21 - 004 Adcard

 

Adcard was a product that ZigZag Digital Associates created in late 2017 but did not really try to market it until 2020. But with the loss of my business partner George Szubinski (Technical Director) in April 2020 we had to suddenly close it down. So unfortunately the  website (adcard.adcard.xyz) that the Adcards were hosted upon had to go since George looked after all these hosting aspects. So since April 2020 the Adcard product has just been lying dormant and to be honest I thought it would never be used again. With the demise of ZigZag I have concentrated on my DMB Publishing activities and it was whilst trying to sell books I decided to take a look again at Adcard. No longer hosted on our website  it had to reside on some free digital resource. So a proof of concept was undetaken to use freely available resources to delivery it rather than paid for website hosting services. So the first platform looked at was Google offering a variety of free applications including Google docs, Google blogspot and the Google slides applications. I like the software engineering undertaken by Google it being both reliable and pragmatic. But also possibly more significantly they offer and support excellent free services. The Google philosophy has embedded in it  the true academic innovative techie approach to building software that has fortunately been carried through from their founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The different applications you use being on the same platform do integrate easily without too may problems. This does set the Google platform apart from the other platforms. So for example I don't use Blogspot to write a blog. I really use it as a Content Management System (CMS) and if anybody chooses to access it as a blog then that is a bonus. Why? Because its the most efficient free tool on the internet for posting digital content.  Its User Experience (UX) is best I have ever used and its performance is exceptional. Well done Google and please don't change it. Its Cloud Computing at its best. But first some background to Adcard.

Adcard is what you could term "flash advertising" with it intended to be launched from within say a Social Media post looking to have a high visual impact upon the user. When launched it would completely take over the user's device screen essentially blotting out the Social Media User Experience (UX). It was intentionally aggressive and intrusive. Very in your face.  So when links to it were posted into Facebook Community sites, like you do, the Administrators quickly looked to delete and block it. They objected to it being too bold and obviously to it being advertising that they usually (and rightly) banned from their community sites.We brought Facebook Sponsored advertisements and embedded the link into these obviously without any objection from Facebook. But we always liked the concept of things being free so paying to have them distributed sort of defeated our main objective. It was found that when launched by a user Adcard did have a larger than normal impact on the user experience. But not one they always liked. In fact some really disliked it. Not a good policy if you are trying to sell them something. But it was an interesting experiement in a sort of visual social engineering context. It did certainly prove that users were getting conditioned to specific User Experiences (UX).  Do all the screens have to look like Facebook? We further enhanced Adcard adding links to YouTube videos that we made so they acted more like a "Commercial Break" that was outside the normal Social Media User Experience (UX). But this still had its critics. Its not good practice to take your users outside their comfort zone particularly if they are relaxed into a comfortable seat with a coffee beside them.  Ask Bruce Tognazzini author of the famous "Tog on Software Design" (1996) one of my treasures from the past. Users don't like surprises they only like to see what they expected to see. Using a software interface their brains are conditioned to anticipate whats coming next and if its different that causes them stress. The final ZigZag development step was to make Adcard what has come to be called a Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) . It was a mini-portable website contained within an Adcard. The idea was a mini-magazine all contained within an Adcard. But then development ceased in April 2020. 

The ZigZag Adcard was output in HTML5 format with it hosted by us on our own website.We looked to ensure it worked correctly in all the major browsers running on all the main hardware platforms. It was a solid reliable solution. Now unfortunately what I term the DMB Adcard lacks all this supporting infrastructure. Because of this it cannot be marketed and sold as a product. But this has not prevented me from experiementing with it. The plan one day when times and funds permit is to go back to the development of ZigZag Adcard.

So how could the DMB Adcard without being coded in HTML5 and hosted on a website work. The decision was made to experiment with other graphical file formats. This does create many problems for something you want to be generic. It certainly makes how it will display itself on a users device a little random depending upon their installed graphical engines. The configuration of each users device will determine its success or failure. Now its obviously not a good practice to stipulate to a user what he needs to install and configure on their own device to receive your advertisement that he does not want in the first place. So DMB Adcard has no future implemented this way. But I can experiment with it amongst friends and colleagues. (ie Linkedin users) until someone offers to fund the move back to HTML5.  It is by this experimentation that evolution takes place. It has the possibly of being platform centric rather than internet centric. So I await the offer from Apple, Google or Microsoft. Watch this space.          

