Reducing my PIM/Knowledge/Writing Tools

Posted by Ike Washington
Apr 4, 2007 at 12:16 AM

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>Ike Washington wrote:
>>So, we spend so much time in these forums. So,
>>we spend too
>much time installing and uninstalling software. Something similar,
>>though not as
>dramatic, must have happened - oh, the arguments about which parchment
>>to use -
>after the introduction of the moveable type printing press in the
>>1450s…
> >I
>think there’s an issue of complexity, scale and rate of change; i.e. what you call “not
>as dramatic” reflects a difference in quantity as well as quality of the change
>experienced. To construct a new printing press or font would take significantly
>longer than to develop a new version of a modern program. It is different to be changing
>tools every several years than every few months.
> >alx
>

Alexander

I’ve battered this argument around too much over the last couple of days :-). Just really thinking out loud. Thanks for humouring me…

Yep, I agree with you re complexity, scale and rate of change. But I think we have it tougher than those who came before us.

My throw away comment about the 1450s came about because I’ve recently been reading through accounts by mediaeval scholars of how they carried out their research tasks. Certainly, “information overload” isn’t new. And neither are the techniques used to try to overcome it. It’s a function of the introduction of new technologies. It happens to a greater or lesser extent in all societies.

But I do think that what’s happening today is different. Data flows carried around the planet are vaster, are faster than ever before. If globalization amounts to anything new, then isn’t this what it rests on?

Makes it difficult for us modern knowledge workers, us craftsmen and women left without any useful tradition. There’s been a sea change in the complexity, scale and rate of technological change. We haven’t quite realised it, not really, and so we scramble for the perfect PIM.

Better to hunker down for the long haul: make sure it’s easy to export data out into html/plain text; use a heavy-duty local search app; think of apps as modules forming a larger knowledge system; be prepared to change aspects of this knowledge system pretty regularly.

IMHO

Ike