Artist:Writer - Belfast | Dublin | London | New York - My online Commonplace Book - Tumblr is the new memory suitcase. This is where I snip, log and tag all my thoughts, readings, quotes, photos and interesting things I encounter on and offline. It is my own public facing library, hard-drive and Wikipedia. Writers used to have a ‘commonplace’ book where they logged all the special words and readings they encountered. Words, idioms, sentences and thoughts - I store these and will retrieve and use them in the future. Hemingway had a commonplace suitcase. He lost his. His wife left it on a train. Totally unrecoverable. Lost forever. We’re extra-lucky in this digital age having the tools we have. And Tumblr is my digital commonplace book. Check it out and let me know what you think. www.brianjohnspencer.com
We are singularly vulnerable if we kid ourselves that the rules of this technological revolution in news do not apply to us. If we are complacent, defensive and flat-footed, then we will be sunk. We will have let down our audiences and they will go elsewhere.
James Harding, WT Stead lecture, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speeches/2014/james-harding-wt-stead.html)