So assuming you want to see my advert for my DMB Publishing Business Books. If not move on now. 

To use this link below download Google Slides App to your device for free. When the link launches remember to press the small triangle in the header bar and select "Present on this Device".

Please post a comment on it. Your feedback is appreciated

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WFgHXGeZsn7NUZFy84zGf7nUiwc6RlXDLCRBv34FP3E/edit?usp=sharing

The "Back" button when pressed has been hyperlinked to relaunch my page on Linkedin so you go back to where you came from on my page. Now not surprisingly this seems to work sometimes and not others . This does highlight many of the problems you can experience when you cross commercial platform boundaries. In this case leaving a Google Platform (ie Blogspot) to gain entry into a Microsoft Platform. (ie Linkedin). I will not go on here about all the problems associated with hyperlinking across the web. Take all year. Material for a later blog post. But just to say that Ted Nelson was so right and  if we had only listened to this genius when he said "Hypertext Goes Down a Wrong-Way Street" (1967). But nobody did listen so we have the current mess that needs sorting out sooner than later. 

21 - 003 eflow

eflow Cover

eflow Map

DMB Publishing has several clear objectives in terms of the software it recommends to its customers. It should be easy to install, easy to use and ideally be free. So in terms of the Business Process Management (BPM) and the use of flowcharting tools there was a need to develop a number of new concepts. Firstly it had to be workflow based and not heirarchical in design. Workflows, as the name suggests, "flow" across the business horizontally from function to function. There maybe some hierarchy in terms of the management and control of the work but the work itself flows horizontally through the organisation. Secondly it has to be usable on smartphones and tablets so it is totally accessible at all times at work and home. Thirdly it has to be easy to understand and use. It has to be a "go to" tool everybody in the organisation wants to use. Its use then sets a standard or pattern of work that everybody in organisation understands and to which they adhere. Welcome to "eflow".

So DMB Publishing sells a Workflow Mapping Methodology called eflow.

So "eflow Pattern" is the name of the map you make and display in eflow.

The methodology covers two key aspects of eflow. The design of the workflow paradigm itself and the system integration of the computer components needed to make eflow work.

The methodology is not just theoretical because it does deliver a real useable Business Process Management (BPM) solution. The methodology teaches an organisation how to implement eflow covering both the software components required but more significantly how this software needs to be configured. Unbeknown to you your organisation is likely to  already have all the software components required in daily use. When these are added to some free ones we will advise you about in the methodology it will allow you to have your own eflow and make your own "eflow Patterns".  

So why is eflow so different to the other Business Process Management (BPM) software products in the marketplace? One major difference is it is free apart from the purchase cost of the methodology. So there are no capital expenditure decisions to be made whilst the cost of the methodology can be funded as a revenue cost. The cost of experimenting with it can be very low. But maybe more significantly it presents business flowchart mapping in a very different accessible style. It is very easily understood and an attractive solution to both create and use. It has been deliberately designed to use bold colourful graphics to have a high visual impact on the user. It does not have the feel of the normal boring business flowchart mapping solutions.   

eflow is a workflow or pathway (if no work is undertaken) type of system. Workflow covers a start to end activity with all the steps undertaken presented step by step. But if necessary it also supports all the normal business decision making and flow branching. This branch can be to a new workflow. Or it could terminate the workflow. Or it could loop a workflow back to an earlier process step if required. Business logic can be embedded in eflow but in an unintrusive way. 

eflow offers a very simple intuitive User Experience (UX) based upon the common familiarity that people experience when using a London Underground Map to plan a journey. It makes minimal use of symbology. No complex flowchart mapping symbols to remember. The workflow lines are colour coded to represent different department functions or people roles. It has sequentially numbered process points (stations) along these lines. It can branch to other workflow maps. It can have embedded supporting Work Instructions (WI's) or Rule Instructions (RI's) aligned to the practices of the organisation. It can include visual and audio elements including image, photo, video, music and voice.It is capable of being fully hyperlinked to the internet. It can be made to be a full multi-media experience or operate as a simple linear chart format. 

