Legacy MattersWalt Mossberg, the creator of the weekly Personal Technology editor at the Wall Street Journal, writes so well that I would rather read him than anyone else on new technology. He writes about technology in plain English that I can understand and doesn't treat me, the reader, like a simpleton. Last week, he wrote about Telling Stories in Photo Programs that Help you Share Pictures But Need Improvement
I believe everyone should create their own personal legacy for their families and the future--whether it's an ethical will, life lessons learned, personal memoirs or a video biography. People today are proud of their lives -what they've accomplished, what they've seen and experienced, the choices they made. Shoshanna Zuboff, author of The Support Economy, calls today's boomers "psychologically individuated" and proud of it. They have made the most of the potential of their lives. Why not celebrate it? Why shouldn't boomers who have believed in individuality throughout their lives create personal legacy archives to show what their lives meant to them. Why wait for the funeral and the eulogy?
Boomers after all, will have the time to reflect on that meaning, given that they will live on for 30-40 years and we now have the tools to create personal digital archives. There are blogs, digital photos, videos, and iTunes -the music of your life you can weave into anything. Boomers too are the connection between their parents, the WW2 generation, and their children who are totally digital.
Apple, of course, is leading the way and creating the best tools for iLife. If Microsoft dominates the tools needed for office life, Apple surely dominates the tools for the rest of your life with GarageBand to make your own music, iTunes to organize your music, iPhoto to sort and edit photos, iMovie to edit your own video and iDVD to create your own DVD.
Now we are seeing the first of the tools to create Personal Legacies. Telling Stories is a software program available for $50 at www.tellingstories.com. The program helps you organize your photos and music and videos to tell the story of your life or your parents. Any major life event can be celebrated with a multimedia commemoration. And so you create your own memoirs, chapter by chapter.
Posted by Jill Fallon at May 21, 2004 6:45 PM | Permalink