Knowledge-Discovery Capability

Posted by Stephen R. Diamond
Oct 14, 2007 at 06:48 PM

I see EverNote and OneNote as designed for different stages in research process. Evernote builds a personal database; it is a kind of archiving tool. OneNote creates a space where information can be combined, analyzed, and elaborated for current projects.Microsoft has said that OneNote is not an archival tool, although MS doesn’t place a lot of emphasis on this caveat, because that is the way many of their customers in fact (mis)use it.

I think of these instruments as enhancements for different parts of memory: pure outliners/(especially) mind mappers as enhancing short term memory; OneNote as enhancing working memory, broadly conceived (short term memory plus what it activates in long-term memory);and archival databases such as Ultra-Recall and Evernote as enhancing long term memory.

I am in process of switching from UltraRecall to Evernote as my archival tool, or at least testing the practicability. I see Evernote and UltraRecall as direct competitors. Either can co-exist with OneNote.

Each should lend itself to its own form of serendipity, but the EverNote approach based on overlapping categories is most useful with a large database, that is, an archival tool. As to which programs also have a feature resembling EverNote’s category overlap, the following come to mind: Idea!; Personal Knowbase, and Literary Machine. I have never used the last, but it makes strong claims of special abilities in this regard.

srd

john oconnor wrote:
>In the official Evernote forums a poster writes: “At the creativity level, EverNote
>has the Category Intersection Panel, which allows me to mine my data to discover
>relationships and associations between seemingly unrelated categories of my
>EverNote notes. One aspect of creativity is the discovery of relationships not
>previously known, and EverNote excels at helping me find relationships and
>associations between different categories of my notes that I never suspected
>existed.”
>So, two questions, are there other software tools that can aid in
>Knowledge discovery. Second, given this knowledge-discovery capability why would
>you use Onenote instead of Evernote.
> >Thank you
> >John OConnor
>