Digital Estate Planning

I don’t write much about death in my blog, because I try to keep things upbeat as much as possible. But I saw this article last week, and it caught my eye. The point of the piece is the importance of preserving access to “digital assets” so that when your time on earth is up, your heirs can locate and appropriately handle all of your online materials. The article uses a broad definition of “digital assets” – social networking sites, online financial accounts and photo-sharing sites are all included. In some cases, this may seem trivial, but in others, not so much. Apparently, at his death in 1990, Leonard Bernstein left behind a password protected draft of a memoir entitled Blue Ink. To date, no one has cracked the code (has anyone tried “officerkrupke”:

– it seems so obvious to me). The point here is to let someone know your important passwords. The article has some great ideas. Back to upbeat tomorrow.