The Campbell Academy Blog | Colin Campbell (68)

A body of work - 3500

The nature of how this blog was set up and why I did it and continue to do it have been written about many times.

Usually, when I get to a 500 milestone, I go back to explain why I wrote the blog, which is one of the first blogs I ever wrote, which is here.

Principles around why I do that are the same as they were all those years ago, but now I find myself writing the 3500th post for this body of work.

Psychologically, as I ebb and flow through the different ups and downs of life, work, and all of that stuff, I sometimes wonder what the point is and why I should continue. Then I reflect on how proud I am of what it has said and done, some of the conversations it has provoked and some of the people it has reached.

I suspect 'blogging' is probably running low now in terms of grabbing people's attention.

In the week that Facebook launched a new platform to rival Twitter, we're down to as few characters as possible for the maximum impact.

We need to shout as loud as we can in the most extreme circumstances to get traction with any number of people.

And so, then I think about that, and I think, well, it's probably time to shut the blog down and for me to spend my time doing something else.

And then I realised that the point of this was for was to produce a body of work that I could read when I'm sat in my chair in my nappy in my nursing home, and the days are just meandering by, and no one is coming to visit.

I will be able to go back to the things that I thought about and the things that I wanted to write about and just the stuff that we were doing and what we were seeing through all of that time and all of those amazing, unbelievable events and experiences that I have had and that we have had through the writing of this piece.

So, I'm not in a position to start any other project, but I will anyway.

What I do is start projects and see what sticks. That is how my life is.

And so, here and in quiet and in secret for only the people who are committed to this, to read or to see, I'll tell you that two weeks ago, I had a conversation with one of my longest and best friends, Stuart.

The photograph attached to this blog is one that Stuart took, and over the past 15 years, Stuart has taken a lot of photographs, both of me and my family and my colleagues at work and stuff that we have done.

What Stuart and I are going to start (and almost certainly not finish, but you never know) is to write/construct a book.

We're going to try to get well into this by the 4000th blog, but I'm not going to promise we'll ever be able to publish it by then; perhaps it will be by the 5000th blog that we will publish it.

It will be similar in type to Seth Godin's book, where his blogs are collected, and his friend Thomas Hawkes, the photographer, added the photographs.

For the purposes of our book, I will be the Godin, and Stuart will be the Hawkes.

We will do what Seth tells us to do "steal like artists", and when we're ready, we'll probably produce 250 copies of the book and probably give them away because no one will want to buy them.

If anyone wants to pay for them, the money will go to charity.

This will not be a business; it will be a labour of love and the production of a piece of work for the sake of the production of the work.

And so, to me and Stuart and to anybody else who cares (if there is anybody who cares), happy 3500th.

In the middle of today, and the stuff happening here, I'm proud of that and thank you if you've ever read a blog and you read this one.

Attached to this blog is a picture of my family.

Stuart took it at my father-in-law's 80th birthday.

Mike is no longer with us, and my family are bigger and older and onto other things.

I have about 3000 photographs that Stuart has taken that I've just flicked through some of to find a good one for this.

So I think that is the point. Isn't it flicking through the stuff that I've written? The photos that Stuart has taken will be a massive joy in itself, enough to make us want to do the project anyway.

I kind of hope this is one that we manage to get to the finish line.

If you want to put your name down for the book, just email me back, and I'll put it on a list, and I won't forget.