Who I am: Davis Foulger

I make my living as a software designer and developer, but I like to think of myself as a student of communication media. There aren't many ways to make money studying the structure of media and the way they evolve. Fortunately, I don't have to. In today's rapidly evolving computer mediated communication environment, it is fairly easy to use my occupation to feed my avocation; to use my avocation to inform and guide my occupation. Neither software development nor the study of media are the most important thing in my life, but each is important enough to make the list. Each even takes occasionally priority over everything else.

If you have an interest in the nature of communication media, I'd love to hear from you. If you have or know of resources related to the nature of communication media, I'd love to know about it (So I can view it and create a pointer to it).

The whole idea of a personal home page is very strange, at least once you sit down to do one. Its really not like anything else we are used to writing. A personal web page is about you, much as a resume, personal letter, personal diary, poem, introduction, self portrait, obituary, letter of recommendation, school photo, engagement notice, yearbook blurb, program note, wedding invitation, or scrapbook might be. But it isn't exactly any of those things, and the rules of what can be said are different and, at least at this point in the evolution of the web, somewhat unclear. My theory of media as invention has a lot to say about why this should be the case for web pages and for other emerging media, but theory doesn't resolve the issue of what is appropriate on a personal web page. Only time and the social construction of rules and other practices for personal home pages can acheive this goal.

In the meantime, one has to guess, and this sort of self reflection is probably all too common in the construction of personal home pages. For myself, I'll use this as an evolving exploration of who I am, and hope people see it as the constructive self description it is intended to be. This will not be a personal letter. There are things I might say in the privacy of a conversation with someone I know that I would never say in a place where literally anyone can misinterpret what they read. This will not be a resume (but will contain a reference to my curriculum vitae for those that are interested in sleep generating material. This will not be a book, and while there may be references to poems or short stories, it won't be them either. I won't report on the news here, but may elsewhere. I could go on naming dozens of media which might inform composition in a derivative medium, but which do not seem to inform the composition of personal home pages.

Of course that's the point. The web represents an entirely new medium, and the old rules and practices don't apply.

That said, I'm a pretty weird guy, if only because I spend so much of my time thinking about such things.