Making JGB: Documenting Life Through Blogging

I DID IT!!!! I remained calm & cool and managed to present my well prepared presentation with conviction to a group of 30ish Word Pressers at WordCamp Melbourne.

I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to avoid distractions or dedicate the right amount of time. I wasn’t sure I knew how to convey my thoughts and ideas. I didn’t think I could speak to a room of people feeling like my normally confident self. But I did it and it was only possible because I faced the challenge, dedicated and believed in myself.

My Prezi presentation was projected onto a screen behind me and I had cue cards to guide me through my talk. Surprisingly, I didn’t end up needing my cue cards, once I started talking I was able to let my thoughts flow smoothly. Here is a bird’s eye view of the Prezi-ntation I created:

Here is the Prezi-ntation itself:

Documenting Life Through Blogging on Prezi

Here I have taken screen captures from the Prezi-ntation and paired it with my speech notes so that you can follow through the presentation! Enjoy!What does documenting life refer to? Life can be documented in terms of history or in terms of individuality.

In terms of history, life documentation relates to an account of chronological existence.

3. Our life story has been recorded since the invention of writing (as far back as the 4^th Millenium BC). First we documented life with a picture writing system (hieroglyphs) on walls.

4. Then we evolved towards documenting life with the alphabetic system in books.

5. The printing press was eventually invented, making it possible to disseminate information through books all around the world, thereby making documentation of life available and accessible to the public.

Later, photography was invented, which made it possible to document life through images.
Then video cameras made it possible to capture and broadcast live life documentation.

Before the invention of the internet, we were in the know or able to find out what happened, say, in 1942 in Germany because such information is recorded and available to us in the public domain. There are pictures, videos and ample amounts of compiled writing available to tell us whatever it is we want to know about life history.

And so these very basic examples exist to show that life documentation has been used to tell the story of a ‘collective’ world history. We are aware of the history of the world because it is a form of life documentation that is made public.

8. In terms of individuals, life documentation relates to an account of personal existence.

Accounts of personal existence have also been recorded by individuals since the invention of writing. Journals and memoirs have been compiled detailing thoughts, feelings, perceptions and events of one’s personal life.

Unlike accounts of historical existence, we were not able to look up an individuals thoughts, personal pictures, videos, etc. Thus, there is no evidence of life documentation in terms of individuals before the invention of the internet.
Upon the invention of the printing press, only famous individuals were privy to having their memoirs and photos published and thus the autobiography was born.

Saint Augustine’s Confessions were written in 397 AD and are believed to be the first examples of autobiography.

Later, photo and video cameras made it possible to document important personal events (family gathering photos) and achievements (graduation videos).

These personal pictures and videos captured have remained private to individuals and their families. They are kept in homes, on bookshelves, in the forms of photo albums, diaries and labelled video tapes/DVDs.

In terms of history, life is documented in the public domain.

14. In terms of individuals, life is documented in the private domain.

(There is only one dominant exception to this rule: Celebrities. Celebrities are the only example of individual’s lives documented in the public domain.)

15. The advent of the internet and Web 2.0. has now changed the playing field and documentation of personal experience is now thrust into the public domain.

The invention of the internet has given users a voice and a public forum to express themselves within.

Before the internet, we used to live passively, in private, from the outside in – we internalized and then personalized third party messages which shaped our reality.

We used to look up to celebrities because their lives were readily accessible. We related to them on many levels by admiring their personalities, fashion statements, interests, etc. We internalized these things, personalized them and made them a part of our everyday life/reality.

17. After the invention of the internet, we now that we have a voice in the public domain, we live actively, from the inside out. What we make of ourselves is now projected into the internet using social media tools.

Instead of internalizing and reiterating what we look up to in celebrities, we are now projecting our own individuality: personalities, interests, skills, knowledge, etc.

18. Now that we have tools that allow us to live actively (take our own image and identity into action), we have the power to make ourselves: build and shape ourselves into the individuals idealize and want to become.

By using blogs and social media we can document our lives, project our personalities, share our interests, thoughts and goals. We can develop our skills, create opportunities, promote and shape ourselves into the individuals we idealize want to make ourselves into.

The important question this statement poses is: How can this be done? In order to convey how I came up with my methods of documenting and sharing, I feel I should share my personal experience of life documentation.