So why can it do all these things? Well the methodology recommends the use of industry standard graphics packages which can vary in complexity (and price) in terms of the capabilities they can embed in the "eflow source file" . But this gives eflow the potential to offer simple charts up to full multimedia capabilities. Then once the "eflow source file" arrives on the users device (Smartphone, Tablet or PC) the local selected graphics engine will be used to generate the final User Experience (UX). These "eflow source files" can be based on a variety of different file standards both proprietary or open systems. Importantly eflow whilst displaying the User Experience (UX) can act as a hyperlinked internet portal displaying information from other relevant organisation websites or any websites across the internet. This allows eflow to act, using the latest jargon, as mini Electronic Publishing Platform (EPP) .  But whilst eflow can support complexity its ethos and essence has to be retaining simplicity. The objective of eflow is to "Keep it Simple".    

So why is eflow marketed by a publishing company and not a software company ? 

Well DMB Publishing is selling essentially a "How to do it....." service to you and nothing else. All the software you use will be owned by other software companies who either charge or offer it for free. DMB Publishing sells you the recipe (methodology) on how to put it all together. DMB Publishing has developed the methodology and techniques over many years keeping pace with all the technolgical changes. Originally DMB Publishing wrote and sold its own software packages to orginally support book publication. It has now evolved into what you could call a "system integrator" joining together software packages written by others to achieve specific focussed business objectives. With its sole source of revenue now to sell these recipes (methodologies) on how to undertake these unique integration projects  allowing you to achieve specific business objectives ideally for free. 

DMB Publishing technically monitors all the major platforms looking for integration opportunities preferably those offering the use of free components. Whilst preferring not to use cross platform components. But provided they comply with rigid open file standards this approach can be acceptable. The Google and Microsoft Platforms remain the key platforms used by DMB Publishing although other platforms maybe used when these two cannot provide the required function. Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and Adobe are some of the other key proprietary platforms. At the time Open Systems Platforms like Wordpress, Woocommerce, Drupal and Joomla are growing in popularity. These along with the Consumer to Consumer (C2C) platforms like Wix and Shopify who are also mounting their own focussed challenges. Navigating this maelstrom of unrelenting digital change looking for new opportunities keeps DMB Publishing very busy.   

DMB Publishing offers services in support of eflow through DMB Consulting. Although our preference is to avoid you having to incurr the high costs of consultancy. So the underlying approach is very simple requiring no more than basic IT Office Skills. (preferably using Microsoft). No programmer skills or advanced graphical skills required. But if you need face to face consultancy we can offer it but it costs. Be warned. We believe if you need consultancy we have failed and made it too complicated. Our objective is to "Keep it Simple".    

So enough of the background let us now run one on your device. 

Qualification

This is an incomplete sales demonstator created for a private company provider (CRC) to the National Probation Service in 2016. It does not represent the real processes being undertaken being only a "mock up" but it did include many real legal aspects to make it credible in the sales demonstration. The majority of the navigation options were not enabled. But some were enabled to illustrate the power of the eflow approach. For example press the  "Purple 04" box to see the use of Description, Practice, Process and Data. The power of eflow comes from being able to access all the processes in an organisation using simple process naming labels like "Purple 04". Organisations where eflow is very well established acquire their own language around using these process naming labels. So the qualification is it is incomplete.. So do not log any problems. Its just a sales demonstration not a complete system. 

Step  1    Pre Demonstration Preparation 

You need to load a graphics engine app on your device. In this case based upon the "eflow source file" being used in this demonstration it is recommended you locate the free Google Slides (Google LLC) in your app store and install it now before proceeding.  

Step 2    Click on this link below

eflow Sales - Probation Management V06 090221 - Google Slides

Step 3   Using the Slides Package

In the top menu bar press the triangle symbol and from the drop down menu press the "Present on this device" option. 

On the displayed eflow Cover press About and More for background information.

On the About page press Services and Books for more information.

