The Year In Numbers

All of the wrapped style "end of year" things are a little overdone, but I thought it would be fun to reflect on my year with the things I wanted to share:

• 471 volunteer hours Beyond what's listed below, I kept busy. Lots of meetings, as well as things only locals know about like volunteering at local community radio stations as a news anchor (my ninth year), doing live broadcasting at music festivals & my semi-weekly radio show on Freefom Portland. Did I mention lots of meetings? So many.
• 42 blog posts the most I can remember since the web 2.0 era. Some favorites include one about Andor & bureaucracy, writing about Public Mechanics for the first time & spearheading some conversations around AI agent experience. I'll be writing more of that in the newsletter in 2026, but I'm pleased with my output this year.
• 74 books which I outlined on the blog. In 2026, I'm going to use fediverse site Bookwyrm for my reading tracking moving forward.
• 7 talks, panel appearances & keynotes, folks seemed to like my IxDA Oslo talk notes.
• 1 new podcast launched, Future Perfect Book Club with Joel Goodman
• 238 minutes featured on the Service Design Show & Did I Do That? Design podcasts
• 39,868 songs scrobbled, I've been tracking my music listening across vinyl, MP3s, and streaming services since 2005 using last.fm.
• 59 movies watched, surely the most I can remember. I traveled a lot and for some reason, I just decided to do a lot of rewatches of older movies.
• 42,414 miles flown according to the Flighty app.
• 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 or the score of the 2025 4A/3A/2A/1A Oregon Girls Tennis State Doubles Final, the wildest 2.5 hours of my (11 year) HS tennis coaching career.

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How The Year Began

It's hard to talk about 2025 without talking about the demise of 18F, where I spent almost eight years of my professional life. The whirlwind of the unraveling of the first few weeks of the year went from being cautiously hopeful it wouldn't be too reckless, to realizing we'd be near the crosshairs and eventually, caught in the eye of the storm.

When I started writing this, I realized how much of a mess the whole year was. Every major publication in the country and several worldwide covered the closure of 18F, so in many ways, it was a fitting end to the project because for many years we were not allow by any administration to talk about anything we'd ever worked on.

I was really happy that we got recognition for the many things that'd been happening behind the scenes for almost 11 years, sending my dad a link to where I'd been working all these years and him saying "oh wow, I had no idea," was morbidly gratifying.

After 18F ended, we went into a 60-day period of "administrative leave" where we were locked out of everything. I decided I wanted to use the time to do something other than find another job and after some pondering, that's where the Portland Digital Corps idea sprouted.

On Organizing

Since I didn't write one of these in 2024, I cannot forget last October's Design For The Public 24 event I organized (in collaboration with Technologists for Public Good) in Portland over two days. That event really was an emotional boost going into 2025 and despite what was to come for civic tech afterwards, I spent most of the last year extremely happy that I put this thing together.

What was even more gratifying was how many people I've run into over the past year at various events including Code For America Summit, dotGov Design in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere that told me "oh hey, I was at the conference" or "I wanted to go but…" and one former colleague said that "I've been to 4 different places this year and at every one of them, I meet someone who tells me the best thing they went to in 2024 was your event."

I feel really intentional about how I organize events. Maybe because I've been running events since high school, I've come to have learned through trial and error how to structure things for people. I also attend a lot of events, so I take notes always about what works for me, what doesn't and what people walk away with. Content be damned, the best part of most events are the people.

So starting the Portland Digital Corps was really a response to taking the energy of what we did at DFP24, and the spirit of 18F and thinking "you don't always to do a huge thing, you can do a small thing and impact can be measured more locally."

The PDX Digital Corps experiment was always meant to be short-term, and I think we really captured the spirit of our timing both with our volunteers and projects. If you ever decide to run a locally "brigade style" cohort, make sure you have partners and projects settled from the outset as it'll save you a lot of time.

If you don't have a budget, make sure you find a spigot of cash or donations, partner and find ways to sustain what you're doing.

Two Years as Board President

My term as AIGA Portland Board President ended on July 1st. It was a busy two years really doing a lot of different types of things. For starters, we had board turnover and a few critical decisions from the start that shaped those two years, but our volunteers from board members to day-of-event volunteers, committed not just to keep the group alive, but to figure out how to move things along.

The first of those things was launching Portland Design Month in Fall 2024. Partnering with community groups, studios, and others to launch this will always be something I'm proud of. In 2025, the Board organized the second edition of Design Month with even bigger sponsors and a host of partners from throughout the city getting involved. Few things are more gratifying than seeing a thing grow, one of the biggest growth points for me as an organizational leader over the years has been how successful the handoff is. Can you leave it better than you found it?

The other big thing that happened in 2025 was the successful launch of the AIGA Portland new website at aigapdx.org, at launch it was the only AIGA chapter website in the country that doesn't use the AIGA Wordpress theme. The theme was mostly unsupported and due to years of website cruft, it was difficult to manage during board transitions. The new site was supported by a group of volunteers who also revamp the chapter's brand identity for the first time in probably twenty years.

The redesign won a regional design award last summer, too.

Having previously been involved with AIGA when I lived in Indiana, I'm glad I chose to get involved again. More important, the transition was as important as the takeover. Building a strong board of folks to pass the baton to, was the most satisfying part of feeling like it was time to go and I've been thrilled to watch from afar as President Emeritus, our non-voting board seat for past presidents.

What's Ahead For 2026

I think if I had to summarize the goal for the year, I'd say it's service.

I've written a lot about how platformization & the economics of modern life have distorted how we work and interact with other. I anticipate working on more projects that focus on amplifying these problems, because they're fixable.

The first half of 2026 will be busy, per usual. I'll be back teaching at the University of Michigan in the Urban Technology program, speaking in January at an online UX event called Throughline (check it out) and later in March, I'll be repurposing a Friday class session for Years Ahead.

Anyone who knows me in the spring, is aware that I'm mostly focused on the pursuit of another Oregon HS state tennis title this spring. I've also been spearheading an effort to bring a team tournament to Oregon HS tennis for the past five years; the committee meets to discuss the format in the coming weeks. What started as frustration has turned into a multi year effort involving coaches and associations across the state. The proposal is now real, data backed, and under active review, with a decision expected in the next few weeks, with implementation in 2027 if we're successful.

I'll also continue doing executive coaching and mentorship, and staying open to whatever else emerges through that work.

I'll also be at Itä-Länsi in Vimpeli, Finland in July; the Finnish baseball all-star game traveling to my adopted Finnish hometown for the first time since 1990.