Social Media's Eternal Flame
Imagine that you've just been diagnosed with a terminal disease and you're given six months to a year to live. What would you do? The question itself is kind of a cliche, people don't want to think about it, and most of us that aren't facing the gravity of the situation for real probably can't say for certain.
Randy Pausch was a professor who, facing that situation, left behind a lecture and a book full of his own inspiration and wisdom. And he has (and will continue to) inspire millions of people posthumously.
Mr. Pausch was a professor and in a position of influence, so he got a book deal. What about the rest of us?
Here's a pretty nutty idea: with Blogger, you can write a bunch of blog posts all at once and then stagger their releases by setting future release dates. And you can feed these into social media, like Facebook and Twitter. Why not write 120 blog posts sharing your wisdom or stories that have inspired you during your life, create a Facebook page for yourself, and then release one of them per month for the next ten years after you're gone?
It's more than a little unsettling to consider the prospect of one of your friends, stricken with cancer, actually doing this. Death isn't supposed to have a presence on Facebook. I could even imagine someone using this idea to time-release a series of suicide notes before they offed themselves.
But doing this is a means of persevering in spite of a death, however untimely and unfortunate that death might be. Again, I don't know what someone facing a terminal disease is thinking or feeling, and I wouldn't try to guess. But I think it has the potential to offer those people some hope.
The fact that technology, social networks, and RSS feeds give people the capacity to reach out and touch people, even after they're gone, has implications that I think will start to manifest themselves more as the generations using them start getting older.
Randy Pausch was a professor who, facing that situation, left behind a lecture and a book full of his own inspiration and wisdom. And he has (and will continue to) inspire millions of people posthumously.
Mr. Pausch was a professor and in a position of influence, so he got a book deal. What about the rest of us?
Here's a pretty nutty idea: with Blogger, you can write a bunch of blog posts all at once and then stagger their releases by setting future release dates. And you can feed these into social media, like Facebook and Twitter. Why not write 120 blog posts sharing your wisdom or stories that have inspired you during your life, create a Facebook page for yourself, and then release one of them per month for the next ten years after you're gone?
It's more than a little unsettling to consider the prospect of one of your friends, stricken with cancer, actually doing this. Death isn't supposed to have a presence on Facebook. I could even imagine someone using this idea to time-release a series of suicide notes before they offed themselves.
But doing this is a means of persevering in spite of a death, however untimely and unfortunate that death might be. Again, I don't know what someone facing a terminal disease is thinking or feeling, and I wouldn't try to guess. But I think it has the potential to offer those people some hope.
The fact that technology, social networks, and RSS feeds give people the capacity to reach out and touch people, even after they're gone, has implications that I think will start to manifest themselves more as the generations using them start getting older.