A Digital Day Book

Long ago, businesses would keep a log of daily minutiae but we don’t have that today. We want to make one because recording our own history will benefit future colleagues.

About the project

It’s a combination of two things:

  1. Research results on our 100-year plan – There’s an early theme around mentorship and documentation. Colleagues who haven’t been born yet will need to access and absorb the history of the organisation. That’s going to be impossible if we don’t archive our digital work.
  2. Continuation of a 2014 research project with Het Nieuw Instituut about architects MVRDV in Rotterdam. Pondering how we might “view corporate [digital] archives through a feeling of human activity and depth, and not just a set of static documents.”

“Companies today don’t have a filing cabinet with all the things to be kept. They use hundreds or thousands of additional services owned by other people to keep their most precious information. That’s a big hairy problem.”

-> The need for human intervention: Annet Dekker in conversation with George Oates

Did we mention we’ll be hiring an archivist soon?

Progress Report: The Data Lifeboat viewer, circa 2024

See what you get when you download a prototype Data Lifeboat.

A Phoenix in Paris: Data Lifeboats for User-Generated Histories

The case for citizen-driven collections in enhancing our understanding of contemporary events.

Progress Report: Creating a Data Lifeboat circa 2024

Check out our prototype workflow for creating a Data Lifeboat.