The last year of my 30s marked a real transition.
My news organization might not be where it needs to be for financial stability, but the path we’re on is producing the strongest journalism and clearest growth in its near 17-year history. My parenting may not be as effective as I thought it would be, but I’ve learned from, and loved, the earliest years. My marriage may not be as strong as I want it to be, but I better understand my role in it.
Put more broadly: I view one’s 40s as a decade of experience and demands, and I step timidly into that light. I’ll look back at this year as one as the end of the beginning, the end of this transition into what I hope I will accomplish and offer next.
I do feel this year built on the uneven momentum of last year and the one before it.
Below I share a few specifics for me to look back on.
Here’s a look at some highlights, with a mix of personal and professional:
- Technical.ly announced we’re expanding to Louisiana, our first market outside the mid-Atlantic and foundational to our future business model.
- I was part of the team to commission murals in Pittsburgh centering people with technology.
- Perhaps one of the quietest projects I’ll be proudest of: I conceived of and helped oversee our newsroom-implemented effort to develop a vision statement for Philadelphia 250 years in the future, informed by hundreds of Philadelphians. Next year should be an even bigger year for this project, marking the Semiquincentennial, and including several components I’m meaningfully proud of.
- I led Technical.ly picking our first Ecosystem of the Year, Pittsburgh.
- I organized a long weekend in Puerto Rico’s San Juan, as part of my effort to be the “relationship manager” to my wife’s “domestic manager.”
- Backed by a somewhat mistaken donation, I “won” a long weekend in Martha’s Vineyard, and organized the trip with friends.
- I bet a Ohio-based venture capital (Brian Brackeen) that there will be more employed software developers in the country next year than this one. I did so confidently because the AI job-displacement conversation is exaggerated right now — but higher interest rates and other more traditional factors could humble me. (I’m more confident on the bigger issue for now we’re debating though)
- I prioritized family: Part of nearly every kid drop-off, splitting pick-ups and as much of the raising and rearing as one can. Family and marriage is hard and very unfinished. This occupies so much unspoken time and effort, and is my priority.
- I kept up a twice-monthly dinner with neighbors.
- I attended the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Indianapolis, and wrote about the landscape.
- I led the qualitative analysis and narrative support of the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center’s national report on innovation economies.
- I traveled to an EDA Tech Hubs Summit in Bozeman, Montana where I spoke.
- I drove a friend to the hospital for her baby delivery, and things got hectic!
- I hit my stride in my Builders newsletter on national trends in local entrepreneurial ecosystem building and tech policy. A few pieces I was particularly proud of include:
- I know civic technology. This is not civic technology (An informed, cool-headed look at DOGE)
- Like electricity, broadband is an economic necessity (informed by a Federal Reserve Bank event I was asked to speak at)
- Ecosystem building is coalition building (a richer view of organizing work I started my career in)
- How mining plays a role in innovation (better introducing me to federal industrial policy and a broader view of my beat)
- The Trump administration is gutting science (informed, apolitical, and something I will follow)
- All the things Americans agree about (identifying the parts of entrepreneurship, science and technology that are well-regarded, including immigration issues)
- Why exactly is entrepreneurship important? (I meaningfully tightened my own understanding of Technically’s theory of change)
- Will data centers be useful? (Technical.ly coverage has been especially balanced on this increasingly heated topic, and this was my first foundational piece)
- Here’s the immigration policy Americans agree with (Really proud of the reporting, and standing up on this issue, which informed my Builders keynote and other follow-on coverage)
- Will AI be better for entrepreneurs or incumbents (I sought guidance and research looking back at the internet age that informed our newsroom)
- I used the above reporting to setup the next in my goal to deliver a proper keynote at our Technical.ly Builders Conference
- I conceived of and helped institute Technical.ly’s ‘Creator in Residence’ program, hiring comedian Tata Sherise to interpret our reporting for a wider audience
- I wrote about the success of Philadelphia’s 2010s tech coalition, of which I was apart, because I recognize a new generation is happily taking root, yet many institutions are still not taking heed.
- I’ve made progress on my social video, only just this month finally giving in and committing to posting every single day, including weekends. Unexpectedly Instagram is currently becoming my stronger platform. I am not hitting the tone just right yet. But I did have 10 IG videos crossed 10k views (my average views on TikTok are much lower):
- 250k+ views: computer science grads have a higher unemployment rate than philosophy
- 110k+ views: uh, an off-handed “your mom” joke (and another 70k+ on TikTok)
- 100k+ views: Parents choosing what extra-curricular to pay for (a spin off a Business Insider piece I filed)
- 40k+ views: a Pop Pop collab on how LLMs work
- 30k+ views: a PhilyABCs collab with Mister Softee!
- 20k+ views: Homelessness is a housing problem
- 20k+ views: The Epstein photo release is a deepfake warning sign
- 10k+ views: Boys and young men aged 16-22 cause most violent crime
- 10k+ views: Amazon layoffs aren’t about AI
- I read more than 50 books.
- I believe we should be far more aggressively regulating away the use of people’s likenesses with AI tools
As per usual, here’s a review of how I did on my resolutions for the year:
- Finish and edit the draft of my novel, ready for feedback. [FAILED] Nope. Not even close. Never touched it. I feel farther from this, not closer. I’ve focused on my kids book and nonfiction instead.
- Publish my “journalism thinking” ebook, complete with an online launch strategy. [FAILED] I’m closer to this than the novel, as I progressed in thinking of this as “storytelling strategy,” rather than “journalism thinking.”
- Set a monthly date with SACMW. [SUCCEEDED] I’ve kept fairly consistent with getting one-on-one time scheduled.
- Pitch one freelance story monthly, aiming to publish in three new national outlets. [FAILED] This might have been too ambitious though I did have a piece in Men’s Journal on rye whiskey and two (here and here) in Business Insider, including one that also generated a social video I did with 100k+ views
- Make our office/newsroom self-sustaining and vibrant, achieving at least break-even rent. [SUCCEEDED] Not to the extent I hoped (more vibrant, but far from break-even), as I added some paying members and lost some. But I assigned my ops manager to stocking snacks and caring for my plants. I have a recurring AI meetup I host, and ran one for the life sciences.
- Focus on my diet to weigh 190 again. [FAILED] Woof. I did play basketball more this winter, and I kept up my bicycling. But my eating habits and drinking worsened late in the year.
- Update and implement a measurable social media strategy for both personal and professional growth. [[SUCCEEDED] Yes, I feel reasonably proud about getting into a closer-to-daily social video habit. I poked around the federated media (Bluesky in particular) but I’ve stuck with the widespread usage of TikTok, Instagram and Linkedin.
- August: Develop a working prototype for an AI-powered agent or app. [FAILED] I made no progress here, though I’ve incorporated the tools into my practice and will try again in 2026.
- Complete Kids Projects: [SUCCEEDED] Yes, I’m really proud of how PhillyABCs turned out, and I bought and installed a Little Free Libraries and found other small projects with my kids — including making a New Year’s Eve ball to drop!
- Define my next book project. [SUCCEEDED] Yes I’m proud and excited by identifying a concept that I’ve begun pitching agents and will become a primary 2026 goal.
- Finalize Technically’s next 5-year strategic plan. [SUCCEEDED] Yes, I’m proud of this process, and our team has fully deployed this.
- Operate Technically with at least a 5% profit margin. [FAILED] Yikes, well, I sure got close, but technically this is a no.