Hi there,

I’m Hugh Fraser, and I have the privilege of being an outside observer of Exbiblio. I’m a journalist turned blogger based in London. The plan is that over the next year or so, I will write up what I see and overhear at Exbiblio on this blog. I have a licence to write as I see fit: the good, the bad and the ugly. It will be interesting to see how that turns out.

I’ve had some unusual assignments in my life, but this is probably “takes the biscuit” as we say in England for out-of-the-ordinary. I’m going to be dropping in on Exbiblio’s office in Seattle about once a month (It’s a ten hour commute from London), and sitting in on any meetings that take my fancy, visiting business partners, and taking notes on all that I see. I hope to get some audio and video going too. I suppose I will be Exbiblio’s “fly on the wall.”

While I’m here in London, I’m getting used to thick and fast Instant Messaging (which I’ve always shunned before) and working evenings on Seattle time.

Exbiblio is a high-tech company that wants to take one of the oldest media in the world – ordinary, crinkly, paper, and turn it into something as interactive as your computer. The inner workings of their technology and ideas completely are beyond my understanding. I will be giving my attention to the culture of a start-up, and I hope highlighting issues that will be of use to anyone involved in any type of business.

Exbiblio has some highly unusual aims. It’s as much about building a shining example for ethical business practice, and funding some altruistic projects, as it is about making money for its backers. In fact that last sentence doesn’t begin to capture extent of its ambitions to change the world for the better, but all will become clear in the posts that follow.

It’s a very young company, and often people start with the best of intentions and lose them later. My feeling about the people at Exbiblio is that they are truly determined to stick to their principles all the way. We shall see….