Neil just sent me a copy of the very lovely w+k book of 2006. Which made me realise one of those little sideline advantages of blogging which I suspect will get more important over time; the sense that a blog is a handy, ready-made, personal corporate archive. And that's as important for businesses as it is for everyone else. I've worked on books and things like this before, companies are always wanting to do them and they're always a nightmare. No-one can remember when things happened, no-one knows where the pictures of the company picnic went, or who joined when, or where all the reviews of the ads went. Of course, if you're sticking all this stuff on the blog as you go, there it all is. Organised nicely by date. Brilliant. (I bet it was still a nightmare though, it is w+k after all, Neil?)
Russell, I think your right about a personal corporate archive, but another aspect of this thought occurred to me recently.
I was talking to the creative director of a design company who wanted to know more about blogging.
I told him that in a sense, his clients had been blogging for donkey's years, but hadn't realised it
The main difference being that instead of blogging on a daily or weekly basis, they chose to blog annually.
It was talking of course about the creation and production of Annual Reports, because in a sense, I think they are blogs in slow motion.
Hopefully, the designer, saw blogs in a new light, 'got it' and might be a bit more enthusiastic, (if not evangelical), engaging and experimenting with the new opportunities of Web 2.0 .
Posted by: Mike | January 29, 2007 at 06:00 PM
As a side note, and somewhat randomly: Thanks.
Your photo of W+K's book cover cleared up what the strange pigeon-related pavement markings I saw on the way home a few weeks ago were all about:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aderowbotham/349127069/
Posted by: ade | January 30, 2007 at 12:35 PM
Weird - I was thinking about something like this last night in bed. [Yes I know. I'm ill - I mean I've got a cold and went to bed early, which is why my mind was wandering - o nevermind]
Anyway, I was thinking - there's probably a business idea in this.
As in - you know how those feeder businesses like qoop print books of your flickr pics - I bet loads of bloggers wouldn't mind a book version of, say, a year of posts.
For me it was more about the I want to write a book fantasy and then thinking ooo that seems a bit hard I wish I could just publish the last year of TIGS.
My mate Lou suggested that blog snippets would make good toilet reading.
I assume she wasn't commenting on the quality of my writing in some way.
Posted by: Faris | January 31, 2007 at 12:14 PM
It is a good idea.
But one that exists already - http://www.blurb.com/
Posted by: Lebowski | January 31, 2007 at 12:57 PM
This keeps happening to me! People keep stealing my ideas before I have them!
However, I guess of all people I can't really complain, considering the title of my blog and that.
This is awesome. Am I vain enought to get a TIGS book made?
O I think so. Cheers Simon.
Posted by: Faris | January 31, 2007 at 03:21 PM
The blog as a personal archive is interesting because I would say that, for someone who puts a lot of work into it, a blog is more like the kind of very flash diary you would have loved as a kid, with space to write your passport number and loads of extra facts in it like sunset times and the distance in miles from Inverness to Towcester.
I was wondering how many bloggers actually kept a diary when they were younger? Mainly because someone where I work is developing a (not particularly original)tv show which is looking at the diary as a window into an individual's life and times.
But I think a more interesting area is whether a blog is a better window into someobody's life and times than an old handwritten volume.
A lot of the good detail of history comes from diaries but when it comes to the history of the late20th/21st century will we get more from blogs? Also the word 'blog' is like catnip to tv execs and they are far more likely to commission a programme with a new word in it.
How would people feel about opening their diaries to the world the way they do with their blog? This is the sort of request we'd put out in the back of the Radio Times, but I wonder if anyone would be interested in taking part in a possible future programme?
Posted by: Rich | January 31, 2007 at 05:26 PM
Rich, I was an obsessive diary writer through my teens. I have to say it's extremely unlikely I would ever open my diaries to the world while I'm alive.
Blogging is very different (for me at least). I never forget that anyone could read it and the content is always edited with this in mind.
My diary writing was primarily motivated by life archiving, but over time I came to appreciate it as a channel for self expression and working through feelings. I started blogging because I fancied recording fleeting thoughts and observations, life archiving is a happy side-effect.
Posted by: Helen | January 31, 2007 at 07:37 PM
Glad you liked the book, Russ. Unfortunately, at W+K it's never quite as simple as just doing a print version of the blog. But at least we didn't approach every spread as if it were a DPS for Nike. One thing that's different about book as archive as opposed to blog as ongoing record is that, in retrospect in the book you can reveal things that were confidential at the time they appeared on the blog, like the fact that we were pitching for Nokia.
Posted by: neil | February 02, 2007 at 03:32 PM