A personal update from me, and announcing a new podcast series beginning in June

I just posted the following to the Mosen Consulting Announcements list. If you’re not subscribed to that list, here’s the announcement.

Hello from me, on what is a beautiful autumn day here in Wellington, New Zealand’s capital.

It’s been many months since I was in touch via this Mosen Consulting channel, the last time being when I accepted my new role at Aira. A lot has happened since then. Just in case you haven’t heard the latest, here’s a brief personal update, as it’s relevant to the podcast that is my primary reason for writing.

As you may know, I’m a big fan of the Beatles, both as a group and as solo artists. One of my favourite lines from John Lennon is, “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”.

I had a wonderful, crazy, frenetic time in my Explorer Communications and Australasia roles at Aira. So much is happening there that I never had a single day that was predictable or dull. When I look at my checklist of tasks I was able to put a checkmark beside, we got a lot achieved together and it was a productive time.

However, I was then given the opportunity to explore a Chief Executive role here in New Zealand. Long before my Internet radio work and the international assistive technology roles I’ve had the privilege to have had, I was involved at a senior level in the disability sector here. To be able to get back to that work as a CEO of a highly-respected organisation in the sector is an opportunity that doesn’t come around that often.

I left Aira on 30 April and am grateful to Suman, my colleagues on the Aira leadership team, and all the great people who work there, for their support.

On 4 June, I’ll begin as the CEO of Workbridge. So this month, I’ve been taking some time off to recharge the batteries, spend some precious time with Bonnie, and prepare for the future. This ketogenic lifestyle I lead means that my clothes stop fitting me on a regular basis as I keep shrinking, so it’s new wardrobe time again.

As I mentioned in my note when I stopped running Mosen Consulting to focus on Aira, it was my hope to continue to produce the iOS without the Eye series. That’s by far our most popular series and I am humbled by how many people have told me they rely on it to make sense of the new smarts that have come to their iPhone and iPad. Being a CEO, particularly when you’re settling into a new organisation and coming up to speed, is a big commitment. I’d rather not do the books at all than rush the job, so I have decided to discontinue them. Researching, testing, writing and refining each new feature are tasks I simply don’t have time to complete. My sincere thanks for your support. I wrote “iOS 7 Without the Eye” in 2013 when Mosen Consulting was new, unproven, and when I was struggling financially at times. Those who bought that book back then gave me confidence that I could make Mosen Consulting work. I will never forget that.

You’ll still be able to keep in touch via The Mosen Explosion, my Internet radio show on Mushroom FM which has been going on for so long now that it’s become a bit of an institution. Starting in June, it will be moving days to Saturday at 2 Pm US Eastern time, that’s Sunday mornings at 6 AM in New Zealand.

So now, onto the podcast series, and it’s all related to what I’ve just told you.

Over the years that I did Mosen Consulting, people would suggest books and audio tutorials they thought I should produce.

The most popular suggestion I didn’t deliver was the one I personally had the least appetite for. People asked if I would ever tell my story, perhaps in the form of a written or audio autobiography. I wondered how many people would really want to read it. But I realised recently that now might be the right time to give it a go. I just turned 50, and although I have changed jobs before, exiting the assistive technology industry and going back to a domestic role here in New Zealand represents a very big shift for me.

I don’t have the time, or frankly the inclination, to write a book about my life, but I enjoy listening to aural history. So, I decided that if I could find the right person to ask insightful, probing questions, who would pick up on something I might say and tease it out, challenge it, and go deeper, then that’s a format that might work.

After giving it some thought, I approached Glen Gordon, who has become a friend over the years and has a background as an excellent broadcast interviewer. He agreed to take it on.

The result is a nine-part podcast series called “In The Arena, the Jonathan Mosen Story”. It will be published every week for nine weeks on Mondays New Zealand time, Sundays in the US and UK, starting 3 June or 2 June depending on your time zone.

To receive it, you can subscribe to The Blind Side Podcast feed and the episodes will appear there. At some point, we may put them on the Mosen Consulting site for free download as one big zip file.

This project has taken a lot of time to produce. Glen has done his research well. He asks great questions, then gives me the time to give comprehensive answers.

For those who have requested something like this, I hope you find it worth the wait.

All the best from Bonnie and me.