The 8 Principles of Digital Sovereignty

Fresh off a long Thanksgiving weekend and ready to rock-and-roll into the new week. For all of my US subscribers…. I hope you had an awesome Thanksgiving. 🙏

Of course, this week also means lots of Black Friday and, now, “Cyber Monday” deals. Every plugin developer out there is spamming me. 🤪 Just wait for all the inevitable “extensions” of those sales. It happens every time.

Anyway, the topic of this issue is “digital sovereignty”. A topic near and dear to my heart… and a core principle that guides most of my technical decisions.

You want to build an online business that you OWN. One that you control. And one that doesn’t enslave you to big tech companies. That’s what digital sovereignty is all about. And, below, I cover the 8 core principles.

So, let’s jump right in….

The 8 Principles of Digital Sovereignty

For some of you who’ve been with me for awhile, this may be review. But, for many it is new. And very, VERY important.

These days, people are becoming so incredibly reliant on “big tech” that it is almost a feudal relationship. For instance, people love using “free” Google services…. and they’re basically handing their entire digital lives to a company known for scanning your information to train their AI systems and inject ads into your face.

When it comes to our online businesses and WordPress sites, people often do the same. They become so reliant on third-party services without any backup plan that it puts them into a position of dependence. And….s**t happens. 😳

Digital sovereignty is one of more core principles.

Sovereignty is defined as “complete independence and self-government”. And digital sovereignty would be the ability to own and control the data, hardware and software that you rely on.

I consider that there are 8 core principles to this. They are:

➡️ PRINCIPLE #1: Build your online business platform in a way which you own and control.

This is one of the core reasons why I chose WordPress and why WordPress is my focus. Unlike platforms like Teachable, Kajabi and others…. I own my WordPress platform. And anything I build atop WordPress is something I am not reliant on others for.

Even for email lists, I choose FluentCRM because it puts my list and all automations that power my business inside WordPress. This means I’m not reliant on third-parties like ActiveCampaign. I’m also not subject to those annoying billing increases. 🤪

➡️ PRINCIPLE #2: Make sure your online business platform is portable.

When you want to leave a third-party platform, it is often NOT easy. For instance, if you’re using ActiveCampaign and you want to move elsewhere, moving your email list is the easy part. But, those automations? You have to re-build every single one of them from scratch.

I believe in setting up your online business platform so that it is relatively easily portable. I can MOVE my WordPress site anywhere I please – anytime. The services I connect it to (such as outgoing email SMTP service) are interchangeable.

➡️ PRINCIPLE #3: Don’t rely on a third-party service without an exit ramp and plug-and-play alternative.

For any third-party services you use, do you have a fallback plan?

For instance, if you’re on ActiveCampaign, do you regularly back up your email list? Are your automations documented? When I used to use BeeHiiv, I used a webhook so that anytime somebody subscribed, it would simultaneously add them to FluentCRM, too. Then, I had my list in two spots. If BeeHiiv went away, I could immediately use FluentCRM without a hiccup.

The idea is that… for any third-party service you use, you have a plan B in case that service disappears.

➡️ PRINCIPLE #4: Ensure that you’re not trapped by a subscription.

Everybody is charging subscription fees these days. Nothing wrong with that. But, you don’t want to be trapped by it. And in the context of WordPress, this is why I speak up so loudly about plugins that trap you into subscriptions or else disable themselves.

We use WordPress so we OWN the thing. So, it completely defeats the point if we install a plugin that locks us out of our own stuff if we fail to renew the support license. Instead, your software should continue to work even if you cancel your subscription. You will lose support and updates, but nothing should be crippled.

Avoid Thrive Thrives, MemberMouse, MemberPress and others that operate this way.

➡️ PRINCIPLE #5: Always backup.

You never want a single point of failure in your business. You need to set up redundancy. This means site backups, email list backups, automation backups, video backups. You get the idea. 😇

➡️ PRINCIPLE #6: Focus on building assets you actually own.

When you’re building assets for your business, you want OWNED assets. Things you have sovereignty over.

You OWN your content (when you host it). You own your lead magnets, your email list, your website, your products. You own your community, as long as you host it yourself. This is all intellectual property which you own as assets.

You do NOT own your Youtube channel, your Facebook group, TikTok, Instagram, etc. An algorithm could take them away from you – anytime and unpredictably.

➡️ PRINCIPLE #7: Use services which respect your data ownership and privacy.

We’re all going to use third-party services. But, use the ones that respect your data ownership and privacy as much as is reasonable.

I don’t use Google services because they spy on everything and you’re nothing but a cog in their data collection machine. I don’t even use Apple cloud services much because, while they’re much better on privacy, they don’t make things very portable and their services don’t work well outside of the Apple ecosystem.

So, I use FastMail for email. I use Fathom Analytics or AnalyticsWP for web stats I control.

➡️ PRINCIPLE #8: Build financial sovereignty.

Money is financial energy and the life blood of the society we live in. And I think the money we generate in our businesses should be looked at in the same way we look at our site’s data. Too many outsource all of it to “big banks”. Or, to third-parties like Paypal which introduce a singe point of failure.