Then press Go to launch the eflow Pattern. 

Red graphics mean navigation. So Arrows (not all enabled), Back and Home buttons are for navigation. 

Try the "Purple 04" box then press Practice, Process and Data to appreciate how the scope of eflow can be extended into the use of Work Instructions. (WI).

Disclaimer

Please note this is only a theoretical demonstration.It does not represent real processes. Many of the options are not enabled. It is intended as a demonstration only of eflow capabilities. It has had no involvement or approval from the National Probation Service or the CRC.

If you have any feedback on this demonstration please email dmbpublishing@gmail.com stating in the email title "Sales Demo - Probation Management V06 090221". 

Thank you. 

21 - 002 Photorealism

David Shepherd (1931 - 2017)

Three Old Gentleman of Savuti 

Oil Painting   

View at the Nature in Art Museum , Gloucester GL2 9PG.

Photorealism is a genre of art covering painting, drawing and other graphic media in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. It started as an art movement in America in the 1960’s. It evolved from Pop Art and is really a counter to Abstract Expressionism with an acceptance that the use of photographs as the basis for an artwork is acceptable. Although some parts of the art world were critical of the use of such photographic technology although since the 15^th Century artists had used various aids to support their final creation. Although photorealism is very different to the work of Edward Hopper ,who is categorised as a realist, they do generate similar emotions in the observer. Edward Hopper's work has always impressed me generating what I call a "mood" element. The British equivalent for photorealism would be David Shepherd who covered a variety of subjects. I have viewed his originals at an exhibition at the Art in Nature Museum , Gloucester where bringing my eyes right up close within inches of the canvas I was at his fine detailed brush strokes. The exhibution was of a number of his paintings but to my knowlege they only have one he donated as a permanent fixture. This attention to fine detail is what photrealism is all about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photorealism

So is DMB Publishing essentially being technology focussed interested in photorealism? Firstly I wanted to apply photorealism to English settings to capture the emotional feeling these settings stimulate in the observer. Secondly I wanted to do it differently in that I wanted to use a video zoom out to view the created artwork then to use Google Street View to go directly to the scene in the real world where the observer can then continue to explorer both the same painted scene and then continue to explore other areas around the painted scene. The whole visual activity would have a suitable backing music track. All this was to be included seamlessly in a single internet object. The idea was this whole package would then be a piece of artwork in itself. So this is a future project. But to give you a taster for this “experience” use the two links below one immediately after the other. It will take you to sunny California. 

https://twitter.com/currently4_20/status/1355155418390126592?s=21

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1844278,-119.1703572,3a,75y,304.65h,78.21t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sxNwT-e8YQOVxmnAm4s0QrA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

 

21 - 001 Painting Houses and Buildings

 

Water Colour Painting of a now demolished farm house at Kings Norton, Birmingham by Bill Bannister.

The paintings of houses and buildings have always been of interest to me no doubt due to me watching my father, Bill Bannister, spend many hours painting his watercolours on the living room dining table. Many of these paintings, like the one above were of buildings, particularly the older timber framed buildings. He had been a carpenter by trade apprenticed in carpentry and joinery through a company that fitted out public houses. Although highly skilled he always qualified any conversation with the fact he was not a Cabinet Maker which was considered the pinnacle of the wood working profession. His best mate Eric, who lived in Yorkshire, was a Cabinet Maker by trade and he always considered his wood working skills far superior to his own. Bill died in 1995 well before artists looked to publish their works on the internet using apps like Instagram as their go to site to share their artwork. 

Here we just want to look at some artists who specialise in painting houses on a commission basis. They were included in an article by Lisa Grainer published in The Times on Saturday 16^th May 2020. I have just come across this whilst searching through my “Newspaper Cuttings” filing system which consists of labelled Document Wallets stored in a Filing Cabinet. I have decided to make this a post because with all the internet links stored below it can become a really relaxing way of viewing these artist's work. That is provided the links still exist. But firstly we start with the website for the Society of Architectural Illustrators.

www.sai.org.uk

Now the artists featured in the article. 

