Forum Posts Feed
Why do you CRIMP?
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Sep 22, 2011 at 10:05 PM
I think the OutlinerSoftware title is misguiding, as we discuss many non-outline related information management software here. At the same time there are several reasons for the name:
- Historical: this forum is the continuation of the outliners.com forum started in the previous century (!) by Dave Winer
- Practical: outliners are everywhere, even if used as complementary views; it amazes me that even a 3-D tool like Personal Brain now has an outline view
- Emotional: I believe that, at some point in time, most of us were helped to make sense of some complex situation through breaking down the relevant information into an outline; I know I did, and I still haven’t found something equally satisfying
...and more
From my part, I cannot think of a single personal information management program that I ever heard of, which has not been discussed in this forum to a significant degree.
Foolness wrote:
>This forum being one example. I only ever
>recall this forum if I’m remembering Surfulator or UltraRecall. Even though it’s in
>my bookmark, I never have any intention to go back here first because my first thought
>often comes up thinking: “I’m not looking for outliners.” Then I fail to find forums
>that links to unorthodox software. I go back here. And my failure of finding out
>programs I want to find satisfies that nagging curiosity in me and then I leave
>OutlinerSoftware again.
Posted by Foolness
Sep 22, 2011 at 10:26 PM
That’s true and I apologize if I made it sound that way.
It’s not so much the name of the site but the culture.
The forum itself is great in that it gets many people talking about these things but as a culture I feel it’s very umm… Ultra Recall/MyBase/etc. Some parts advanced PIM users, some parts about people wanting notetakers mixed with number crunching.
Not that I have find a much better site but it’s very rare here for people to all gather and you would get people who absolutely swore by a program like Compendium even though it has been mentioned. Even Goalscape for example, I could count three threads I think that has mentioned it.
It’s a culture that’s very into outlines except for updating everyone about a new software. DonationCoder does not have the same theme but seeing as I came from DC into here - take that place for example. People may swear by Surfulator, UltraRecall, InfoQube but there’s also a user there who swears by Notezilla.
Now it doesn’t mean people don’t mention Notezilla here but it’s one thing to know about it, it’s another thing for a user to absolutely swear by a desktop sticky notes program. It’s that kind of diversity that I haven’t seen much in a forum yet. Even lately, it’s JB that has put into limelight somewhat Brainstorm where as others don’t quite bring it up. Part of it may be that the most often mentioned ones are probably also the most applicable to everyone but seeing as there are popular programs that don’t often match with the interest of many of the threads here and also taking into account the design of how forums create cultures - I would assume this is really more a product of people here being able to get outliners to work. (For me, on the other hand, it’s gotten to the point that the tree view makes my head hurt if it’s in a sidebar. Even if it’s just a video. I could only mostly work with some pseudo-outline although it’s not like I have a job but as far as my software collection has been, I almost have no tree-list sidebar outliner. At most I have a single pane program that shows a basic outline.)
Posted by Jack Crawford
Sep 22, 2011 at 11:26 PM
There is another element to the crimp discussion that may be relevant, namely the category of software under discussion here. We mostly talk about personal information management software (emphasis on the word ?personal?).
Invariably, this involves understanding and working with our personal preferences, learning styles and life goals. In short, we find ourselves endlessly fascinating.
So if we are at all into self improvement or personal productivity or even just a bit of reflection, we will keep trying different software solutions in an endless and fruitless bid for satisfaction and perfection.
And yes, it is fun as well!
Jack
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Sep 23, 2011 at 05:33 PM
Foolness,
I guess most of us here have our personal favourite applications—perhaps because our brains work a bit like their respective developers- but I have yet to find someone who swears by any tool. I think if any of us was such a fan, they would not be going around CRIMPing :-)
I don’t think that most of us are stuck with the usual contemporary UltraRecalls and the like. In the contrary, I find great diversity, and I think you will too, if you go back a couple of years in the posts.
To take one example, Brainstorm has been my own beloved tool for many years; I’m surprised myself about how much I’ve written about it here. However, towards the end of its development under its original ownership, the transition to the new Microsoft libraries broke its handling of non-latin characters. As a result, Brainstorm became unusable for about 40% of my work.
It is quite reasonable to discuss UltraRecalls and the like, because they are most recently updated. But you will find people who trust their valuable info in many different tools, such as Echo, InfoQube, TreeSheets, Zoot, Connected Text, Cintanotes and several others, quite a few of which are anything but typical outliners. Perhaps there are not so many here behind each of those, but then again, there are not so many of us here posting.
In fact, I am enthused by the several people who have followed the forum and have recently began contributing new perspectives. More, I say!
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Sep 23, 2011 at 05:40 PM
Jack,
You hit the nail on the head! My own quest for the holy grail(s) in personal information management—and most recently collaborative applications too- goes hand in hand with my quest for better personal life management, for better societal contribution, and even for a better spirituality.
Not much to add to your point; other than my subjective aphorism that “more is not necessarily better, but neither is less…”
Jack Crawford wrote:
>So if we
>are at all into self improvement or personal productivity or even just a bit of
>reflection, we will keep trying different software solutions in an endless and
>fruitless bid for satisfaction and perfection.