Well the new data rules have successfully flushed out all the mailing lists I willfully granted may email address to over the years, flooding my inbox in the short term, promising me a more serene future… although I have no legal know-how to chase down the inevitable exemptees from distant lands… my favourite notification came from the fabulous folk at Who Gives a Crap loo roll (check them out, they are cheap and plastic-free, support excellent charity work, and are amusing)

The email took ages to load so I thought it looked like this:

I thought ah, brilliant, they are so right-on that they dont need to update their policy, they already do all the right things.

Then when I checked back, it was indeed a data use update, but included this pic, so all good.

I’m enjoying the reactions I’m hearing about the new opt-in rules. Hardly anyone seems to appreciate what I see as a pivotal moment when organisations (including yours truly, a humble artist just trying to invite you to things) have to be transparent about the fact that they hold our data on file. Today it’s worth noting that most of the websites I use on a daily basis (social media) are based on a genius business model : make a platform, then have the users spend their time populating it for us, then gather lots of useful facts (data) about them which have a market value. Bingo. We do their job for them and are grateful for the oportunity. Yes they provide us with a service, we get to write random tomes and share our interesting pics to friends out in the ether, but it’s worth reclaiming your own value in the process. They need us more than we need them.

Just a thought. Happy long weekend. May the sun shine on us all.

Thank you for reading btw. Here is an invite to the next oportunity to see my work, from the 6th June at St Johns in Waterloo, part of a show with The London Group & Friends at the Waterloo Festival this year: Nothing Endures but Change.