buzzbishop
on
When you die you become more famous. Just ask any starving artist whose adoring public pushes up the price of their pieces once they realize the supply line gets cut off.
Derek K Miller was a blogger from Vancouver who died earlier this month. While he had a passionate and loyal fan base, news of his death sent his site metrics skyward. He had pre-written a piece to be posted after he died, and went his last post went online after his death, traffic spiked with more than 8 million visitors.
Not bad for a humble marine biologist and podcast afficionado.
The intriguing part about Derek’s story is that he advocated for people to create a digital legacy. When we plan our wills we make sure the financials and mementos are passed through the family, but what about our passwords and content?
That so-called digital legacy is something Derek had been planning soon after his diagnosis.
“If I were to disappear today, how long would those last?,” he told the CBC prorgam Spark in 2008. “Well, they’d last until the next bill comes up, and unless I’ve told somebody how to maintain this, it’s going to disappear.”
Derek was aware there needed to be a scenario where the keys to your digital legacy are kept in a safety deposit box. At the appropriate time, the passwords, backup files, final posts, web host information and further instructions would be passed on to a digital executor to maintain.
One reason Derek was passionate about his digital legacy, is the lack of one his grandfather left behind. He died after the war in Germany and Derek had seen just 2 photos of him, and knew little else.
“It would be nice if there was more,” he said on the show. “I have a lot more, and I’d like it to stick around.”
Derek's blog buckled under the traffic immediately after his death, but it is back up and will remain up for a very long time.
If you have yet to read The Last Post, give yourself 10 minutes and do it. It’s a great read.
catch the buzz ... pass it on.
[photo taken from Penmachine's Flickr stream]
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