Hey there! It’s good to see you! It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
I’ve been an independent consultant for nearly 6 years now. It’s been great, but there has been one significant downside compared to working for an agency. At an agency, there’s almost always something new and exciting to work on and you get lots of exposure to newer tech. As an independent consultant, however, I have spent 5 out of those 6 years with one client on a legacy Sitecore 8.2 solution that is highly customized. Some of the code I support dates back 15+ years to a previous CMS. So I’ve been getting more than a little behind on the latest developments from Sitecore. Also, it’s hard to find stuff to blog about when most of the stuff you work on would not apply to anyone aside from your coworkers.
Over the years I’ve been with my current client, some of coworkers and I tried to push for a rebuild on a newer version of Sitecore with SXA or JSS. We finally managed to convince them that their legacy solution could not be saved and a rebuild was the best option. Unfortunately, they decided that they should go with a full RFP process and it did not turn out as we had hoped. I don’t want to go into too much detail about the client, but suffice it to say that, as a Sitecore consultant, my time on this project is limited. I really need to get more hands-on experience the latest Sitecore offerings so that I will be prepared for the next gig.
My Plan
To get the hands-on experience that I need, I need to build something real using the latest Sitecore versions and tech. So I decided that I will use this blog site as my sandbox. I’m really tired of using WordPress with its numerous plugins for such a basic site. I want to get to the point where my site is completely static so I don’t have the security concerns inherent in a WordPress site. I’m planning to rebuild this site using several different Sitecore tech stacks: SXA, JSS, .Net Core headless, etc.
As I go through this process, I will document my experience on the blog as well. This will be a very different kind of blogging than I’m used to. In the past, I’ve treated my blog posts almost like academic papers. I always tried to write about topics or little tricks that no one else had covered. That approach to blogging, for me at least, proved to be unsustainable in the long term. Instead, I hope to get into the habit of regularly writing about what I have been learning, problems I’ve run into and how I solved them (or didn’t) and my thoughts on the tech, with less concern about what others may have already written on the topics.
It was nice catching up with you. See you again soon.