It was the summer of 2005 when I decided to quit my last job. I was working as a web journalist at Sydsvenskan at the time. I’d been to Lawrence, Kansas, and written a report together with Andreas Ekström about how a successful local student site could be run. Now I was doing some temp work while waiting for the project to get started.

One day that summer I came in from my holiday to join a meeting about the project. We sat down, talked, and when we left the room it hit me: this project is never going to happen. I decided there and then that it was time to leave. It was a fairly easy decision once I understood that I was waiting for something that wasn’t coming.

Six months later I left and started Jeffery & Edling which later became Good Old.

This time the decision was anything but easy.

I’m leaving the CEO position at Good Old to become Director, Future Media & Technology at The Bonnier Group. At the same time I’ll switch to become the chairman of the board at Good Old. I wasn’t looking for a new job, but this opportunity was to good not to try out.

The official press releases are here and here, but let me tell you about why I want to do this.

The previous year, 2004, I was reading blogs about the web and thought it was the most interesting thing in the world. I had a bit of experience running different websites, but mostly I had a head spinning with ideas about what could be done in this new media climate. I remember thinking “surely someone, somewhere, would be willing to pay something for what I know”?. That’s where the idea of an agency started. I wanted to see if it was possible to make a living out of what I knew. Especially since I couldn’t really channel those ideas into anything constructive at my employer at the time.

In a way I created the job that I never got offered or could apply for. I called myself an internet strategist and tried to understand the web ecosystem as best as I could. Many bad ideas, stupid decisions and down right incompetence sometimes – they were all part of this immense learning experience. But I managed to get some consultant work at several media companies due to my background. I worked with them over several years and loved it. Media is my field, it’s where I’ve always been, and where I’ve always pictured myself to be.

For the last year I’ve been consulting at Bonnier R&D, working with the convergence of media and technology. It is a question that I feel passionately about and it was a privilege to get the possibility to get to work with it on such a high level. Indirectly and inadvertently, I created this new position through my time and work there. So when it was offered to me it felt as if it had been tailor made for me. I had to give it a shot.

I’m very proud of my accomplishments at Good Old, but I’m in no way claiming that it was my effort alone that has made it so. It’s been a real honour to work with people that are genuinely talented, and also are really good human beings too. People, that through their hard work and ideas, have shaped the company to what it is today. Thank you. It’s truly great to see. I look forward to being a part of our reinvention the coming years.

Finally, I’d like to thank readers of this blog that have put up with sparse updates and the odd pointless rant. I’ve been in touch with a lot of you during the years and look forward to keeping the discussion going over at my new digital home. Thanks.