Crowdsourcing Family Stories with Artifcts
Monocurate’s sole focus is to provide the ability for people to take control of their home collections. Regardless if their collection is a group of family history materials, a small stack of family photographs, or a single cookbook with sentimental value. As the founder, I want to help everyone, regardless of their collection or who they are, ensure that their sentimental materials and stories can be passed down for generations to come. Monocurate provides a whole suite of archival, preservation, and digitization services, much like the quality you would find in an archive or museum, but for individual and family collections.
However, I have noticed that many of our clients struggle with providing context for their family history materials. This is due to a variety of reasons. The most common being, one) they don’t recognize who is in the picture and two) how to derive meaning behind what they have that the next generation can understand.
Monocurate is always thinking of ways for people to think outside the box regarding their home collections and how they can make sense of them. So when Ellen Goodwin from Artifcts reached out to me last year, I couldn’t have been more excited to meet her. Not only is she also a female founder in Austin, TX, but we tend to share a lot of the same sentiments when it comes to family collections. Throughout several meetings between myself and Ellen, I saw an opportunity for our clients to be able to crowdsource information in the easiest way possible. Artifcts is a web- and app-based platform where people can upload images, videos, and/or audio related to an object or memory and attach contextual information. Artifcts also allows people to collaborate and share stories about their Artifct with others within the Artifcts community or with their family. Monocurate is thrilled to partner with them and we believe that you will find a lot of value in their services.
For example, your late uncle George placed a blank postcard for Yellowstone into the family photo album. There’s no context, but it is dated 1940. Your great aunt in another state who did not have access to the photo album saw the postcard on your Artifct account. Your Aunt hasn’t thought about it in years but remembers that George spent time in the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1939-and 1942 and worked in Yellowstone in 1940. Thus, making a connection between the postcard and family history that very easily could have been lost. She adds this information to your Artifct. Context unlocked!
So with that, we are so excited to share this interview with you so you see how Monocurate and Artifcts are working together to better serve you and your family’s story!
Brooke Lake: Hi Ellen, so happy to have you here! Can you start by telling me a little bit of background information about yourself and how you got started with Artifcts?
Ellen Goodwin: Always fun to chat with you! For Heather, my co-founder, and myself, creating Artifcts was what we call “a return to mission.” We grew up together at the CIA and have a deep respect for history, information, and security as well as mission. Making the world better. We both left the Agency and had private sector careers in startups, learning a lot about how to (and not to) run businesses. Then one day, Heather’s mother passed away unexpectedly, and she was living through not only the trauma of loss but the burden of so-much-stuff that her mother accumulated over life. The problem was that she didn’t know the meaning or stories behind any of it. But she had no choice, she had to work through it. Now, we’re giving people a choice to capture all that history and life experience.
Lake: At Monocurate, we focus on preserving the physical (and sometimes digital) items and the stories behind the items. To this end, I see a lot of overlap between what Monocurate and Artifcts each do. What is it specifically about preserving the meaning behind the objects do you find so important?
Goodwin: It’s personal history and world history trapped inside those objects, pieces of life, what makes us human! And those objects aren’t talking. I think the world naturally creates opportunities to divide, and yet stories have a way of finding our humanity, that thing that unites us. We’ve also come to appreciate over the last six months that stories can have market value, too. Consider this – would you pay more for a jacket, or a jacket worn by say James Bond?
Lake: We have a lot of clients with older family members; how easy is it to get senior users on board so younger generations and extract family stories from their elders?
Goodwin: Fun fact: so far, our oldest power user is 81 years old! The reality is that no senior is like another. Some are more tech savvy than me! But others like my mother are afraid to click any buttons and delete something or make a change they don’t mean to make. And wow do people want security but hate secure passwords! Our most senior Arti Community members fall into a few camps. Some could Artifct on their own but really do it only with their kids or grandkids because they tell us that they love the company and time together. Others you can see spend an hour a weekend and Artifct a dozen new items as they work room-to-room or theme-by-theme. They are on a mission to pass down stories, not just things. I think our younger users are also shaping the patterns with our most senior. They go home and treat Artifcting like a new family activity, which is great! It’s better than sitting and staring at the TV for sure!
“It’s personal history and world history trapped inside those objects, pieces of life, what makes us human! ”
Lake: I appreciate that your mission passes down stories, not just things. I bet you have seen a lot of great content come out of the Artifcts community as a result. But I am curious how people are using Artifcts that has surprised you?
Goodwin: Oh, that’s easy. The first Artifct ever created was a living, breathing cat! We definitely did not expect that, but we loved it. We like to call her the Arti Cat. Beyond that, I’d point to refrigerator hose pieces, scars, an ordinary stapler – it’s really fascinating to me the power behind seemingly benign objects that people have Artifcted. You never know!
