Stephen's Retirement FAQ

As you may have deduced from the title, I am retiring from my position at NRC. On the day of my retirement I'll be 67 and more than ready for this change.

When is the big day?

April 8, 2026. It's the closest payday to my 67th birthday.

So, gold-plated government pension, huh?

Hardly. I'll be just under 25 years service, so despite my age I don't qualify for a full pension. And even a full pension for someone like me isn't particularly generous. I'll be able to pay the mortgage and keep the lights on, but that's about it.

So why are you retiring?

As I explained to someone earlier, I'm trading money for freedom. Retirement means I don't have to drive into the city three or more times a week, and it means I can work when I feel like working.

I suppose if I were still able to work remotely where I am now I wouldn't be considering retirement. But I have no control over that, so I'm making the best out of what I can control.

Work? But you'll be retired!

Yes, but I still have things I want to do, and as I mentioned above, I could use the money. So yeah, I'll be working, hopefully. I'll be open to contract work and I hope to derive support from other means.

Does this mean I'll have to start paying for OLDaily now?

No. And this is important. My online content will remain free and will always remain free. 

But there's a catch. I'll be producing online content only if I can afford to do it. It costs me time and money to produce my blog, and OLDaily, and host my MOOCs, and everything else. So it's going to depend on external support.

I'm committing to publish OLDaily as usual until May 15, 2026. That will be as you can see the 25th anniversary edition. After that, I'll keep producing OLDaily only if the community supports it. Again, there will be no subscription fee. But there will be a donation box (or some such thing).

So what's the cut-off? How much will the community have to contribute?

I haven't set a target yet. If I get 100 $10/month contributors, I'll continue. Less than that, I don't know where the cut-off is. Or, ideally, some larger sponsors come out of the woodwork and spend more than that, which would allow me to develop it more (yes, larger sponsors would get a 'thank you' in the newsletter, but no, I will not be accepting traditional advertising).

No subscriptions and no advertising, and you still think you can make a go of it? You must think a lot of yourself.

No, honestly, I don't think there is enough of a market to support this. My readership is down quite a bit from where it was in its heyday. There's a lot more competition out there, a lot of quality newsletters and commentary.

And honestly, I'm happy about that. When I started, people still didn't think online learning could work, dismissed educational technology as irrelevant, and thought of anything that wasn't a professor lecturing to students was inferior. A lot has changed since I started on all this in 1990 or so. 

OK, so you might keep doing OLDaily. Anything else?

Yeah, I'll be retired in the sense that Tony Bates is retired, but without the airplane. I have a bunch of services I can offer, and I'll advertise these (politely and discretely, without horrible ad-tech) on my website and elsewhere. Some examples:

- I'm old and long-in-the-tooth but I have tons of speaking experience and a lot to offer as a keynote speaker who is still up-to-date with new technology and trends in online learning. 

- Similarly, companies and institutions who have specific needs that match my skills and experience will be able to hire me to run workshops.

- Organizations will be able to hire me to write reports and articles on learning technology and related subjects. They can draw on my skills and experience, or engage me to research something new that has come along, explain it, and determine how it may be relevant to them.

- On the IT side of things, I can also do development work, including bespoke prototype development or online services deployment. For larger projects I can bring to bear my project and program management experience and skills.

- Similarly, I can bring my governance and board experience to bear for companies and organizations who need someone who understands the industry

Ah, so you're going to be a consultant!

If you want to call it that, I suppose. But I don't think of myself that way. I don't just consult, I create, organize and build.  

What about teaching?

Sure, if the right opportunity came up. Preferably remote teaching. But yeah, if a college, university or company thinks I could teach a course for them, I'd be open to it.

But it would have to be the right fit. If Harvard or Yale came calling, there would be conditions about open access. Not that I'm worried, though - none of the elite institutions has ever come calling. I don't expect that to change. 

What even makes you qualified to do any of this?

Heh - that's the question I ask myself most of all. And it's a pretty legitimate question for anyone thinking of giving me money to ask.

Someone once advised me that I should have a page listing all my clients from over the years. I don't want to do that, exactly, because it would imply endorsement even though I haven't asked. But my list of presentations gives people a pretty good sense of who I've worked with over the years, with institutions ranging from OECD to UNESCO to ALECSO to various societies, government departments, and institutions. 

Would you be open to a job offer?

Depends. I don't want to move and I don't want to work from an office, so it would pretty much mean a remote work arrangement. Beyond that, it would depend on fit, compensation and flexibility. 

So is retirement just a fancy way of changing jobs for you?

Not exactly. One of the major considerations is my health.  

Now don't panic. I'm in good health, which is remarkable for someone my age. But I need to spend more time maintaining it - getting outdoors, hiking and cycling, even spending more time on the trainer and becoming more fit.

Too much time spent on the job (especially when there's a commute) takes away from that. And it takes away from the limited time I have to actually enjoy getting outdoors, hiking and cycling. I want to still be doing this when I'm 90, but that becomes possible only if I pay more attention to it now.

So it's a lifestyle thing.

Most of all, yeah. As I said above, I'm trading money for freedom. Ideally I'd be able to get some of that money back and still keep my freedom.

And it's not just about hiking and biking. There are things that matter to me that I want to work on. My personal learning and RSS reading software, for example, matters to me. It speaks to a future I still want to help build, even if I'm not being paid for it.

And also, I'm one of those people who can't not create, can't not write. So things like my blogs and photos will continue. Why wouldn't they?

One last thing - what are you good at?

I've taken to describing myself on social media as follows: Philosopher. Educator. Journalist. Programmer. Photographer. Cyclist. Socialist. The first four are my professions. The last three are my avocations.

I'll set up a separate page at some point where I describe my expertise in more detail (it's a bit hard to write about oneself that way so I want to approach it with some care).

But the short story is that I offer a depth of expertise and senior-level experience in all these areas, and especially those areas where they overlap. I don't think anyone in the world combines the first four the way I do.