Stories from the arctic

At the moment I’m sending out daily updates on poletrack.com about a short expedition to the north pole which is taking place as we speak. It’s a fun thing to do even if it’s just for the fact that it involves receiving daily phone calls from the arctic ice cap.

Technology has advanced a lot since the days of the early explorers. It’s now technically possible to send voice messages, emails and photos from these remote parts of the world via satellite phone. During this expedition for example we’re having the team call in and leave voice messages every day, which subsequently get posted on the website. This is a relatively simple thing to do, but it gives a more personal touch to the whole thing to hear someone tell about their adventures in their own voice instead of me just writing about them.

I’m continuously looking for compelling ways to tell these kinds of stories from remote corners of the world, and things like social media and mobile web devices create some really cool new ways of doing this, both on the creator and the consumer side. I like to refer to this as “Exploration 2.0”. Almost anyone in the world might be soon able explore previously inaccessible locations through almost-live information and high definition experiences. I might write some more about this topic in future blog posts, as insights, ideas, and technology continue to evolve.