It’s been years since I did any significant work on my own website. All of my attention has been on my WordPress development company.

This site, which used to house all of my work, thoughts, and online identity has been gathering dust and was starting to smell a bit musty.

A few things have conspired to encourage me to update the site, ditch my old theme, and hopefully start using the site for blogging again.

Dusting off the old blog

As I’ve said, it’s been a long time since this site had any love. The design was looking pretty dated, the content was old, and every time I thought about it I felt a bit sad. 🙁

I’m not really using this site professionally any more. All of that happens on my WordPress agency website now. But I’d like to maintain a bit of a personal presence online.

Personal blogging is back

There has been a subtle trend of people moving away from Facebook, Twitter, etc and starting to publish content on their own domains again. This has been led by various ownership, trust, security and privacy issues, as well as the general desire to spend less time on these platforms.

I’ve been inspired by my co-founder, Mark Wilkinson, who maintains his personal blog and updates it with both personal and professional posts. He uses it like a kind of diary, a reference point for his life.

I love this approach, and since leaving Facebook earlier this year (I haven’t deleted my account but haven’t logged in in over 6 months) I’ve missed having somewhere to log significant events, share photos, and write about things that interest me.

Going green

I’ve made some personal changes towards living a more sustainable lifestyle. Things like giving up meat and dairy (mostly!), buying less plastic, etc.

Professionally, I’ve been wondering for a while now about bringing more ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ to what I do. I love building websites, but it’s rare to feel that the work Ido has benefits for the planet.

At the last WordPress London meetup, I listened to a talk, “Why a greener web is good for everyone“, by Tom Greenwood of Wholegrain Digital. He was speaking about sustainable web design, and how the internet is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gasses. It felt like a turning point for me. Maybe this is my chance to combine the work that I love with a worthy cause.

My first step was a quick chat with Tom today about how to get involved. Immediately after the call, I decided to switch my site to use the Susty theme. It’s a VERY lightweight theme with the aim of reducing the carbon footprint of the website. More on this in a future post!