My 2025 review

2025 was quite the year, and it is almost over! Here's some of my reflections and highlights in work, music, and travel.

Note: like my posts about 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 and 2017, this post is mostly ‘highlights’, lowlights left out intentionally.

Work

I changed jobs. After almost 20 years of mostly contracting, I am now mostly a full time civil servant, working on web standards for the Dutch government. I was already contracting with the team, but now it's more official.

Outside working on standards, I manage the DigiToegankelijk community, facilitate evaluator meetings and do outreach (WCAG 3 update at NCDT 2026!). I also am in three internal groups focused on tech ethics, AI and sustainability, where I can connect various dots and share knowledge.

I love the variety of colleagues and that I'm not (yet) forced to use AI (much). I miss async collaboration opportunities via tools like Slack—emoji responses and nonsense channels may have more part of my work persona than I want to admit. The “most stuff goes via email” and “email = Outlook” still takes getting used to. It can't even quote text? Apart from such software woes, the government and the team has been great.

Standards

I was elected to the W3C Advisory Board, became an editor of both WCAG-EM 2 and WCAG 3 (very recently), and I became more active in the SWING, the group that makes the Web Sustainability Guidelines, where we just released the Q4 release. Doing this, I learned a bunch about ReSpec, TAG reviews, group facilitation, Code of Conducts, and the W3C Process. It's been great to reconnect with old friends.

The environment can be challenging, but it is also full of super generous people willing to mentor and guide (you know who you are), and to get opportunities to mentor and guide others.

I found less time and focus for ARIA and Open UI. Hopefully later.

Music

My favourite new albums:

• Lotus by Little Simz: so much variety, amazing lyrics and tunes.
• lieve monsters by Sef: catches a lot of the zeitgeist really well.
• Tuff times never last by Kokoroko: so soulful and energetic (check out their Tiny Desk show).

For all three, I wasn't sure on first listen and started to embrace them after many listens. Note to self: give albums many chances.

I bought too many records and built a website to keep track of the records. It's Sanity for the data (they make it so easy to have a CMS for exactly the data you want and store images in ways so much cleverer than I could have self-built), and Eleventy for the front-end.

As part of a huge choir, I also performed queer themed music at Amsterdam's iconic Paradiso stage and Rotterdam Zuidplein Theater, and was on Holland's Got Talent (true story).

My favourite live gigs:

• anaiis in Bristol: in such a small venue, perfect after being locked in a room for WCAG 3 work, her own music was beautiful and the cover of To Zion with just her and a pianist was incredible. (video of Vanishing at COLORS).
• Little Simz with Chineke Orchestra in London: I updated my music log to allow for 6 out of 5 stars for this one. She has such a solid and varied discography, the live show had amazing energy, it was special in her home town and I was with an old friend who I hadn't seen for too long. The whole show is on YouTube and you can buy DRM-free (!) mp3 files on Amazon if you live in a country that sells it.
• Kassa Overall in Rotterdam; saw once before, when I went again I didn't realise he had just put out an album with jazzy hiphop covers. C.R.E.A.M. will never sound the same. He actually recorded C.R.E.A.M. live in Rotterdam earlier in the year. Again, on YouTube.
• Sef on Vlieland and DJ Krush in Amsterdam.

anaiis, Sef and Zara McFarlane signed my vinyl, while I was shy.

I continued the tradition of trying to find live music where I travel, I think it was Dave who first introduced me to this.

For next year, I look forward to new music from Lianne La Havas and Massive Attack.

Books

Reading relaxes me. I got to just over 40 books, some still in progress. My favourite reads of the year:

• Unapolegetic expression by André Marmot on the explosion of UK jazz music, it was crazy to see how many of the current generation know each other, and how they got where they are.
• One day, everyone will have always been against this by Omar El Akkad, on western imperialism and hypocrisy.
• On creativity by Kae Tempest, it explains why creativity can lead to connection (wrote this post about it earlier).

Mood

Like many, while I found a few very specific handy use cases, I am tired of companies and people who constantly want to put AI into every bit of their software and workflow. I'm tired of all the second hand burdening inflicted upon me and less privileged people around me. Surely, some of the technology is ok, but I urge us all… there is no need to help the hype and suck energy for other pursuits out.

Creativity and critical thinking are my favourite part of the job, I don't want that automated away. I also think this automation is fundamentally impossible. Creativity and critical thinking cannot be computed.

At the same time, I will try to continue to not be knee-jerk, negative, ableist or a “hater” in my stances… I will try to be firm and constructive. Respectful, too. And direct any criticism mostly at C-level Big Tech decision makers, not individuals working for them (thanks Bruce for making that point at CSS Day so eloquently this year).

Travel

2025 was quite intense on travel. I managed to do most by train and did some hybrids (train outwards, plane back).

I spent a night or more in: Aix-les-Bains, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Athens, Berlin, Bristol, Brno, Brussels, Cluj-Napoca, Freilassung, Innsbruck, Kobe, Leeds, Leuven, London, Nice, Paris, Stavanger, Vlieland.

To have less travel, I also hosted a F2F in The Hague and plan to host at least one in 2026.

Conferences

I gave 11 public talks this year and a few more in-house ones.

New talks I did:

• one on making the web greener at CSS Day and the international design in government event
• one on AI and ethics (Dutch)
• one on where accessibility standards come from and why they can take a while

I also did a talk and some facilitation for IAAP.

What helped my mood: I went to a couple of events about tech ethics, like Public Spaces, where I got to meet Maria Farrell in person, at last, and an event about AI and sustainability.

Hopes for 2026

A stable government, in my country and others. Hype-free realism about AI utility. Honest energy reporting from AI vendors. Regulation that benefits people, not shareholders. Less technology, less complexity. More art. More love (I'm 🎶 wishing that the love will set us free).

That's all, thanks for reading! Happy holidays!