- I have been documenting and projecting my life online for a few years now.

- At first, I used Facebook and Twitter. Updated about everyday life, events I was attending, and shared pictures with friends. In university, I was the ‘camera girl’ who captured moments from our weekends of university partying antics. Every weekend I would post upwards of 200 pictures and then would watch as all my friends flocked to my page to tag themselves and comment. I took a lot of pride in maintaining this social hub for me and my friends to connect within.

- I got into music sharing and started embedding music into FB with (Imeem) so that friends could click to hear what I was listening to and enjoying. I really loved knowing that I could post something that someone could click on and listen to in the same moment as I was enjoying it.

- Then I started posting all the articles and sites I was coming across online and I really enjoyed the response I was getting – people were suddenly starting conversations with me about the things I was listening to and reading about.

- From there, my obsession with sharing things grew. I started posting every time I was reading a book, watching a movie or a show and I even started sharing what I was eating.

- Then all of a sudden I got passive aggressive comments from people angered by my activity taking over their entire feeds and I noticed my friend count dropping on a daily basis.

- I completely sympathise that someone with 100 friends would be very frustrated to log on and see nothing but my posts in their feed. Since my intentions were to share things with people who were interested in coming across them, I realized that FB wasn’t the medium I needed for the type of sharing I was becoming obsessed with.

- From that point on, I built a basic blog and moved my incessant updating there. But my obsession kept growing. I’ve always been the type of person who loves information and whenever I uncover something I find interesting, I feel the need to spread the word about it. I find value in sharing.

- I then realized that I was consistently posting about specific topics of personal interest, such as film, music, fitness, books, articles, web findings, social media, web 2.0., the internet, cooking, travel and more. All these topics related to my individual interests, my passions, my skills and my general knowledge base.

- And so I’d inadvertently created a hub that seemed to be documenting all aspects JGB. In realizing this, I decided to take it a step further.

- I started blogging about thoughts and ideas that came to mind, about the everyday tasks I was taking on, about the goals I was setting for myself, how I was managing my time.

- Seeing as FB/Twitter are my only source of ‘audience’, I posted about my blog entries every now and then to remind people to check out the content, if interested. I’ve always intended to market my blog but still haven’t gotten around to it since I have been satisfied with the response I receive from friends and family.

- Then I started to get feedback.

- One night I bumped into an old acquaintance, someone I had met through a friend briefly only once and never had the chance to speak to again. He told me that he loved following my life, that he checked my page often to see what I was up to.

- I started to notice that people were bringing up subjects that I had written about, without wanting to mention that they’d been reading my blog. This gave me the opportunity to share great conversations about my favourite subjects and I even found myself getting to know the people I was engaging with more and more because we were able to connect on a personal level.

- Then there were people who weren’t afraid to admit to reading my blog. They would ask me about whether I was keeping up with the goals I’d set or whether I had figured out what was causing my allergies to flare up. They’d suggest remedies or share similar experience. There were even people who wanted to introduce me to friends who could help me with a project I was working on.

- All of a sudden, I realized that my personal hub was working to my advantage. It was helping me to engage in great conversation, it was helping me to network, it was creating opportunities (both anticipated and unanticipated), and it was even keeping me on point with my goals.

- Social media has developed quite a bit in the time that I began this blogging discovery process. I can now check in to all the music, movies, tv, etc through platforms like GetGlue, I can post pictures with Flickr, Instagram and Hipstamatic, I can track all my great web findings in my Google Reader and even post them to Tumblr. Best of all I can embed all these things into my blog.

- My blog introduces me to the world and serves as my productivity portal. Upon accessing my blog, readers get a sense of my personality, interests, skills, knowledge, drives, goals, motivations, inspirations, etc. Because so much of myself is present on my blog, people get to know me over time as if we are conversing/spending one on one time together online.

- This means that even if I don’t see someone for a long period of time, we still keep track of one another and can pick up conversation over a number of topics and interests.

- By putting my goals into the public domain for all to see, I am making a commitment to keep on top of them. I know that once I have posted them people will ask me about them and hold me to them. I sometimes even put my goals online just so that people will encourage me to think and act towards them.

Over time I have come across various social media tools that I have customized to share different aspects of my life and interests.

Here are examples of how I, JGB, am showcasing my life using blogs and social media:

Life Sharing

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