This doesn’t really have anything to do with Whitehall or Public Management, but I got this extraordinary Press Release this morning and was so taken aback I just thought I needed to share it.

Maybe it should be relevant to public management – should government provide an e-death service along with all the other e-gov services?

“A long-needed service for our digital age, being unveiled today at the DEMO technology conference in Silicon Valley, now allows people to easily manage their “virtual” presence after death.

The company I-Postmortem today launched the websites I-Memorial (www.i-memorial.com) and I-Tomb (www.i-tomb.net). I-Memorial is a dynamic, secure, private site that chronicles milestones and thoughts, and allows people to prepare personal multimedia messages to be shared posthumously with loved ones. Additionally, I-Memorial is designed as a storehouse for a person’s digital life (account info, usernames, passwords, instructions, etc.), and allows that info to be shared after death so the deceased’s “virtual” existence can be managed

I-Tomb is The World Virtual Cemetery where I-Memorial entries are posted after death. Anyone anywhere can visit I-Tomb to learn about and honor a departed’s time on earth. People can create I-Tomb pages for loved ones and store cherished narratives, videos, audio recordings and photos there.”