Naming Poet & Scribe
Where my business' name comes from; a hybrid mix of creation and curation, product and process.
The name Poet & Scribe—the business my wife and I launched in June 2022, pivoting a few times since—first came to me while reading The Social Photo; On Photography and Social Media by Nathan Jurgenson, a social media theorist and Editor in chief of Real Life Magazine.
The book itself is a reflection of the role photography plays and its impact on society—moving a long, expensive, and laborious process to quick, cheap, and easy. When you layer on Big Data and, nowadays, generative AI.
The book was released in 2019, just missing out on exploring this extremely interesting layer to the treatise.
As a digital professional and creator of graphic images—through words, graphic design, photography, web development, and product engineering—it was an extremely influential read, and why it’s on my list of books that have shaped my practices.
I’ve been meaning to write down some of the why behind the name for years now.
Today’s the day.
Thoughts on photography
In the book, Jurgenson explores the titles namesake: the social photo. When photography was brand new, image-making radically evolved its definitions. In its continued evolution, high-resolution photographic equipment rests next to billions of humans daily.
For me, photography is a way for not just documenting my life. It’s about breadcrumbs that help me find my way through my mind’s paths to memories otherwise inaccessible. It’s also about having discovering the extraordinary in the ordinary, finding fun details in the everyday environment that others miss.
“…the photo is the work of both the poet and the scribe: it simultaneously captures some truth of the world, as well as some of the subjective creativity of the phtographer. It depicts something of the world but is directed by the photographer’s choices about how and what to shoot, how to print or edit, what to delete and what to save” (Jurgenson, 2019, p. 97)1
That lack of oxford comma annoys me but quoting someone else…
In this sense, the both roles are this hybrid mix of creation and curation, product and process.
I found this a beautiful combination of words and ways that align with:
how I approach my work as a designer, manager, and leader;
how I approach taking and editing photographs; and
how my general approach to personal and professional communication.
“It is not fully correct to say the poet and scribe are poles at either end of a continuum, with scribe designating fact and poet fiction. Poetry is not synonymous with falsity; it is a matter of a different, more elliptical approach to conveying ideas. Sometimes poetry is needed to convey a reality facts alone fail to describe. For example, lists of accurate numbers of casualties can describe a war scene, but numbers alone fail to vividely convey the gravity of the situation.” (Jurgenson, 2019, p. 99)
Documentation as a service
This is/was Poet & Scribe’s latest direction. It’s not quite there yet on product market fit, branding, or service offer—so we’ve iteratively learned.
Through that time, I explored ways to communicate who we are and what we do in a more “poetic” form that I would almost say is marketing. I’m finding it’s much more abstract poetry than general business-marketing speak—so I’ve iteratively learned.
I’ve already posted one of my documentative poems, in my syllabically rhythmic summary of my time in Amsterdam.
So.
Why not share some more?
Context
This was to the about page, or home page, copy that explained what we did as a coaching and consulting company that helped facilitate cultures of documentation for scale-ups—one of the biggest ingredients, we think, that led to Booking.com’s success.
Documentation is important.
Especially in business.
Especially in scale-ups that hope to find investment or be acquired.
There’s due diligence and legal requirements that must be met. Also good for telling the company’s story; for contextualizing when and why decisions were made; for creating a shared working culture as you bring on new people.
Enjoy.
/about
We take naming things seriously. They try to encompass so much in so few words:
be suggestive, yet memorable;
be different, yet marketable;
be, yet available.
There's magic in Naming.
Poet is less a who and more a what
Poets work with tools of rhyme, meter, rhythm, pronunciation. They work within limitations, not against. It's a practice of creativity. Sometimes it's something magic; other times, a lesson in iteration.
Poet is Unique & Structured
Poet is Thoughtful & Reflective
Poet is Creativity & Coaching
&—and, the ampersand
Once upon a time, the ampersand was used as a easily & quickly handwritten abbreviation for 'and.' When new technology's thrown into the mix, limiting the number of characters printed on paper became :much' more important.
& is Innovative and Functional
& is Crafted and Pragmatic
& is Design and Tech
Scribe is less a what, and more a why
Scribes have been around since writing was invented. They've documented economics, history, literature, religion, and law since humans started interacting more and more with other humans.
Scribe is Collective & Economical
Scribe is Service & Accountability
Scribe is Curation & Consulting
Jurgenson, N. (2019). The social photo: On Photography and Social Media. Verso Books.