Good morning, yesterday.
You wake up and time has slipped away.
And suddenly its hard to find the memories you left behind.
Remember, the times of your life.
Close your eyes and sing the above lines. If you are ancient like me, you can almost remember the commercial. A moving van is loading up out front, a woman is packing photographs of her family. In 1977 this tear-jerker broke up the non-stop hilarity of "The Love Boat" and "Chico and the Man." You can watch it here (http://bit.ly/xHuiyK). But be forewarned. You won't be able to get it out of your head. Old-school viral when that was just an annoying song everybody around you was humming.
That ad came to mind when I read that Kodak has filed for reorganization –ok, bankruptcy. George Eastman started selling easy to use cameras dirt cheap in 1889 so he could make big profits when people needed film. By the 70's, practically all film purchased had that classic yellow and red Kodak logo. Then came digital.
In 2004, I finally made the move to digital. I bought my first real digital camera. I heard about how people were uploading their pictures. Flickr was just starting out but I wanted to print my snapshots, not just share them. Plus, how much longevity could you expect from a company that wouldn't buy the vowel. So I started using Kodak's Ofoto online service which morphed into KodakGallery. Why Kodak? It felt comfortable, trustworthy, over a century old. Hey, who knew more about photography than Kodak, right them? I uploaded thousands of pictures and printed hundreds of them.
KodakGallery was easy and cheap. I didn't pay for storage — only the pennies for the prints. Besides the irresistible temptation the UPS man provides for my dogs by leaving the pictures on my doorstep, it has been convenient. But there was a guilty bonus that I haven't told anyone. Every time the TV news crews covered a disaster (tornado, flood, fire) with crying home owners clutching their crumpled and stained family photos, I was glad Kodak had my back. Those pictures mean more to me than any possession (yeah, even more than my awesome Prius).
Then last Thursday, Kodak files for bankruptcy. Chapter 11 is a time honored legal protection from creditors and investors. I respect it. We need it. And, yes, Kodak says it is going to take care of me still offering all of its services and I believe it probably will. But now I feel differently about Kodak — and all the online storage services I use for pictures, documents, videos, music. I feel vulnerable.
Those companies are offering me "cloud" services (and, believe it or not, I actually own the trademark "THE CLOUD" — and I am willing to sell — let's do coffee). I'm not really a cloud customer — I am cloud investor. I entrust these services with crucial parts of my very identity. Those bits and bytes I have been transferring to them aren't just patterns of electromagnetic energy. They are my memories. And then one day I wake up and suddenly its hard to find the memories I left behind? As Kodak sorts through their investors and creditors, what are they going to do about me? How much is my past worth? And suddenly I feel a lot like those people in disaster zones holding tight to those pictures — tenuous connections between a comfy past and an uncertain future.
