Moving beyond a Book

When my grandad got his first PC, he built a wooden cabinet to house it. He’d type shopping lists in Word before printing them out. The job wasn’t finished until it was on paper and in his hand in the supermarket.

That mindset still lingers: if it isn’t printed, it isn’t real. Many still print their boarding pass just for this reason.

Books feel safe. Solid. Trustworthy. They carry weight—literally and emotionally. So when we want to preserve something precious, we often turn to print.

But a printed legacy is also a frozen point in time. Completed before the ongoing family story is.

Moreover, they can’t capture your grandmother’s laugh or your child’s first steps. They don’t grow. No link to share, no way to update.

Most family books end up shelved. Outdated. Uneditable. If it doesn't happen to be on your shelf then it's out of reach.

Digital stories are living. They can hold voices, movement, new memories. They can be shared, copied, expanded—by anyone, from anywhere. Life itself is based on digital DNA, protecting itself with continuous copying and expanding over time.

Any techie will tell you: the best protection against loss of digital memories are multiple copies backed up in different places and always readable. Maybe on your laptop, maybe Google Drive, maybe on a USB drive in your family safe. Copying a book is... not so easy.

That’s why I’m making MemoryJam—a simple way to record, preserve and remix family memories in a purely digital form: audio, video, images, and words. Easy to share. Easy to grow.

Of course, if you really want to print your memories, there's nothing stopping you!