Susie Lidstone is Farnham based and likes watercolours

www.susielidstone.com

Claire Henley is Stratford-upon-Avon based but likes Devon and Cornwall

www.clairehenleyart.co.uk

Max Kerly is Epsom based like working in black liner pen

www.maxkerly.co.uk

Minty Sainsbury is London based and an Instragram star works in pencil

www.mintysainsbury.com

Claire Brierly will do a painting from a photograph

www.claire-brierley.co.uk

Michael Wallner prints a photo on aluminium then adding colour

www.michaelwallner.co.uk

Anna-Louise Felstead painted in motor racing pits including vintage cars

www.alfelstead.com

Liam O’Farrell based in Somerset looks to capture people and their daily life

www.liamofarrell.com

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving a Digital Legacy

 

In Memory of George Szubinski (1946 - 2020) 

One defining memory I have is being at the local Council rubbish tip one day and whilst I was about to dump my rubbish into the skip I noticed a pile of photo albums, celebration cards, invitations and letters blowing about in the wind. I decided to look through the pile and it was all the documents relating to someone’s life. Photographs of family holidays, wedding invitations, birthday cards, Christmas cards and hand written personal letters. The remains of a whole life just dumped to go to land fill. Could there have been any friends or relatives that would have appreciated these documents? Being physical items the storage of these items may have been a problem for remaining relatives. Just being scattered they lacked any structure or chronology. Chronology being the arrangement of the documents in their order of occurrence thus providing a proper sequence of past events. Even relatives and friends may have found it difficult to create this chronology. In my own life trying to remember events over the years can be very difficult. Fortunately I have been an enthusiastic diarist and documenter but even I can struggle to pin down an event.

Now step forward to me working in 2017 with my good friend and business partner called George Szubinski in an enterprise we called ZigZag Digital Associates. We created and developed software products. Now unfortunately George had tragically lost his son, James Jerzy Szubinski, in 2007 and he had put a lot of effort into the creation of a digital memorial. George wanted to preserve James life digitally so he could revisit his life events and his friends and family could also revisit them. It was about bringing James as much back to life as possible. George came up with many ideas to brand this concept including “OurStories” and “TIM” for “This is Me.” The concept was to have stored every digital artefact from someone’s life in a chronological sequence. It included photographs, letters, emails, social media posts, video and audio all stored precisely by the time and date of creation. In fact the basic design was established and we experimented with some of the component parts including the start of a written biography by George on his early life.

Then the unthinkable happened. George died of Covid -19 in April 2020. If only we had put in place these ideas using George as the prototype we could now have an excellent digital memorial to George. This started me off on some investigative work to see what could be pieced together as a digital memorial to George. Could I build up a digital facsimile (replica, likeness, copy) of George Szubinski? What digital traces had George left over the internet that could be accessed to rebuild him as a digital cyborg.

In fact his Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts provided excellent chronological content that in viewing them allowed you to re-experience George’s personality. The “posts” allowed you to track his consciousness as he moved from experience to experience and subject to subject. Even written engagements, not always friendly, with others brought out more of his personality. George came alive again through Social Media.

So below is the opportunity for you to meet George Szubinski based upon these Social Media accounts. But what is really sad is we had formulated through “TIM” how we could aggregate all these scattered materials into one centralised digital object that you could use to meet George again.

Now DMB Publishing has an objective to try and continue the work that was started with George Szubinski with the idea to use a Binary Large Object (BLOB) ideally to an Open Systems Architecture like EPUB to act as “your life” repository. But more about this idea in future posts.

So let us meet George Szubinski : -

Internet Web Hosting.

