happy New Year.