RE: [ba-unrev-talk] the paperless office
On the lighter side, I think this is one of these areas where George
Carlin's driving paradigm applies (anyone driving slower than you is an
a@#hole, anyone driving faster is a maniac) - so I, and I alone, have
exactly the right balance of creative confusion. (01)
On the more serious side, I invariably program with a large paper blotter
beside me - because for many things it's simply much more useful than a
teraflop workstation with a 800 trillion by 600 trillion flat screen
monitor. (02)
Partly it's the ability to externalize unarticulated cognitive structures
(er, did I really say that? sorry) - "this goes here, near that" Computers
tend to force one into formalizing relationships too early. (03)
For my 2 cents worth, I think it ought to go something like this: (04)
Technology almost never becomes obsolete (arms races might be an exception
here) - there are more steam engines working now than in the 19th century -
radio did not replace live performance, nor TV film, etc etc. What happens
is that new technology enables better use of old - steam engines generating
electricity which is easier to transmit, load balance, etc. What I really
want from computers is the ability to find stuff without ever filing it.
This is pretty close to available. A nice little google indexer running on
my PDA ought to do it. (05)
I never want to file things because I never know what they will ultimately
have been about. Think about email - I used to store by sender, or by
subject, or date, or split into "project A" "topic X". Now I usually just
file everything in a big folder called "mail" - and let the machine knock
itself out locating that letter I got sometime last year about that poor
Nigerian widow. It usually finds it faster than I do when I look by
category. (06)
-g (07)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org
> [mailto:owner-ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org]On Behalf Of Gerald Pierce
> Sent: Saturday, December 21, 2002 12:34 PM
> To: ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org
> Subject: Re: [ba-unrev-talk] the paperless office
>
>
> WHAT A RELIEF! My work area looks like a gravitational accretion
> zone. The
> trick is to balance the level of chaos (can it have levels?) with
> the need of
> reasonable retrieval times. You know, when what is needed has
> become snowed under.
>
> What is really fun is the occasional clean-up. It is quite like
> an archeological
> dig. It is always interesting to see what captured my momentary
> interest and
> was then left to become intellectual compost.
>
> I wonder if this is an unacknowledged counter force to the
> success of knowledge
> management (e.g. CoDIAK?)
>
> The more that I think on this, the more I have to say. I guess
> that I owe it
> the author to go read the article before saying any more.
>
> Gerald Pierce
> Q. E. D. Services
>
> Graham Stalker-Wilde wrote:
> > Interesting article in the current issue of "The Economist" called "In
> > Praise of Clutter".
> >
> > Essentially it's on the idea of clutter as an external memory
> device - using
> > paper as a means of mapping pre-, or partially, categorized information.
> >
> > Makes a number of good points. One is the density of paper as
> an information
> > storage medium compared to screens. Another is how much more
> convenient -
> > and informative - it is to rearrange pieces of paper on a desk
> than windows
> > on a screen. The most interesting area to me is perhaps the
> application of
> > technology to filing/retrieval
> >
> > Worth a look.
> >
> > Graham Stalker-Wilde
> > www.stalker-wilde.com
> >
> >
> >
>
> (08)