10 (mostly sociable) years of Mike Young Academy

It is the birthday of my company-of-one: Here is my tribute to the associates, partners and clients who feel like real colleagues

It was back in 2016 that I first logged on to the Danish Business Authority to register my company. It felt like a huge moment. I had even set off time for it in my calendar, expecting bureaucracy, multiple forms and 2-factor log-ins. Here I was, starting out on my own, a sole proprietor! But the process was actually easy.

Afterwards, I wondered: Would I be lonely? I would no longer have colleagues around me in the office. I had no idea what to expect.

I will be honest with you: Ten years on, I am lonely from time to time. I am technically a company-of-one, even though I am a joint supplier with other course providers and consultants for most of my projects. There can be many days at home, when I am not out doing courses, where the only chat is with the chatbots, or via email. But I still feel as if I am surrounded by good colleagues.

So now, on my 10-year company birthday, I want to pay tribute to some of my most significant partners and associates!

Here are a few of the people who I regularly talk to as colleagues, just as if they were sitting next to me in the same office.

Emergence mysticism

Back in 2019 I started something called the TwiLi index as a hobby project during the summer when I wasn’t doing any courses.  It ranked Nordic scientists on their LinkedIn and Twitter follower numbers.

This had me working with data scientist Lasse Hjorth Madsen, a former colleague of mine, and we added centrality measures to the index. The actual Twi-Li index is now in abeyance after scientists fled Twitter/X: But my co-operation with Lasse has continued throughout multiple other network analyses for universities. Lasse has an intuition for the emergent quality of networks: There is something valuable to be found between people, and not just within them. It is just a question of digging it out. For me this emergent quality is mysterious (as in something divine), and I appreciate his inspiration, and our many brainstorming sessions! He has recently set up something called findscientist.org which builds on the TwiLi days, but now on the platform Bluesky.

I met Jens Degett and Christine Heller del Riego when I was asked to help with the ECSJ2018 conference of science journalists back in 2018 (which they won a prize for! Look!) and subsequently worked with them on the Science Stories podcast project. Since then, we regularly catch up on the phone and put the whole European science communication ecosystem to rights. If only people would listen! Jens and Christine, I appreciate how you have let me into your circle.

Anine Wolsted Olsen helped me set up my website back in 2016 and has been in on things right from the start. She is great to work with, and has a keen eye for getting websites to actually work as they are intended, with clear calls-to-action. She has subsequently helped me, again and again, to keep this infrastructure running, mostly because I am so bad at following her instructions. I recommend her!

Perfect, or too perfect?

I met Marcel Bogers from before I started out on my own, but it is only recently that I really got to work with him. This was in connection with our joint book project ‘Social Media for Research Impact’: We got the idea in 2024, had all the fun working on it in 2025, and published it in 2026. We shared a vision that social media is actually good for science, and can be used in a way that is both generous and sustainable. Now, this vision has resulted in an actual book.

Christine Møller of Medical Manuscripts is best known for her course Intensive Medical Writing which is said to have once got an ‘impossible’ 5.0 out of 5.0 top mark evaluation by participants. This is a bit like a North Korean election result. People just don’t believe it. But it did, they say, actually, happen. Then I joined as course instructor, and evaluation scores slipped, of course. But, I reassure her, top evaluation scores are not everything! They can’t tell you anything about the new things that you try on each course, and you have to take some risks, otherwise it is just not fun!

Sneak subscription

Howard Knowles was a colleague on one of my first jobs after I graduated in Copenhagen. Now he is the owner of the embassy news service Seven59. Like me, he runs a small but flexible operation with associates, and we have co-hosted events and panels. We face the same challenges and so it is always great to talk to a fellow solopreneur. I am hoping that he doesn’t suddenly realize that I still have an unpaid, sneak subscription to the service.

Zeenat Fayaz is the founder of The Brand Education, which is based in the UK. We talked first after I released the Nordic TwiLi index, and we have worked together on multiple projects since then. She is an expert on universities’ reputations, and regularly posts and speaks on how they are dependent upon the communities and people that sustain them, including researchers. Every time I talk to Zeenat, I feel inspired!

Finally, I know Esben Høstager from a previous role in a communications agency. Esben is an experienced crisis and issues management expert for top executives. He was a mentor to me when I started my own business in 2016, even though the closest I ever got to the C-suite level that he normally advises was the coffee machine in a shared office. Since then, even though he is now retired, he has followed me on the sidelines, offering support. This I truly appreciate!

When bad times hit, you make them good

Although I started on my own, I have been lucky to have had access to a large network of people with complementary skills. This meant that I could either refer these people directly to the client, or take on the whole larger project even though it went up and beyond my own capabilities. I could scale up, and scale down, depending on how much demand there was for courses, workshops, analyses, and consultancy work.

All of the people that I mention are associates, partners or clients. But they feel like real colleagues, and it is as if we are all in it together. When one of us has success, it is like a rising tide that lifts all our boats. When bad times hit, you make them good.

Turns out ten years of working alone means you’re never actually alone. Here’s to ten more!

Does your department, faculty or university need to boost its researchers’ international impact? My workshops in social media for scientists and AI for research networking and communication introduce researchers to the systematic use of LinkedIn, Bluesky, Reddit, X and other specialized social media and tracking applications as well as AI-augmented routines to find and reach collaborators and stakeholders. All Mike Young Academy workshops are bespoke and custom-fitted to specific scientific fields. Workshops can be held in-person, or online as a combination of video-conferenced live-sessions with group ‘breakout’ rooms, individual feedback, and homework.