Recorded Time: How to Write the Future
by Aaron Greenberg, PhD and AJ Greenberg
Copyright © December 2020 by Biograph LLC
Synopsis
Recorded Time: How to Write the Future is a memoir on the origins of Biograph, a company that tells and preserves stories. Businesses, like lives, are quantum phenomena: recording them transforms them. This book is not in the genre of “how I built this” but rather “how we’re building this.” Yet, in writing the company’s story, the company’s story has become worth writing.
Starting a business takes a leap of faith. It’s like falling in love or writing a book. You throw your doubts to the dogs and commit to something radical, scary, and fragile. You open yourself to failure. You take risks because you must. The inspiration and holy ambition are too powerful to ignore.
The brothers who co-founded Biograph, an engineer and a Shakespearean, believe that our humanity depends on narrative. Without stories, life slips away. We become isolated blips in the vast darkness of history. There’s never been more information about us available. Our DNA is collected in online databases. Our every move ends on social media between glossy ads for couches and designer sunglasses. But this sea of data is shallow, more puff and pretense than substance or reflection. Biograph helps people tell their own stories in the richness and depth they deserve.
Reviews
“I found the memoirs of Biograph’s early days fascinating. I admire their grit.”
–Norman R. Bobins, Vice Chairman of CIBC US
“In Recorded Time, two brothers skillfully weave together moving narratives about their own experiences and guidelines for a potential entrepreneur. Informed in its analyses and engaging in its style, the book illuminates the worlds of academia, literature, friendship, family life—and above all, business.”
–Heather Dubrow, John D. Boyd, SJ Chair in Poetic Imagination, Fordham University
“The brothers started Biograph, an on-demand, boutique memoir service, a more personal response to the sterile DNA searches and family trees of companies like 23andMe and Ancestry. For those in the midst of their own startups, there are a lot of valuable tips here. Understanding scalability and generating demand for a product are covered in depth, with the Greenbergs offering much of the same useful advice they pounded the pavement to unearth. Vivid anecdotes about engaging new technology and working with eccentric clients stress keeping an open mind.”
“More than a business book, this is about the dreams that make us human. Yes, they offer guidance for budding entrepreneurs, as well as enlightening reflections on culture and technology. But this authentic book is about the art of business–the vaults of imagination necessary to conceive a business, the faith to build it. It is, they say, like falling in love: an act beyond reason, an act of pure dreaming, magnificent and mad, fertile and full of life. Accept their invitation, friends: step into their dream to enrich your own.”
–Amparo Garcia-Crow, Dramatist, Actor, Director/Producer; Founder of “The Living Room: Storytime for Grown-ups,” Austin, Texas
“I love the way the book flowed through the story of Biograph. A must read!”
–Mfon Akpan, Professor of Business at The Savannah College of Art and Design
Cover Design
As with every element of our books, cover design is an iterative series of decisions. Watch our creative process unfold below.