George invested much of his effort into websites where he owned the site domain name and paid annually for the hosting of these sites. There are several problems with this approach in that you have to have the technical skills to maintain these sites often HTML, CSS and JS but also you have to pay annually the hosting charges. Unfortunately when George died these skills disappeared and the cost of paying for the hosting of these sites become uneconomic for his family. It maybe too late now but I am going to investigate the costs of continuing to host some of these sites. The sites we know of are as follows but note these are all currently suspended or deleted depending upon what the web hosting company has done after the monthly hosting fees have ceased being paid  :-

Name	Expiry
Adcard.xyz	10/09/2020	Goes to Facebook.com/myadcard
Adsell.xyz	25/02/2021
Adstore.xyz	07/03/2021	Works a bit
Advideo.xyz	28/02/2021
Eflow.xyz	21/08/2020	Works
Geosz.com	9/05/2021	Shows Director making Gin Adcard
Jamesszubinski.co.uk	30/04/2023
Jamesszubinski.me.uk	30/04/2023
Mybutcher.shop	27/01/2021	Working Butchers site
Mysra.xyz	27/07/2020	Smallwood Residents Association
Mytim.zyz	13/04/2020
Ourstories.xyz	12/08/2020
Zigzag.associates	06/03/2021	Works a bit

    

On Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/GeorgeSzu

On Twitter where George turned all the tracks on Spotify he listened to into a Tweet with a link to Spotify. These links currently work extremely well (2020) lets see what time does to them.

https://twitter.com/zubo01

George set up a Twitter account for his beautiful lady dog Braidy. The posting were from Braidy's perspective often when she had been taken a walk by George. George could have really developed this genre to become an internet sensation since the internet is full of dog lovers who would have loved to follow Braidy's adventures normally over the Arrow Valley Park in Redditch, Worcestershire.

https://twitter.com/BraidyWildBabe   

The Instagram account that covered "Szubinski Palace" and "Szubinski Kitchens". With his interests in cooking at home including his legendary "Friday night is Curry Night"  where he cooked and invited around for all his family. It also covered some of his holiday experiences and family photographs. He was well known for his pickled eggs, homemade mincemeat, bread and fudge.His Christmas Mince Pies marked the start of his Christmas celebrations with this a very important time of the year for him.  

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0ZA5ZzhD5l/?igshid=1g728oxy54ggv

On YouTube Mystories Geosz

Mystories Geosz - YouTube

On YouTube MyKempinski

https://www.youtube.com/user/MyKempinski

Dedication to his son James Szubinki using a new at the time free Social Media site called Social Shorthand. There is a lesson here. This site has closed for new accounts and postings but fortunately they still support what had been previously posted. For how long I dont know. The lesson is be careful where you invest your time and effort.

https://social.shorthand.com/zubo01/jC41NksYYu/dedicated-to-james-jerzy-szubinski

George started to write up his life story. I read the start of it and told him it was excellent and he should write up the rest. Unfortunately this never happened. But read the start  below which makes very interesting reading. Once again George used Social Shorthand which is no longer a few site.

https://social.shorthand.com/zubo01/ugUArLtDRn/who-do-i-think-i-am

Popular Monty Python - What have the Romans ever done for us. (Reference Brexit)

The original scene out of the Life of Brian from which George extracted the soundtrack

https://youtu.be/Y7tvauOJMHo

The soundtrack was overlayed over a scene from Parliament with Boris Johnson at the Despatch Box to create this spoof video

https://youtu.be/wjazKNRQFnw

George's "OurStories" YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwiBwCBZ3wTh7io4Qo8eJbg 

George and Dave's Admin Adcard YouTube Channel

https://youtube.com/channel/UCCp5db8ydEVeoec01epLXMg

George was very busy over Christmas 2019 and New Year 2020 producing these two video's for his family. He loved both Christmas and New Year with these being his last creations with him dying in April 2020 from COVID - 19. He looked to invoke emotion by the use of both audio with visual imagery.

Christmas 2019

https://youtu.be/-WnaFwM_dhg

New Year 2020

https://youtu.be/NfOna7ygWvY

 

Publishing a Blog

 

The development of the internet blogging on a weblog preceded Social Media. Before the arrival of Smartphones and Tablets, using the early Personal Computers (PC) the techie’s started blogging using the native HTML (hypertext mark-up language) to create their web sites. With Social Media now hosted in the cloud using it has become non- technical and very easy. Just a case of simple posts. Unfortunately using social media to blog has its inherent risks. Using the dedicated blogging sites with some morphed into content management systems is a much safer option. But the only problem is they don’t offer the level of readership that Social Media generates. So bloggers tend to want to play to the largest possible audience. So bloggers are increasingly putting their blogs into Social Media.

