Goodbye, NextPit: Julia bids farewell

We all have areas in our professional life that excite us. For me, it's definitely the non-digital contact with people and products. I still remember my first trip to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) a few years ago. One of the highlights of my life so far, and from a tech nerd's perspective, the coolest experience ever. In fact, 2020 showed me how free we all were in the past. Journalists could travel the world and were privileged to do so. Did we really appreciate it?

When the NextPit team moved to working from home in 2020, I got a little dusty. The cancellation of MWC earlier in the year was hard for all of us to believe. I think for most of us, that was the point of realising the true gravity of the situation. From then on, human contact went away. I could no longer go to Berlin to see the team and all trade shows and events were moved to the digital world. That was a good thing! After all, we all have to limit ourselves so that human lives can be saved. But I really missed the direct contact with people as a journalist this year.

Many editors in the tech industry work from event to event, product launch to product launch, and in between those phases we get to leave our desks, touch products, interact with colleagues and vendors, and do what's important in journalism: see things with our own eyes, touch things with our own hands; even spot the occasional nervous twitch at a critical question and dig deeper to find out. Even in online journalism, which compared to print has to get by with much less human contact and a faster pace, these little things and contact with other people and machines are important. So that quality counts, and we are not (completely) overrun by algorithms.

While I'm sure things will eventually go back to the way they used to be - I believe they will - this year 2020 has taken the joy out of online journalism for me. Getting to that point is okay, I guess. So when an opportunity came along to do something else and still stay in tech, I had to take that chance.

But it wasn't an easy decision, because I'm going to miss the team at NextPit. You guys only vaguely know how funny Antoine is. His sense of humour often doesn't come out that way it should from the translated articles, but Antoine's jokes and extensive knowledge of technology will be missed by me on a day-to-day basis. I'd love to list everyone on the team individually, but that would be beyond the scope and purpose of this post. I am grateful to have met each and every one of the team. You are always welcomed with open arms here.

The NextPit readers will also be greatly missed by me. You guys make NextPit a community. I will miss your praise and constructive criticism. Some readers have often emailed me with tips. One Apple expert among you often sent me useful tools and tricks from the Apple cosmos via Threema. Thanks for that! Your appreciation is super important in the online space for writers and editors, don't stop with the constructive comments and stay in touch.

I wish all NextPitters a happy new year and hope for all of us that things get better in 2021. Most importantly, stay healthy and be considerate of each other. Personally, I'm going to stay true to the tech industry and try my hand at marketing with a popular smartphone manufacturer. You always see each other twice in life!

Thank you and take care,

Your Julia