I’m back.

After a self-imposed hiatus for most of 2025, I’m returning to something I’ve been deeply missing… writing and speaking. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you know that not writing or speaking is, for me, a kind of pressure that builds and builds until I am ready to explode. 🤯

So what happened? The short version: my role at the Internet Society changed significantly. Back in September 2024, I started working with the Internet Society’s President and CEO, Sally Wentworth, on her CEO communications. Then in May 2025, I pivoted a bit more to help create a new Chief of Staff (CoS) role in the Office of the CEO. It was an amazing experience where I learned a HUGE amount. But the role was intense … genuinely, completely, all-consuming intense! … where I had little time or energy to create my own content.

And perhaps more importantly… given my close proximity to the CEO, I made a deliberate choice to go quiet. I didn’t want anything I wrote personally to be seen as potentially reflecting her views or the organization’s positions. Or to reflect negatively – or be a distraction. One key thing I learned as a CoS is that your entire focus is on promoting your “principal”, and nothing you do should stand out.

To be clear, I was never asked to go quiet; it was simply what felt right, particularly after some conversations with a mentor.

One of the outcomes of my time creating the CoS role was that the way we had the role initially structured was not the way we needed the role to work for the organization. So we changed the role, but in doing so it was no longer the right fit for me. Instead we’ve hired someone truly wonderful into the new role and she’s doing great work so far!

And so starting in January 2026 I’ve returned back into project work, building something we’re calling our “online trust & safety hub” (more on that in the future) and getting re-engaged with the technical community, particularly the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the technical parts of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). I’m also on the board of the Coalition on Digital Impact (CODI) and involved with some Internet resilience work with the Marconi Society. (More on both of those in the future!) It’s a good change that plays to my strengths!

With all the changes, it’s taken me until now… until this moment… to reach a point where I feel genuinely ready to come back. Not just to dash off the occasional post, but to consistently create content again. That means blog posts. That means the newsletter (targeting weekly).

That also means getting back to making podcast episodes again, particularly The Dan York Report. In fact, I’m looking to branch out a bit from my monologues and do some interviews with some of the amazing people I’m lucky enough to know. (If you think I should interview you, please drop me a note!)

I also want to bring back the livestreaming I was doing on Twitch (follow me there), which yes, will probably involve me streaming my Wikipedia editing! 🤣 Courtesy of some folks in the Fediverse [UPDATE: it was actually on Bluesky!], I also learned about Stream.place, and may see about also streaming there.(Possibly to both with an add-on to OBS Studio!)

Now.. we’ll see. I’ve said this before. But this time I have more of a plan than in the past.

And there is so much to write and speak about. The Internet, and our society, keeps changing around us at a furious pace, and that story isn’t going to tell itself.

So… let’s go! And thanks for coming along for the ride!

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A “Crow’s Nest” Monthly Video Call?

I’ve been giving a LOT of thought about building communities and connecting with others of similar interests. I’m thinking about the idea of doing a monthly video call (probably using Zoom) for a casual conversation where people could share what kind of emerging technologies they are currently interested in. *IF* I were to set something like that up, would you be interested? Drop an email back to me to let me know (or ping me on Mastodon or LinkedIn).

[The End]

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Recent Posts and Podcasts

Content I’ve published and produced recently on my personal sites:

• TDYR 419 – Catching Up With The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) – a podcast episode I recorded back in August 2025 for a reason you’ll hear about in the episode 🙂

Content I’ve published for the Internet Society (who has no connection to this newsletter):

• (none)

(When I said I went quiet… I meant it!)

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Thanks for reading to the end. I welcome any comments and feedback you may have.

Please drop me a note in email – if you are a subscriber, you should just be able to reply back. And if you aren’t a subscriber, just hit this button 👇 and you’ll get future messages.

This IS also a WordPress hosted blog, so you can visit the main site and add a comment to this post, like we used to do back in glory days of blogging.

Or if you don’t want to do email, send me a message on one of the various social media services where I’ve posted this. (My preference continues to be Mastodon, but I do go on others from time to time.)

Until the next time,
Dan

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Connect

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer: This newsletter is a personal project I’ve been doing since 2007, several years before I joined the Internet Society in 2011. While I may at times mention information or activities from the Internet Society, all viewpoints are my personal opinion and do not represent any formal positions or views of the Internet Society. This is just me, saying some of the things on my mind.