We all record so much on Facebook, on Google, on Twitter, on Instagram and on and on.
Many people are now adding health information through apps like RunKeeper and gadgets like Fitbit and Nike Fuelband.
All of this creates a huge amount of data that computers can understand but is a fog to us.
Between Timelines, Check Ins and Updates, we lose the sense of our own life.
Humanity
What we have lost is the humanity of information.Many companies like to speak of personalisation through Big Data and Algorithms.
That's clearly not personal - it's mechanical. A coded shadow of you.
What we use is humans.
We think writers, artists and biographers are undervalued in society.
They are the real builders of social connections.
It is filtering life experience through art that creates sense. Not through digital code.
Biography
The original idea of Boswellbeing is a blog post. There's a copy on this site here.It's the simple idea that biography is a way of extracting sense from the digital fog.
Not through an Algorithm but through people.
Biography means we create human narrative with emotional meaning.
Not just graphs, maps and pictures.
There have been many great biographers from Classical times to today.
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| James Boswell - image from Wikipedia |
He not merely wrote, he was part of the life. Great biography is connected between people.
Join Us
What it needs is to test the idea.
We're looking for people to help code the interface for personal data collection (these must be clearly secure and private for confidentiality) and people to write the weekly biographies.
It is a link of digital and cultural skills.
Its is about data and empathy.
If that sounds like your place, contact us.
Contact us by Twitter @boswellbeing or email.
