Friday, February 01, 2013

Revisited, Revised, Remixed and Remastered


I am working on an archival copy of Thoughtport using Blurb.com’s ‘print your blog as a hardback book’ service. Contrary to my usual digital-first stance, I have now become interested in seeing what my blog will be like as a physical artifact. What will the heft and weight of eight year’s worth of writing be like when it is paper in my hands? Also, I still find it quite remarkable that it is now technically feasible and cost-effective to have a single copy of a book printed for our home bookshelf.

That is why I have not posted any new content here since October. What I thought would be a quick little side project has expanded in scope somewhat. In addition to correcting numerous typos and other small errors in all of my posted content, I had to make decisions about the motley crew of abandoned blog posts, false starts and sundry misfires I had accumulated within the Blogger CMS over the years. Every time I logged into Blogger they were always there: unfinished business.

I deleted around forty draft posts straight away. Many of those were little more than notes: just the initial question that sparked the post idea and a few bullet points in response. While other drafts had been worked up to a basic level, their content was too time-specific and now out of date to warrant any further consideration and writing. After editing out as many as I could I was left with three or four I could progress to a publishable state.

After working through those few from the CMS that were in a state worth finishing I then decided (project-creep, oh-project-creep) to embark on a similar delete-or-rescue operation on all of the other draft posts I had squirrelled away in Google Docs, Drafts.app, Simplenote and other locations outside of Blogger. I set the end of 2012 as my cut-off date for orphaned content. Then I would start 2013 with a completely blank slate. There would be no unfinished drafts loitering around. (Surely my writing in 2013 would benefit from a completely forward-looking stance...)

In the end I chose to only complete nine dormant posts: in a varied mix of subjects and styles of posting. After some deliberation I decided it was most appropriate to backdate each to their original time-stamps, so they appear within the context of my thinking at their time of instigation. As a result they will not appear in the usual new post slot at the top of the reverse chronology stack here on the home page. So to aid discovery and note their publication, I have listed them here. I thought these nine were worth completing, hopefully you will enjoy reading them.

Inviolate Album Cover Designs And Mutable Book Cover Designs – June 2007
The oldest draft post I rescued. From a 2013 perspective, it now seems quaintly archaic to have written about book cover and album cover designs, as their signification value is increasingly trending downwards in this time of Spotify and Kindles.

Flexible Branding and Brand Governance — June 2008
One of my more weighty ‘Theory Of Branding’ essays, reconstructed from the skeleton of an long-dormant article I was originally writing for magazine publication. I have added this one straight into my Featured Posts list in the sidebar.

Give a Man a Hammer — January 2009
A short piece about our mental blinkers.

Notes on the Wim Crowel Retrospective — June 2011.
Observations on essential Dutch corporate identity work from the sixties and seventies.

#whowhatwherenow? — December 2011
Just how many virtual inboxes can we tolerate?

Déjà-Vu Conversations — April 2012
Social media is changing the ways we converse in real life.

Free Labour and the Pool of Attention — April 2012
Initial thoughts and responses to some fascinating ideas about our individual contributions to the bottom lines of the social media mega-corporations.

Anaesthetised — May 2012
One of the most self-critical posts I have written. Boy did I ever sit on this one for ages before finding the fortitude to publish it.

Facebook URLs In Marketing Communications — August 2012
Some companies are beginning to favour social media web addresses over of their corporate websites in advertising and marketing.

Instagram And The Startup Branding Conundrum — October 2012
The most recent draft I had started before deciding on my blog review and clear-out.

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