creative briefing

A good part of yesterday went towards the second clearing of the mess I call my room (soon to be office). I had made my first attempt back in May, and feeling ambitious to move foward with Project: Home Office, I thought I needed to get the slate as clean as possible for a fresh ‘restart’. 

After throwing away hundreds more of magazine inserts, ripping down old posters, and ‘filing’ the sentimentals, I was reminded of an article I had written after my first cleaning on my [now non-existent] old blog. I thought I would repost for your reading pleasure.

PS: A Project: Home Offfice update is on its way…

Originally published on May 10, 2007:

I just spent the last few hours giving my room a much needed clear-out of magazines, old notes, old mail, and all the other ‘floor residents’ in my room. Piling all my sentimentals (otherwise known as garbage) in front of my doorway (clever, I know), I sifted through each piece and gave it a final dust-off before tossing it into a garbage bag.

It occured to me during this heart-breaking process (I don’t let go of things easily) how much information about my life was contained in the heap before me. If someone were to rummage through my garbage at the curb tonight, they could learn the following things about me:

• My bank balances are embarassing
• About 95% of the time I buy a dress shirt at Mexx, I buy a tie with it, and always on credit
• I attend a Canadian university
• I study business and specialize in marketing
• I have my full G license
• I own a company
• I worked at Microsoft
• I applied to TELUS
• I play guitar (or at least own one)
• I’ve seen Ice Age 2, and What Lies Beneath, among other movies
• I’m artsy (or was artsy)
• I eat at Kelsey’s, Swiss Chalet, and Boston Pizza …a lot
• I subscribe to Marketing, Canadian Business, and eWeek
• I hate most of the inserts that come with Marketing, Canadian Business, and eWeek
• I use Bell Sympatico as my ISP
• I buy a lot of Hallmark Cards (from the Shoebox collection specifically)
• I pre-write my cards

Okay, you get the point. Some of this stuff is pretty personal and most of my close friends, with the exception of a few, probably wouldn’t ever know a good handful of the above items (or wouldn’t care to know). Not only that, but companies would probably die to get this kind of data about their consumers.

A scary thought that I shrug off as I bring my garbage to the curb. I’d be more than happy to have somebody go through my stuff so long as it results in Marketing, Canadian Business, and eWeek sending me less useless inserts. I suppose a discount on shirt and tie combos at Mexx wouldn’t be that bad either.

What can someone learn from your garbage?