Category Archives: Daily pages

Why would I want to write for fun? Well, there are a host of reasons, partly because this will become a practice field for developing my more ‘professional’ writing on my other blogs, partly just because it is fun, partly as an exercise in slowing down (I plan to write all these entries in longhand before transcribing them here)… When I was in SW France in April 2013, I was idling around Bergerac when I just happened upon a couple (Sean M Madden and Mufida Kassalias) who were touting a 2 day course in “Writing from the Heart”. It was only about 20 minutes’ away from where I was staying, so I signed up (why not?) and was enthralled with what came out of my head onto paper given some very simple prompts. It was an wonderful two days and set me off on this trail of discovery, I hope you will be happy to journey with me – I’m not seeking approval or anything but do promise to read any comments you want to make.

If you would like to have your writing instincts/ambitions prompted in a gentle supportive way, then Sean and Mufida could be for you – they are running a series of workshops in the UK. Go on, have a look…

I used to be an early adopter – I had one of the very first personal computers in our company, I was a very early user of e-mail (before the Internet was widely heard of), I got a mobile phone before most people and using the technology of the times (I had a laptop and technology that would push my phone calls to wherever I was sitting at the time!) I was remote working before the phrase was even invented.

Now however I find it very rare that I lust after the latest piece of technology. What has happened? I suppose I could have two reasons. Firstly that it was easier to be an early adopter when my employer paid the not insignificant sums necessary to acquire early versions of technology but secondly that it seems less and less frequent that we get real ground breaking paradigm shifters in the way that the personal computer and the mobile phone were.

I have resisted getting an iPhone, for instance, because nobody has managed to show me how they help in a way that can not be done using my old technology phone and my laptop. Having just been gifted and old iPhone3 (note that old in this context means about 24 months) I am still to see what all the fuss is about. If it had a 20 megapixel camera, or a good voice recognition system then maybe I would jump.

We may however be on the verge of the next revolution. I have been using voice recognition software on my laptop for about the last 15 years and it is definitely getting better. However it is still a little clunky and a system that will recognise fractured grammar and colloquialisms as well as accents will wipe the floor and completely transform computing in all its manifestations. The possibility of asking my phone or PC to “send a note to Sally and ask her what  time the meeting about bees is on Friday night” and having the machine recognise all of that and take appropriate action (I don’t really mind if it sends a txt, a msg, an email or eve a voice message) WILL encourage me to jump. Is Siri the answer?