Bad Data Handbook co-author Adam Laiacano recently posted a recap of his 2012 and preview of 2013. I thought this was a great way to round up several projects and details, and it made me realize that I'd done a poor job of announcing things here. So, Adam, allow me to borrow your idea and present my own recap-and-preview.

Truth be told, I rarely place any significance on the new year -- if something needs to change, better to do it now than wait for some arbitrary date -- but several projects wrapped late last year, leaving me some time at year-end to reflect and plot my next course.

looking back

2012 was quite a busy year! Here's a quick roundup of things that were announced elsewhere, but not here:

• new book: shortly after Parallel R landed in late 2011, I started working on a new title. Bad Data Handbook landed late 2012.
• text-mining fun with @ChicagoCDO and a team of civic-minded data folk. We even paired up on a Strata talk ("Text-mining Your City") to share what we'd learned.
• speaking engagements, at local meetups and larger conferences

looking forward

2013 looks like it will be even more fun (and busy):

• (another) new book: shortly after Bad Data Handbook landed (are you seeing a theme here?), I laid the foundation for a book on time series analysis. Joining me in this adventure is none other than noted R expert and xts author Jeff Ryan.
• more writing: I plan to release a set of short papers that have been sitting in the pipeline. Some of them will pair me up with Ken Gleason, with whom I co-wrote a chapter in Bad Data Handbook.
• software: continuing my themes of text mining and writing tools for data anlysis, I plan to release some utilities for Apache Pig in the near future. Stay tuned for this and other project updates.
• speaking engagements: I'm already lining up some travel for the coming months. Perhaps I'll visit your town? Time will tell ...
• research & collaboration: I'm exploring some new subjects and avenues. Details forthcoming.

What's most exciting about the future are the things I haven't mentioned here, because I don't yet know about them! Drop a line if there's something I should know about. I'd be especially interested to hear about new opportunities to collaborate, new projects, and talks.