How exciting: today we launched the ‘beta’ version of PlinthiPaul.co.uk.
On 1 July I was very excited to receive an e-mail telling me I had been lucky enough to be picked in that month’s draw to stand on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square at noon on 18 August, as part of Antony Gormley’s One & Other project.
Once my excitement subsided, though, I was left wondering how I would fill the hour. An hour is a long time, so it was clear that nothing too simple would do, but I couldn’t think of anything more involved that would be worthwhile.
Until, that is, a recent train of thought about plinth size led me down the path of wondering whether the plinth was big enough to swing a cat, and whether such a thing could be verified through an experiment to do just that – aha! I should do a series of different experiments to last the hour!
I’m a strong believer in the internet as a force for ground-up change and the power of like-minded people coming together online to achieve results that would be far harder individually. As such, it seemed sensible to look to the wisdom of ’net-based crowds for suggestions, and have them vote for which ones I should seek to do on the plinth.
Fortunately, an equally strong believer in the power of people through the internet is Ben Werdmuller, who just happens to be a Web 2.0 genius with a great track record of online developments and a real grasp of how to make the best of social technologies. While I’m no technophobe myself – indeed, I met my wife online nearly a decade ago when that wasn’t the everyday tale it now seems – I could never have pulled all this together, especially not in such a short space of time, so I must give many thanks to Ben for taking my initial idea and basic site design and enhancing/developing it into the interactive marvel of PlinthiPaul.co.uk.
We’ve only launched in beta today because there are plenty more features still to come. This blog, which I’ll switch on as soon as I’ve written this, will be the next thing ticked off the list, but I know Ben has lots more up his sleeve too, including the ability to predict the outcomes of the experiments people have suggested, and probably further social tools like the chance to leave comments under them, and RSS feeds of the site’s content, too.
So please do keep checking back to the site over the next couple of weeks in the run-up to my plinth stint, and please don’t hesitate to register on the site so you can submit experiments and/or click ‘Like’ next to the experiments you like in order to help me decide which ones are the most popular.
Thanks for your help and participation!
