Where I’m Going

So I haven’t done a great job of announcing it, but I officially started a new job today! For the past three years I’ve been working with David Spark to launch and run the Cyber Security Headlines podcast. I’ll be taking a full time job with the CISO Series as a producer, working on helping to run their existing shows and other content and giving David Spark time to help create some new exciting stuff on the network.

I’m truly excited for this opportunity! I’ve gotten to know a lot of the team over at the CISO Series working freelance for David and it’s nice to know you’re coming into the place with top notch people already in place. Having already seen the roadmap for where the CISO Series plans to go, I can’t wait to help make that happen. It’s a whole new world brimming with challenges and opportunities.

Where I’ve Been

This of course means I’ve had to leave full time employment with the Daily Tech News Show family. I’ve been “officially” involved with Daily Tech Headlines since 2016. Tom Merritt founded the show, but asked me to help out with some light writing for it since day one. Since then he graciously found ways to gradually roll me into the show, until I became the regular host in 2021.

I say “officially” involved because I had probably been nagging Tom, Sarah Lane, Jennie Josephson and production staff through email for at least a good six years before that. Besides emails in with comments on their most recent episode, I also sent in enough show suggestions that Tom just told me to do my ideas and he’d see how they could be incorporated. It may sound silly, but having someone tell you to just go do something, get out of the self-nullifying “planning” stage and just do the thing, was incredibly liberating. That bit of advise proved so powerful in my life.

In A Career

It doesn’t seem too long ago that I wondered if I’d ever have a career, or just bounce from jobs I didn’t really like. I spent a good six years after a shorted college stint working a dead end data entry job at a law firm. There didn’t seem to be a path forward from that, just more of the same. Podcasts helped pass the time in those years. Truly they were an escape from office drudgery. The only downside were they made it tolerable enough to stay. I started doing college radio production at WRUW in those years, with a notion that it would be nice to get paid to do that kind of stuff. But it never seemed realistic.

Doing podcasts, my own, DTNS, DTH, seemed like a good hobby at first. One I enjoyed and was happy to do. But somehow, I’ve ended up with a career in podcasting. I’d like to say it came from hard work, keen industry instincts, or just having some golden pipes, but none of it would have been remotely possible without Tom Merritt continually opening doors for me. I am eternally grateful for his mentorship and friendship. I hope one day I can pass along those same things to other people coming up in their careers.

END: Navel Gaze Reflection

Oh but don’t worry! I still plan to write up tech thoughts on this blog. I still plan to regularly guest on DTNS (Roger Chang’s scheduling permitting), and I’m still producing It’s a Thing with Tom and Molly Wood!

Sometimes life is very weird and you get to do a lot of cool things with cool people.