Hello my name is… James.

Hello, my name is James. I am the founder of the Digital Legacy Association and MyWishes. I research and develop end of life technologies, apps and websites. I organise the annual Digital Legacy Conference and publish regular tutorials helping to empower both professionals and the general public. 

I run educational workshops, have consulted various governments and provide thought leadership in digital death, bereavement, technology and the internet.

Photo of me and Leti (an early MyWishes adopter) discussing how MyWishes can be improved.

About James Norris

“Since James launched the Digital Legacy Association (not for profit) at Hospice UK’s Conference in 2015 he has worked tirelessly to raise awareness, societal and individual change in areas relating to to digital assets planning and digital legacy safeguarding. He argues that planning for our digital lives should be seen as an emerging area of advance care planning. (https://www.rcp.ac.uk/news-and-media/news-and-opinion/your-digital-legacy-an-emerging-aspect-of-advance-care-planning/). He argues that supporting patients with their digital lives should form a holistic approach to advance care planning https://digitallegacyassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Digital-Legacy-Association-Poster-7th-African-Palliative-Care-Conference.pdf 

James’ public campaigning and awareness work has included visiting and training more than 30 hospices across the UK. He provides thought leadership within this space on various TV and radio programmes and through keynote presentations. Keynotes include Nationella konferensen i palliativ vård (National Association of Palliative Care Congress, Sweden) https://mkon.nu/8e_nationella_konferensen_for_palliativ_vard/forelasare_information and Palliative Care Conference (PCC). Raising awareness at various international conferences include SXSW (USA), The Next Web (Netherlands), Click Summit (Portugal), EAPC (Berlin and Madrid), Hospice & Palliative Care Association of Nigeria (virtually) and ACPI2023 (virtually). 

James continues to contribute research, insights, training and awareness within this field across academia and mainstream print publications.

James’ work has helped normalise digital assets planning and digital legacy safeguarding across the health and social care sector both in the UK and abroad. His work has directly and indirectly led to a better understanding of the importance of this area at a societal level and amongst professionals. Martin Lewis, for example, recently recommended the Digital Legacy Association’s freely available resources it contains (TV and Radio) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X5EQgW-FAg.

James is the founder of the end of life and future care planning platform MyWishes (www.mywishes.co.uk). It takes a public health approach to end of life and advance care planning by removing advance care planning from its traditional medicalised silo and placing it alongside better known / traditional tasks such as writing a will, documenting funeral wishes, making plans for ‘what matters most’ in a bucket list and making plans for your digital legacy. This helps normalise, introduce and highlight the importance of advance care planning at an early stage within a person’s life. 

MyWishes is free for everyone to use across the globe (*will writing and advance care planning features are currently only available in the UK). MyWishes won the best end of life platform (2022) and best digital legacy platform (2023) at the SME awards. MyWishes ‘Wellbeing Hub’ was developed in partnership with Harlington Hospice following a Hospice UK grant. This ‘hyperlocalised’ version can only be accessed by Hillingdon residents and is also free to use. The Wellbeing Hub was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Medicine’s annual ‘Palliative Care and Mental Health Prize’ https://blog.mywishes.co.uk/royal-society-of-medicine-award/.

Mainstream TV appearances in the UK include BBC Breakfast (https://digitallegacyassociation.org/summer-2019-update/) , BBC Morning Live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txay1DPazHE&t=1s  and Channel 4 News. International TV appearances include CNN (USA), BTV (Bulgaria) and NTV (Russia). James often contributes to radio broadcasts in areas surrounding planning for death in today’s digital world (every 1-3 months). Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3iiSznFdhk 

Each year James organises the Digital Legacy Conference (DLC). The conference showcases excellence within this field with a goal of education, organisational adoption and empowerment. The DLC has taken place at UCL Partners (London), Siena College (New York), EAPC (Berlin), St Joseph’s Hospice (London), Michael Sobell Hospice (online during the COVID-19 pandemic) and EAPC (Rotterdam). On the 25th October 2024 it took place as part of Public Health Palliative Care (PHPC) in Bern, Switzerland. DigitalLegacyConference.com. 

