Working Out Loud Again

As a new year begins, it’s a natural time for reflection. Looking back at the history of this blog, it started during my years working in online education. I was fortunate to be surrounded by inspiring colleagues who lived by the principles of “working out loud” and developing ideas “out in the open”. It was a vibrant, collaborative time.

A lot of water has flowed down the rivers Murray and Drau since then, and I’ll be the first to admit that my practice of sharing my work has become sporadic at best. I’m extremely keen to change that.

So my resolution for 2026 is a simple one: to get back to that habit of working and thinking in the open. As I find myself in the traditional ‘slowing down’ years of a career, I want to dedicate more energy not to slowing down, but to speeding up my efforts on the things that are close to my heart—areas where I see significant challenges that need addressing.

My focus will remain on technology, the field I’ve spent most of my working life in. But with a deliberate shift towards ’tech-for-good’. This means deepening my commitment to:

• Open Source: Creating and contributing to tools that empower everyone.
• Digital Sovereignty & Privacy: Advocating for systems that respect user autonomy and control.
• Local-First Technology: Building resilient, community-focused applications that aim to act-local but keep connecting globally.

Crucially, I want to weave this together with my other lifelong passion: agriculture and food. I’ll be exploring regeneration, the circular economy, and how we can apply technologies often developed for different purposes to the challenge of producing healthier food with less environmental impact. The common thread is a desire to do more with less, to build things that are more regenerative by design.

Most of the agricultural work will happen on my project sites:

• GrowGood - a simple, Open Source way for farmers to manage and share their farm data.
• SEIN - growing food, sharing skills & tools, and strengthening community connections.

I’m looking forward to logging more of what I do, sharing the process—warts and all—and, most importantly, reaching out to find new collaborators. If you’re working on similar problems or are just interested in the journey, I’d love to hear from you.

Here’s to a productive and collaborative 2026!

• Open Source
• Agriculture
• Digital Sovereignty