I prefer smaller, local banks. I don’t let a lot of money stack up in Paypal. I keep financial reserves. I don’t keep everything in the bank. And lastly, the key here is…

Make more than you spend. And the focus should be on making more money, not necessarily just cost cutting. You win when you focus on growth, not shrinkage.

Concierge Client Update

A Few Quick Updates

Obviously, last week was a pretty abbreviated week due to the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US. So, I know there are more than usual pending tasks sitting there for me inside of Basecamp. 😇 No worries… I will be leaning into those things this week and playing catch-up.

The big hosting migration is still in progress. As of right now, I still have 30 sites sitting on Rocket yet to be migrated. Everybody else is on the new setup.

The new hosting setup is lookin’ good, too! I just have a former client of mine re-join Concierge due to a ton of hassle with her host (Rapyd). Given what people pay for Rapyd hosting, you would think it would be bulletproof, but no… she was having constant database problems because her site’s memory was so limited. So, I moved her BuddyBoss community over to Concierge and…. it purrs like a kitten. 🐈‍⬛

The good thing about this new setup, too, is that I can customize and tailor it specifically to the needs of Concierge. It is not a “one size fits all” solution like Rocket…. or subject to stupid decisions that serve other companies (like what I’ve seen with Rapyd’s recent changes). All I need to think about it…. my clients. 😍

WordPress News & Updates

FluentCommunity Developer Docs. FluentCommunity now has official developer documentation. It documents the database setup, the API, the hooks… everything. Obviously, this is mostly relevant to the nerds among us, but this means great things for everybody. It means greater flexibility to create custom integrations and a more open platform in general.

Abobe Acquired SEMRush. The SEO world felt the ripple of the news that SEMRush has been acquired by Adobe for $1.9 billion. SEMRush has been a standard-bearer in the SEO space for a long time. While I don’t use it (nor any SEO tool, for that matter), I know I would be concerned about this one because… frankly, I don’t like Adobe very much. Once this transaction is completed, good luck canceling your SEMRush subscription. IYKYK. 🤪

AI Clone Of The Plugin Repository. Amadeu Arderiu posted on X how they created a full clone of the WordPress plugin repository and made it so that you could search it using AI. Could be rather handy, seeing as you can search it using natural language. It even has comparisons and sorting built into it.

FluentBooking 1.1. FluentBooking has been updated to version 1.10. The two big announcements from this one are FluentCart integration (for selling your appointments) and an actual embed code for calendar embedding (rather than just the shortcode or block). I need to test this, but it looks like this may even enable you to embed your FluentBooking calendar onto non-WordPress sites. Click here for the full announcement.

Custom Document Folder. Came across this little plugin on GitHub called Custom Document Folder. It enables you to organize files in your file system by file TYPE, rather than just the default structure of dates. For instance, if you want all PDFs uploaded into a separate folder, you can have them all uploaded to /wp-content/uploads/pdf/. Interesting.

WP Gems. A new project called WP Gems has launched… with the goal to help surface highly rated plugins with low install counts. In other words, hidden gems. It comes out in daily editions. Looks like a cool resource. Just don’t go on an install spree and create a frankenstein site!

How Digital Sovereignty Is Built Into Concierge

I wanted to use this issue of the newsletter to review this very important topic of digital sovereignty. As I said, it is one of my core principles and that also means it is baked into how I have structured Concierge.

See, Concierge clients are trusting me to handle the “tech stuff” for their WordPress websites. And most of them choose to host with me as well. And the same principles apply here. I don’t want to be THEIR single point of failure either.

So, here’s some of the stuff I have done to introduce redundancy and sovereignty in Concierge…

• I use a robust backup strategy for client sites, with BlogVault in the lead, but also backups to multiple locations (even including my own office here in Florida). Client sites are literally backed up to 6 different locations.
• While clients can ultimately choose any tools they wish, my bias is always toward data sovereignty for the client. For instance, FluentCRM is my go-to for email lists because I know that email list is safe and portable for the client.
• I evaluate every tool of the Concierge Toolkit for sovereignty. Plugins that don’t respect that will never be a part of the Toolkit. I will NEVER use any tool on a client’s site that traps that client into that tool.
• For web stats, I chose to use Fathom Analytics because it respects the client’s data. I also use AnalyticsWP and I’m looking into an open source tool called Umami. Thing is, even with Umami self-hosted, I’m not seeing export options. Which, if true, means I won’t use it. I want my clients’s stats to be PORTABLE, even if the client leaves Concierge. Even with Fathom Analytics, I can export stats to a CSV file and hand it to the client if they want it. If I can’t do that, I won’t use the service.
• In client site profiles in your account, you can see the setup of your website hosted with Concierge. And you can even export it to a downloadable PDF called an “operating manual” so you have a record of where things are.
• In that manual and in the client documentation, I’ve documented for clients how they can move their websites to another web host without any involvement by me. This is my “get hit by a bus” plan, so my clients always have an escape hatch from Concierge that they could pull and I could be completely MIA. Let’s hope that one doesn’t happen. 🤪

I treat every single website in Concierge as if it were my own. Data sovereignty is baked into every decision I make in how Concierge is setup. I have no interest in my clients becoming fully dependent on me. On the contrary, I set things up precisely so they’re not.