I love the period of transition between the past year and the new one that’s marked by year-end reflections. There’s always one day during the holiday break that I’m lost in cyberspace reading reviews and lists of the best and the worst of the ending year in almost any category. From tech publication’s technology reviews, to blogs, books, music, videos, movies, clothes and food, the select lists are the rational finale of the tsunami of data that passes over us in a year.

The pace at which we operate during the year doesn’t lend itself to much reflection. Racing to accomplish plans in 12 months feels like its own form of information overload but now at the theoretical annual end point, the WTIA has had another progressively rational and winning year. I’m reminded that “we overestimate what we can do in a day but we underestimate what we can do in a year.” Maybe that’s why I love this brief look back perspective; the sense of accomplishment is big. It tees up the passion to produce an even better plan for the New Year.

2013 will be content rich in events, topics, speakers, and sector focus. Each month will highlight a tech area of interest, starting this month with cloud computing. For a look at some 2013 predictions for the sector, take a look at Symform’s CEO Matthew Schiltz’s recent article on their Top 6 Cloud & Storage Predictions for 2013.

Make sure to check out the January events highlighted in this issue. I’m predicting that 2013 will be another year of even better high value delivery to our members.

Before we sign off for 2012 here are a few of own Bests:

New programs:

• Feed the Seeds—free new membership for early stage companies < 2 yrs & < 5 FTE
• EWIT—executive women in tech; real business discussions for industry leaders
• TechConnect—route to market program for companies to pitch enterprise buying execs
• 3rd Opinion Network-small, facilitated, highly targeted CEO round table for mid-market CEOs to connect

Major initiatives:

• Workforce Development—committee of industry and academia members
• collaborating for solutions to the industry’s most painful problem
• Information Technology Coalition—a coalition to raise public awareness of the IT
• sector’s contributions to Washington’s economy and to advocate for the sector with our state legislators

Just plain proud of:

• TECNA Conference–WTIA hosted the Technology Councils of North America’s 3 day annual conference to raise visibility of our ecosystem and establish WTIA as a leading national tech trade association
• Growth in Membership—added over 70 new early stage members, many mid-market companies, and some very notable mature groups like Amazon, Coinstar, Facebook, Intel, Zillow and others.
• 100 Best Companies to Work For–5th Consecutive year

From the entire WTIA team, a resounding thank you to our incredible constituents for contributing to another great year!