Eleventy in 2026
My stack and workflow in 2026
Fun fact: As of this update, I have 6000+ Followers on LinkedIn.
POSSE Update
After some DKIM, DMARC, and SPF updates… I’m 99% done with my Akamai Linode Cloud self-hosted listmonk implementation thanks to the wonders of containers, open source, and my Google Gemini Gem(s). The “warm up” of my Fudge Factor subscriber list will be interesting but I’ll be closer to POSSE than I’ve been in several years.
Last Year and This Year
I’ve been writing daily for years and can’t recall the last time I took a break. I’ve been late to send or had a few technical hiccups but otherwise… typing and sending.
Last year I stopped attempting LinkedIn Newsletters. I decided POSSE, n8n, and python scripts would be my approach to sharing as LinkedIn posts instead with options for Fediverse (originally Mastodon now GoToSocial) and Bluesky.
My LinkedIn traffic was lower last year with only 179,507 Impressions, 4,713 Engagements, and 3,253 Profile Viewers. I set a mini-goal of reaching 6,000 followers by the end of 2025.
Oddly enough, my three most popular posts on LinkedIn in 2025 were one mistakenly late published article… and two copy/paste from my actual newsletter / blog.
When I look at the entire year of posts, my reach spikes significantly when I am a “live reporter” for industry events like Tech Field Day, All Things AI, CISE, SXSW, etc.
I traveled a lot last year and reached Diamond levels on Delta, Hilton, and Marriott. So, if that travel level continues in 2026, perhaps I’ll be seeing more spikes in my reach.
As for writing in 2026, I might slow it down a bit. My formulaic approach for Hot Fudge Daily lasted for well over a year but I missed Fudge Factor nerdy stuff.
My 2026 Workflow
Previously, I was going to attempt using GoToSocial’s RSS for driving my workflow to see if it sticks. It did not.
However, I did add search to my blog (finally). I also began adding back tags.
Right now, I’m proficient with VS Code, python, and the prior workflow I optimized for Hot Fudge Daily. Ideally, I’d like to do a few things reliably well.
- Get everything driven from CLI or cron (why not both?)
- Use Markdown that is simple and portable (image processing?)
- Leverage prior python scripts (because refactoring is needed)
- Break up the daily topical (to be more more thinkish)
- Drop the pretense of title’s with dates that lack context (because 🌶️ Hot Fudge Sunday for 2025-12-07 doesn’t quite sell it, ya know?)
- Unbury the lede (Descriptions become telling titles)
- Publish to GitHub, build on Linode, n8n to poll RSS and post to listmonk (as a draft for now)
- Get comfortable with enabling automatic steps
Additionally, I plan to use scripts that further my POSSE goals to get around posting limitations on platforms like GoToSocial, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
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