A New Soren

The past year and a half have been exhausting for so many people on so many different levels. My own family struggled through months of no childcare while two parents tried to work remotely full time (including a month in which either my wife or I or both of us actively had Covid while trying to work remotely and care for our two children). We’ve had to learn new skills and face decisions and challenges that seemed more out of fiction than something we ever expected to see in reality. We’ve seen the once unthinkable specter of political unrest in our homeland. And it all happened in under 18 months!

This tumultuous time coincided with a two-step career shift for me. Pre-pandemic, in the wake of an unexpected staff change at my wife’s church, I took on a temporary role as the leader of the the church’s children and youth ministry. I’d been a youth minister before, worked at summer camps when I was in school, love teaching, and have a seminary degree, so I was a good fit for jumping in to keep the trains running. It also caused me to put Soren on the back burner and start really thinking about what I wanted to do in the next stage of my career. That role ended a couple of months ago, and now I’m in the midst of stage two of that career shift and ready to make some decisions about Soren’s future.

About six years ago I started this company because colleagues at churches and nonprofits were struggling with things like building websites and setting up social media profiles. The more work that I did, the more apparent it became that their needs ran much deeper than that, and I began helping with all manner of “tech” projects inside small nonprofit organizations. But three things were also becoming apparent to me as both an observer of and participant in the greater “tech universe”:

First: that the landscape is shifting away from traditional “websites” and towards new interfaces and technologies, whether those be native mobile apps, IoT “skills”, AR/VR experiences, embedding content in other apps, or something else. As with many things, the pandemic has only accelerated this trend, bringing forward the importance of communication mediums like live streams, video conferencing, and podcasting. Many of these haven’t yet hit full bloom: I feel as though we’re on the verge of something new, but we’re not exactly sure what it’s going to look like, but increasingly relying on largely informational websites is not going to be enough for most organizations. As such, I’ve decided that being in the “website business” is not where I want to spend my time anymore.

Second: What’s missing from a lot of conversations is anything that resembles a “holistic view” of the relationship of tech and society. Many of the new emerging mediums (voice, IoT, AR/VR, etc) allow tech to intersect every facet of our lives and to do so in ways that are more “natural” (for example: speaking) than opening up a web browser and visiting a page. I think this provides a lot of really neat opportunities (even if we’re still a little fuzzy about them), but I also observe that many of the decisions about what to do with these mediums are driven by what’s “cool”, “possible,” or “profitable,” and not with any consideration towards the greater good. That’s fairly normal: technology always shoots first and asks questions later. But someone needs to ask the questions, and I’d like to be part of that discussion.

And third, an increasingly large portion of these questions revolves around issues of security, ranging from how we police petty crime on the internet to how wars will be fought in cyberspace. This intersects with other issues on a number of fronts: What constitutes being a “responsible actor” in cyberspace as an individual, a business, or a government entity? To what extent is “security” the responsibility of each of those? What are our reasonable expectations when it comes to security and privacy? How can we incentive private, for-profit businesses to take their responsibilities around these issues seriously? These are the sorts of questions that I find increasingly interesting and want to play a role in answering.

Soren’s Future

So where does this leave Soren and me?

I am pursuing a new day job in the cybersecurity industry. Soren will continue to exist to house some side-projects both related to these “conversations” and to other things that I find interesting and enjoyable. For example:

• I’m launching a newsletter called “Soren Review” that will curate the best analysis on tech policy/governance and its implications. Sign up for that here. While I’m getting my bearings it will be free, but eventually there will be a paid version of the newsletter via Twitter’s revue platform (for now),
• I’ve been engaged in some (limited) podcast editing and writing gigs, and those will operate under the Soren banner,
• Some of my own research and open source projects focused on security and automation will continue to live in Soren’s github organization and be discussed on this blog,
• I’m planning to help set up a few online platforms/forums designed to help community leaders connect/collaborate with one another (more on these soon), and
• Other things as I decide to pursue them.

Effectively immediately, Soren will no longer be offering new web design or hosting services. I’ll continue working with existing clients to finish already started projects and offer hosting or support services until they are ready to move elsewhere (and I’ll be in touch with those clients to discuss those transitions). But I’m no longer taking on new website or social media projects. The website will be revamped in the coming days to reflect this.

It’s been a fun journey so far, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the next few chapters hold!