As a child, my sister and I would pester our parents for stories of when they were young. My parents narratives about their childhood evoked a sense of wonder that I hope never to lose, and when I think back to those anecdotes I have this wonderful sepia picture of what things must have been like.
My parents have recently been writing to us with recollections of their youth, partly to help us understand them better and partly because my father at least seems to enjoy the exercise and mental discipline of cataloguing these things. It’s wonderful for us to get a sense of our parents beyond our every day experience of them.
And so I wonder whether I should put down my childhood memories for Emily. As lives go, mine is one of tremendous consequence to me and my loved ones, but little to the world at large, but can’t help but feel that attempting to capture some kind of narrative beyond this brain-hopping bloggery would be a useful thing to do.
Has anyone else had a go at a private autobiography / journal for future generations?
Met the most extraordinary plumber the other day, thanks to a recommendation from our NCT friends (and Checkatrade, in turn). Steve not only managed to fix our hot water issue quickly and easily with a bit of Macgyvery, he was amazingly articulate about what the issue was in easily comprehensible English… and when he brought out his iPad to take our details for his home-made CRM and invoicing system I was predictably impressed. He described how the specific database package had billed itself as nearly ‘uncrackable’ and explained it was probably slow because a few of his mates were having a go at testing the claim (!!). He’s also possibly the only plumber in the world to use the phrase “I’m a Mac and Linux man, I hate Windows.â€
It’s a whole new world we live in where your plumber has a set of friends who are some kind of cyber-fiends, but that – evidently – is what living in suburban Hampshire is all about.
Anyway, would massively recommend him, and thanks to Shashank, Andrea, Pete and Louise for the recommendation.
Chris (and Tom and Damian) came to visit this weekend, and as is inevitable when {heavy irony} social media gurus {/heavy irony} come together, we brainstormed new business concepts.
Well, maybe not entirely new, but ‘Baby Social Media Management’ seemed a concept worth exploring, so we checked if http://emi.ly was available (it wasn’t, already registered to some doting Bavarian dad, apparently) and considered other stratagems for maximising my 7-month-old daughter’s social graph. Knowem seems particularly well named for my daughter’s use…
As part of this discussion, Chris pointed me at this case study – which, needless to say, is dynamic, interactive, synergistic, integrated social media success.
Pink pony integrated marketing campaign ftw
I’m – believe it or not – beginning to get bored of the endless shuffle of stuff. The computer’s died, get a new one, the new iPhone weighs 15g less, get a new one, etc. It’s astonishing that some industries – I’m looking at you, Gillette – actually deliberately engineer products to fail sooner than the materials would require just to turn a dime. Depressing, really.
My pipe dream? Commercialism-as-a-Service. It’s a bit like the Abel & Cole veg box but for, y’know, everything else. I will voluntarily give information about my needs and shopping requirements to whoever wants it (Google? Facebook? Duke it out amongst yourselves), and you can just sort it all out for me, preferably on some kind of sensible lease/upgrade cycle. Cash for CaaS. Good for the environment, good for me. We can have some kind of sensible iterative process to refine what you give me and we’ll negotiate a sensible rate for outgoings.
Where do I sign?
The Malaysian equivalent of knighthood is “Datuk†– which is also the Malay word for ‘progenitor’ or ‘ancestor’ according to Google Translate. In common parlance, my Dad received his Datukship five months ago when Emily was born. Technically my Mum too, although I’m not sure if Datukship is only for the men or not, but certainly they are both ‘progenitors’ of Emily!
Was amused when Aunty Maria pointed it out. Expect my folks will get the joke made to them a fair few more times in the weeks and months ahead!
Update: My Dad has not been ‘awarded’ a Datukship. He became a Datuk when Emily was born – i.e. he became a grandpa. Apparently this wasn’t clear!!
Armand David's personal weblog: dadhood, technology, running, media, food, stuff and nonsense.
