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Reducing my PIM/Knowledge/Writing Tools
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Posted by Stephen R. Diamond
Apr 3, 2007 at 06:24 PM
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>
>The months away from non-professional internet use helped me curb my
>CRIMP habits. They also helped me realise a key issue in my long search for the holy PIM
>grail, namely that one’s consistent use of a tool makes that tool ever more useful.
This is true, but I would contend that using selected alternative tools occasionally can lead to even greater usefulness of the primary tool. Often the difference between one tool and another is in the way it conduces you to work rather than any approach it compels. I find that often using an alternative program can make me aware of a better way of doing things, strategies that can easily enough be implemented in the first program.
>Knowledge workers are the modern equivalent of craftsmen and as craftsmen we need to
>invest time in becoming skilled in our tools.
Just one quibble. I don’t think our software tools stand in the same relation to our work as the tools of a craftsman. Or maybe this is just my ignorance of crafts. A craftsman’s skill is pretty much expressed in his ability to use mechanical tools to achieve results. Whereas our ability to use softwhere tools is just a component of knowledge worker abilities. A craftsman who can’t use any mechanical tools would be incompetent. A lawyer who can’t—picking a field I’m familiar with—just gets a secretary or law clerk.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Apr 3, 2007 at 08:02 PM
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
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Apr 3, 2007 at 08:02 PM
Stephen R. Diamond wrote:
>I find that often using an alternative program can make me aware of a better way of doing things, strategies that can easily enough be implemented in the first program.
I definitely agree; it’s clear that a lot of research on methodologies lies behind the development of many of the tools we discuss here; from Brainstorm to Achieve Planner to B-Liner etc. Using them can often be eye-opening.
>A craftsman who can’t use any mechanical tools would be incompetent. A lawyer who can’t—picking a field I’m familiar with—just gets a secretary or law clerk.
Is it as simple as that I wonder? And who is the actual knowledge worker in this case, the boss or the clerk—or both?
In Greece there is a rather expensive legal database titled Nomos; law offices skilled in its use have a substantial edge over traditional “lawyer/secretary” offices. Of course the state bureaucracy ensures that they all have plenty of work, but the number, scale and complexity of cases they can handle varies greatly.
I have the impression that a knowledge worker, in the modern sense of the word, is not just somebody who applies their own knowledge in their field, but rather someone who, through the use of Information and Communication Technology, can multiply their knowledge efficiency many times over, effectively doing the job of many equally knowledgeable professionals.
Just a thought really; but at least in my line of work, I need to regularly increase the number and scale of projects I can concurrently undertake on my own just to stay competitive; I can’t as yet hire someone to decentralise some of the work to because it’s simply too complex; but I can build my own skills and use those of others (through the applications they have developed) in order to be more productive.
alx
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
Posted by Cassius
Apr 5, 2007 at 06:31 AM
Far too many PIMs, far too many upgrades, far too many knowledge structuring concepts, and certainly, far too many information sources, and duplicative information sources.
This topic may be the most important of all that have appeared in this and the preceeding forums. Thank you, Dominik and those before, for explicating it. Even being retired, I spend far too much time searching for a “better” PIM. There are far more productive things I could be doing. Sleep, sex, and writing the book that’s burning in my brain come to mind.
I once worked with a fellow that EVERY week found a new, better software package to implement the project he led. Years past, but he never produced something that actually worked, but much that irksomely didn’t. To those who worked with him, the mere mention of his name, Felix, brings strong emotion.
We are consumers, who, faced with a plethora of brands, models, etc. of basically the same item, cannot make a definitive choice and so try to sample each, or sample none.
Sampling each = CRIMP
Sampling none = plain text editor
Opportunities lost:
A single sentence, heard at a conference, read in a book, or heard as an off-the-cuff remark may result in the blossoming of an entirely new approach to solving a problem, an entirely new approach to problem solving, or even an entirely new field of study.
I expect that most (all?) of us have had a cranky problem to solve and then, usually by chance, heard or seen something that gave us the inspiration, “That’s it !!!” But what if we didn’t hear or see that “something.” The fact is, we are finite: We cannot hear or see every potentially inspirational remark ... or evaluate every, potentially marvelous, PIM.
I believe that the contributors to this topic have pinpointed what each of us needs to do to keep from becoming mired in the CRIMP bog, that is, from becoming “Felixed.”:
*Decide what is most important for what we do.
*Find several software packages that singly, or together, will do these things.
*Eliminate those packages that cannot work together—that are too restricted in their import/export capabilities or require too much effort to move from our current software.
*If possible, eliminate those that have uncertain futures. (Have you noticed how much software won’t work with Vista?)
*Choose from among what remains, software that has an interface you are most comfortable with.
*Spend a LITTLE time seeing what’s new and reading this forum’s postings.
Finally, while the information we use is important and the PIMs we use are useful tools, our most important assets are our MINDS.
-c