Once again it was the purchase of a book at a Second hand bookshop (Oxfam) in Harborne, Birmingham that stimulated me to think in greater depth on this subject of blogging. The book was simply called “note book” by Jeff Nunokawa published in 2015 by the Princeton University Press, America and Oxford, United Kingdom. Jeff Nunokawa was a Professor of English at Princeton University. The book had a tagline by Rebecca Mead of “A work of strange and enduring wonder”. The book had a profound impact on me because it was just so different to anything else I had read. It was different in that it often described thoughts I had never had and I was never likely to have whilst in some cases managing to hit the spot. It was this difference in his normal thought processes in relation to mine  that captured my interest. To this day this applies to his continuing Facebook page posts. Before we analyse the book just consider this reviewer’s comment below which says it all in a way I could never express.

“Born in the digital medium, Nunokawa’s extraordinary literacy experiment fuses many forms – journal, essay, criticism, aphorism, anecdote, letter, commonplace book – into what he calls “notes”, which are not so much supreme fictions as they are the humbler fictions that sustain the true heroism of everyday life.”

John Gullory. New York University.

So what is this book? It is a transcription of a small selection of the daily posts that Jeff Nunokawa made in the “Notes” option of his Facebook page. Written every day at the rate of one per day from August 2007 to July 2014. He numbered everyone sequentially. So like many bloggers this set a pattern that he required to complete one everyday. Importantly he developed a structure to what he termed his small essay’s. They begin with a quotation typically literary or philosophical in nature. They are from a variety of sources some old and some more up to date. He then follows the quote with some of his thoughts about the quote which is really his essay. This in itself can be at odds to what you would expect. He may elaborate on the quote using his own experience but it may just trigger a totally disconnected set of thoughts. The quote triggering something else in his consciousness that he chooses to record. Being a logical thinker it is this disconnection that I find so stimulating as a reader. You think where is his mind going now ? Thoughout his writings you become aware of the very strong influence his mother has had on his thinking. Then following the body of the essay narrative he includes a footnote. These are really examples of very oblique thinking sometimes a quote from another book or song or something completely different. Then finally in his later notes he includes a photograph that looks to offer a visual metaphor or symbol that represents the thoughts and feeling in the written text. Personally I like some imagery. It could just be a photograph of the desk top or a view out of the window. Just something the author is experiencing or thinking about at the time of his writing. His latest Facebook posts (2020) include video but I find video can be a distraction preferring text and photographs. But that maybe just a generational thing. The current younger generation no doubt prefer the video experience. Having written about these essay’s it may be best to see two examples below so you can appreciate how they work. Firstly a page out of the book followed by a written up example from the book.

5281 Then I Don’t Feel So Bad (June 2014)

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon the upward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils

 

Wordsworth. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

 

You know those days when all you want to do is to lie on the couch and make it go away-you’re not even really sure what it is, you just know that it makes you too tired to do anything but lie on the couch. (It doesn’t even bring you to tears, although things seem like they’re headed that way.) All you can think about is how all you can think about is lying on that couch and dreading the next time you have to be around anyone else. So there you are, lying on that couch, and suddenly the sound of some stupid pretty song or the sight of some stupid pretty scene will pass your way as if it’s come for you. And then you think maybe it really has come for you – only not just you: it’s come for everybody else on that couch, too. (It’s a big couch, though you only see your own small section of it.). You suddenly know in a flash they’re not as stupid as they seem. (For one thing they know we’re sad.). And once you know they’re not stupid, you know you can take it from there.”

Note: “And then I don’t feel so bad” (Oscar Hammerstein, “My Favourite Things”).

 

 

 

Copyright. “note book” by Jeff Nunokawa. Princeton University Press. (ISBN 9780691166490)

 

This example illustrates what an excellent piece of philosophical thought on feeling depressed was recorded real time. Jeff Nunokawa’s daily blogs benefit by being written “in the moment” without any difficult barriers being put in place by the software between the thought processes and the recording of the narrative. The Facebook “Notes” option being just a very basic text editor. But unfortunately from a publishing perspective that is where the severe limitations then arise. Readers do not tend to go back over older blogs. It is all about moving forward and not backwards. To me the real value of his work does not come to light until you see it presented in a book format. This being a format you can easily pick up and put down dipping into different parts and sampling the thought of the day. So DMB Publishing has an interest in the development of techniques that take blogs and automatically convert them into book formats both printed and digital. This needs to be an automated process so the “writer” can concentrate on the writing rather than the production aspects.