Lake: Wow, that’s incredible. I have an Artifct account and was surprised at how easy it was to get started. My son and I had a lot of fun running around the house looking for otherwise overlooked objects to Artifct. Even as an archivist, and someone who preserves history as a living, I found items I would never have thought about providing stories for. But for some, Artifcts could be seen as another thing to prioritize. What can you share that would help people get started?
Goodwin: Social media and digitization have created a lot of chaos. I have stuff in email, social media, text messages, my phone, cloud storage, scrapbooks, and journals – easily sorting through it and connecting the dots to share, connect, and pass down stories is simply not possible. If you instead Artifct it and share OUT to social media, or even download the Artifct to update your insurance policy or will, then you can see how a single Artifct is a multitasker. How do you start? When you walk in the door of your house today, just stop. Look around. The first object you see that is meaningful to you, walk up to it, open up the Artifcts app, snap a picture, name it, give a few details about it, and click save. There! You’ve started. You can continue with those things that bring you joy, your legacy list, the heirlooms from your family, your favorite travel mementos … pick a theme that makes sense in your life!
Lake: Do you have any stories that you can share where people have been able to make incredible connections using Artifcts?
Goodwin: I’ll go with one of my favorites. A grandmother who wrote to tell us she’s less lonely now that she has Artifcts. Why? She’s fully embraced the, “I’m too old to care” frame of mind so when she Artifcts objects from her children’s youth – keep in mind these children are now all in their 50s and early 60s – she says she provokes them into calling her by sharing the Artifcts with them and adding some pretty colorful commentary. It makes her day. And the funny thing is her three sons are “delighting” her by now even (gently) letting her know about the most meaningful objects they’d like to keep as she downsizes. She’s even started giving away some of her ‘stuff’ now.
Lake: One thing that I find interesting is that you can designate a Legacy Contact to your Artifct account so that the memories and stories saved in Artifcts aren’t lost forever. Can you elaborate on this process and how it benefits your users?
Goodwin: There is no point in creating Artifcts if they simply disappear! All that history! All those layers of us! Our legacies. So, from day one we knew we had to make it easy for Artifcts to outlive us all! By simply signing in to Artifcts and going to your account settings, you can choose primary and secondary Legacy Contacts. Those contacts need not be subscribers. You’ll enter their email addresses, and we’ll automatically send them an email letting them know that you’ve made them a Legacy Contact and all that entails, including us transferring the Artifcts to the Legacy Contact. We also describe this here in our FAQs.
Lake: You have mentioned that “Artifcts are literally unique, transferable digital assets. Artifcts will outlive us as individuals, they might even outlast the objects they capture” Which is an amazing sentiment. I know that Artifcts isn’t going anywhere, but I am sure our clients would like to hear how are you ensuring that their stories aren’t going to disappear from the internet forever.
Goodwin: Well, we even have a Legacy Account built into our company, so that in a disastrous worst-case scenario that Artifcts, Inc. ceased to exist, we’d have ample time to winddown and notify Arti Community members so that they could download their personal Artifcts. You can export to Excel, CSV, PDF, or a ZIP folder that includes all the original media files and the Artifcts’ details.
Lake: What do you wish people better understood about Artifcts?
Goodwin: It’s for everyone. No matter your age, no matter what ‘stuff’ you possess – it’s for you. We’re all human. Life’s chaotic. We forget things. One day we even die. Artifcting can be a daily habit that helps you keep the world of memories, connection, stories from spinning out and being lost. I think it helps us all remember our humanity in trying times, too. Try it out. You’ll find that you can declutter your life and mind and get more energy back as a result.
Lake: By now, Ellen, you understand what Monocurate does; how do you see our client base using Artifcts once they have archived and preserved their family collections?
Goodwin: You and I were on the same page from the moment we met. What happens if you take the time to ensure the objects (physical or digital!) live on, and yet the stories, history, and life experience behind them are lost? Then it’s just stuff. Whether you first Artifct, and then turn to Monocurate, or you work with Monocurate first, and then you Artifct, somehow you need to ensure that the real backstory is captured. Artifcts is here, for you because ‘stuff’ can’t talk!
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Our archivists show up every day to assist clients by aggregating, organizing, preserving, and digitizing your family and personal materials so you can enjoy your collections safely now and for generations to come, all at an affordable price. We support our clients before, during, and after to ensure they are in control of their family’s legacy. We urge you to give yourself space to document the stories and meanings that exist within your family, so your family and personal materials don’t get lost over time. If you need help, we are always here to answer questions.
We also encourage you to fit Artifcts into your life so that you can further bolster your family history with crowdsourced information or share your preserved materials with family members. Artifcts ultimately provides a secondary outlet for individuals to take control, share, and crowdsource information, and we appreciate the time they have spent building this incredible service. You can check out our Artifcts account here to see an example, or check out Artifcts directly at www.artifcts.com. They have an awesome inspiration gallery that changes weekly and plenty of support to get you started including a suite of concierge services!