James has advised various governments and NGOs on aspects relating to planning for death in today’s digital world. This includes advising the British government (Law Commission), the Law Society of England and Wales, the Portuguese Minister for Health, Health & Social Care Northern Ireland (HSCNI) and the Singaporean government. HSCNI now include online account as part of their recently published advance care planning policy document. A version of MyWishes was commissioned to better support residents in Northern Ireland https://youtu.be/jnNOP7KlvN8

Advice and recommendations provided by James have been acted upon by different governmental departments and NGOs. The Digital Legacy Association’s awareness leaflet has been translated into a variety of different languages and used in both clinical and non-clinical settings. All resources on the Digital Legacy Association website are free to access globally and use.

Other work undertaken ranges from advising Facebook with their end of life planning features (Facebook Tributes) to developing an open access ‘person centred virtual reality’ model with Harlington Hospice during the COVID-19 pandemic. The model utilises VR in clinical settings enabling patients to see their friends and family members when they are not able to visit the patient in person. This was first developed and used in Harlington Hospice when English laws only allowed one visitor per patient. The following poster and acompanying open access framework was selected as one of ‘the best poster abstracts’ at the European Association of Palliative Care World Congress 2021 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357993928_Developing_the_first_’Person_Centred_VR’_programme_Room_where_it_happens_EAPC_Poster_2021.  

James launched the UK’s first Advance Care Plan Day in 2024 to raise awareness about the importance of Advance Care Planning. Due to the impact it made, this will now be annual awareness day. https://advancecareplanday.org/ James is an observer (on behalf of the Digital Legacy Association) for the European Law Institute’s ‘Model Rules on Succession of Digital Assets, Data and other Digital Remains’ programme, https://digitallegacyassociation.org/european-law-institute-digital-assets-project/  and holds the position of Digital Research Fellow at Harlington Hospice and the Design Research Fellow at the Velindre Cancer Centre.”

 

Some of James Norris’ work

  • The Digital Legacy Association  is the global organisation helping professionals to better support to patients with their digital assets and digital legacy.
  • MyWishes is the UK’s leading end of life planning software. It is free to use and helps empower the general public when making making plans for themselves and their loved ones.

Photo from the BBC’s Breakfast programme

Media appearances

I contribute time and thought leadership across TV, Radio, Online and Print

Photo from the BBC’s The Big Questions

Conferences & speaking

I speak at conferences across the globe in areas relating to death and the internet.

Photo from Click Summit 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Mark Drakeford and James Norris

Photo from the Senedd, Wales. Dr Mark Taubert, James Norris, Gwyneth Lewis (Wales first Poet Laureate), Mark Drakeford (Welsh First Minister), Baroness Ilora Finlay & Hywel Francis (Welsh historian and former politician).

Policy and advocacy

I spend a lot of time raising awareness around the importance of planning for death both on and offline. I participate in and host roundtables with governmental organisations, technology, business, health and social care.


Photo of James Norris, Ed Miliband, Ken Livingstone & Jamal Edwards MBE

Normalising end of life planning

Photo from BBC Radio 4’s studio after speaking on Joan Bakewell’s ‘We Need To Talk About Death

My personal goal is to be a catalyst for the normalisation of end of life planning. Most of my work and research focuses on and around this goal. The main ways I am trying to achieve this is by:

  • Providing MyWishes. MyWishes is the only free and holistic end of life planning software in the UK.
  • Training professionals, developing best practice, supporting the public and raising awareness through the Digital Legacy Association.
  • Showcasing best practice on an international stage at the Digital Legacy Conference.
  • Advising governments, regulatory bodies, social networks, charities and support groups in areas relating to digital death, digital legacy and digital assets.

Photo of Dr Mark Taubert, Vaughan Gething (Welsh Health Minister) and James Norris

Barbican panel

The Barbican, London

Speaking virtually at ACPi, Singapore

Speaking about MyWishes ‘Wellbeing Hub’ at the Royal Society of Medicine

James Norris

 

 

 

Recent posts

James Norris

I occasionally write blog posts. Some are shown below

If you would like to speak with me about anything related to the organisations I have founded, the campaigns that I run, working with you or speaking at your event, please do get in touch