This will amount to experimentation with publishing packages using the blog adigitalthought.blogspot.com to explore this particular genre. This blog is about getting my thoughts on everything recorded. With me being more of a scientific person it is my attempt to engage with a culture of literacy. It will have no defined schedule of production. In this respect I have several author heroes to try and emulate whilst lacking their academic superiority. These are A.C.Grayling and Yuval Noah Harari who paint very big historical and philosophical landscapes that I can lose myself within at anytime. Whilst Kevin Kelly, William Sims Bainbridge, David M. Berry and Ted Nelson are the authors who get it, that is the impact of technology, in ways that never stop ceasing to enlighten me.

Publishing Artwork

 

Jack Vettriano (b 1951). Bluebird at Bonneville. 

Oil on canvas, 24 by 40 inches. 1996.

 DMB Publishing has an interest in the publishing of all artwork. I have always had a strong emotional attachment to specific pieces of art. It has evolved from my father and grandfather both being water colour artists with many of their paintings still in my possession. The aspect of art that has always fascinated me is how you can become so emotionally attached to a piece of artwork which then generates a strong desire for you to want ownership. Once owned it can still carry on giving pleasure over many years if not a lifetime. You then realise what often motivates the artist to create a painting and find a buyer for it. They want the owner to be someone who would feel bad if they didn’t have it. The owner forming this very strong emotional attachment so in fact inheriting some of the emotions of the artist that he or she put into the painting. In fact the artist letting go of their artwork to someone who will have the same level of appreciation and love of it.

The painting above by Jack Vettriano had this effect on me. I first saw it in an exhibition on a canal boat in Stratford upon Avon. It instantly attached itself to my consciousness. Love at first sight. It was obviously a copy using the Giclee printing technique basically sophisticated ink jet printing onto a canvas. At £200 at the time it was not to be an instant purchase. But for some reason this picture became an obsession. I purchased cards of the print but always wanted to get back to the experience that the Giclee print had given me. Some years later I brought a Giclee copy and hung it on my wall. That was probably 10 years ago and this picture has never stopped being a source of pleasure to me.

Oddly enough painting of cars was outside of Jack Vettriano’s normal genre where he had been, unfortunately, put down by the art establishment as being a painter of “dim erotica”. The car paintings were the result of a commission from Sir Terence Conrad in 1996 to create a series of paintings for his new Bluebird Gastrodome in London. The seven paintings, inspired by the life of Sir Malcolm Campbell, hung there for ten years. The Bluebird paintings were auctioned by Sotheby’s at the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire on the 30^th August 2007 and made more than £1m in all. The most expensive was the Bluebird at Bonneville at £468,000.

But from a publishing perspective Jack Vettriano could earn up to £500,000 per year in print royalties. Where his painting, The Singing Butler, has been one of the bestselling images in Britain. On the 21^st April 2004 the original canvas of The Singing Butler sold at auction for £744,500.

In February 2009 Vettriano launched Heartbreak Publishing and with his own London gallery, also called Heartbreak, which exclusively represents him. This is the very effective commercial implementation of an artist’s work through Heartbreak Fine Art Ltd with other artists now represented. In 2010 Heartbreak Publishing produced a boxed set featuring signed, limited edition prints of all seven of the Bluebird paintings to mark the 75^th Anniversary of Sir Malcolm Campbell’s final World Land Speed Record. This was on the 3^rd September 1935 with Bluebird powered by a V12 Rolls Royce R supercharged aero engine exceeding 300 mph.

 

Look at these websites for more background.

Jack Vettriano on Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Vettriano

Jack Vettriano’s own website www.jackvettriano.com

Heartbreak Publishing website www.heartbreakpublishing.com