thingamy

imprecision it is (tags continued)

Excellent, fun, make-me-smile discussion going on here!

Foot-in-the-mouthishly I suggested that voluminous and imprecise tagging would do the trick for any kind of object or issue, leaving precision to a delivery method of iffy-tags-interception.

That is met with strong arguments for "precision" at the creation side - "must have precise definitions of the tags, must have standards, must have master lists..."

Analytical, linear, logical, structured - that's the thing. Us analytical chaps being serious and such.

I'd like to give the opposite another go:

Why do debaters scream at each other? Different takes on terms and concepts and issues, different understanding of what was said.

Why do lawyers exist? To sort out the mess.

That's when we fall back to the standard solution: Focus on precision. We urge the parties to agree to common standards, we urge them to add more detailed paragraphs to the contracts.

This is what we (really) should be doing:

Accept imprecision as a given fact of life, focus on how to make the imprecision useful.

Go iffy and voluminous on the "creation" side, let iffy-tags-interception deliver the precise results and full knowledge on the "seeker" side. Avoid costly training. Avoid misspent time on standards discussions. Let understanding be an easier task.

Let free-tagging plus iffy-tags-interception free creativity, right brains and spontaneity.

Auto parts, ideas, posts, insects, articles, cranksets, people... same thing, conceptually and technically.

prime tags or iffy overlapping tags

Now we're talking - Hugh coined "Prime tags" (love that one) as the common denominator when Toby asked for a "master list" to be used when describing anything with fewest possible tags.

And Jon joined in with a definition of "Prime tags" being "tags that have more than less commonly shared meaning".

Are we not a bit stuck in the "bottom-up" thinking pattern here? A bit stuck in "tree structures" going out from a trunk? Precision is all etc.

Here we need to be precise, stumble once and everything is messed up.

The "experiment" suggested using multiple tags when choosing, then even iffy keywords (tags) will be able to deliver precise results.

"Top-down" thinking as it were.

Note that "salad" and "diuretic" alone could do the trick (what would I know with my limited botanic knowledge :). And there could be other and different tags that could cover the Dandelion with precision.

Maybe we have to do with more than 33 tags to cover the whole earth population or all the books ever written. I think we can live with a few more.

Example:

• Tag an object with "pattern".
• Some will think "music", some "maths" and your grandmother may think "knitting".
• Add "cloth" and it narrows down.
• Add "tartan" and at least I see some Scottish patterns in my mind.
• Still not precise? Add "Macleod".
• Or instead of "Macleod" you add "The Highlanders" and "Main character". Both of these highly different tags could lead to the same - but none of them alone would lead to anything specific.
• It's the combination that makes the difference.

Classic 'knowledge building' is based on common denominators, building blocks - or tree structures! Precise stuff required, sequence allimportant.

Multiple tags is the opposite, building knowledge from diffuse and imprecise tags/keywords using the intersection actively. Sequence does not even matter.
The more precise tags the better of course, but as these things goes one or two or three more tags makes even very iffy tags useful.
And going from 12 to 14 tags makes no big difference in practice.

Now you would know what that plant could be used for as well! That's "knowledge". Delivered by tags defining it.

For the user facing "mac", "macintosh" and "apple" knowing that all could mean the same could avoid these at first, then try one at a time at the end if required. (That's why we did the 'experiment' - trying to find a simple interface that would be easy to use.)

Important:

The author, the one adding tags, should be generous in sprinkling tags - it does not matter. In fact the more the better.

It is the user, the one who seeks the object that will choose how many tags he needs to make a precise choice, a precise intersection. In above example, using only "The Highlander" and "Pattern" he may find out what Hugh should wear at weddings!

tree structures should be chopped down (continued)

Mentioned an experiment the other day.

Now we have it - in a very simple form. Here. No manual, no hints, not much to look at, confusing, takes awhile to get head around, etc., use your imagination :)

What you'll find there is a CMS (Content Management System, management part hidden), like a blog, or a web site, a personnel overview, or - if you stretch your imagination - a data repository.

All of the above have articles, posts, comments, data, persons - as objects. Deposited in a database.

Now, where/how to find such objects?

Standard is of course tree-structures (two dimensional). Add some cross-tagging like 'categories' or 'archives-per-dates' (three dimensional), sometimes made more useful with search.

Enter tags.

Now, that we know from say Technorati. Quite the same as categories within most blogging systems.

So far so good. But not good enough.

Even with tags we easily become overwhelmed and would require some data-structure to find our way. Technorati follows 1.3 million tags now!
Every person on this planet has a tag; name or social security number etc. 6.45 billion of them.

This experiment:

Uses multiple tag choices to choose and find.

And so what?

Using multiple tags, about 20 tags would cover the 1.3 million single-use tags at Technorati.

Using multiple tags, about 33 tags could give a unique identity to every person in the whole world.

(Quite a few years since I studied statistics, believe I'm in the ballpark, but anybody out there who could corroborate?)

And 20-30 tags are less cumbersome to navigate than 1.3 million, or 6 billion!

Multiple tags can replace any single tag, however unique that is.

You're tagged with your name. That does not say much, does it? Unless I know you of course.

Now try multiple tags. Add 10 tags, red hair, tall, birthplace etc. and you may be one of 153,000 with exact same tag set. Add yet another one that says more about you, say 'Italian speaking' - voila, you got only 9,675 individuals with the same tags. Add one more, now 634 identicals. Add two more and 'highlighting' exactly those 14 tags gives one return; you.

Ditto for plants, ditto for file structure on your computer, goodbye folders and search. Etc.

Add that a set of tags gives immediate (and complete!) information about the object. Far beyond what a two dimensional system may give (First and middle name, family name, does not give much information that).

And that is what knowledge is all about. Expand on that.

Time for a remake of Carl von Linné's work?

BTW, search is fine but not the same. Write a document, search by keywords and you'll get lots of irrelevant documents up on the screen. Or you may never mention the relevant word even if the whole oeuvre is about that theme, thus a search would be moot.

So go over here and have a look, try etc. But keep in mind it's just for the fun of it!

[NOTE: The content in the "experiment" has been lifted from thingamy.com just to fill it up with something... ]

un-advertising

According to Business Week, here, Toyota approached at least three major magazine companies to explore product integration - product placement as it goes.

As expected it made a few scratch their heads - "We'll sell our mothers, but this doesn't work" as one magazine executive puts it.

I tend to agree with the skeptics.

Marketing and advertising as we know them are all about push, one way, controlled message. Massaging such into being article-embedded could only be termed as... eh... sneaky.

But there are alternatives that might work if you start with the basics:

No more marketing department, no more push, no more controlled message - just simple include-and-involve-the-customer, damned the consequences. (I've said it already.)

Involving the customer would require a few things - complete and utter transparency of course, bandwidth beyond a mere corporate web site, a critical author (communicator) with credibility and visibility, and knowledge on his/her part.

Transparency and attitude is up to the company. The rest a magazine could supply. Or a good blogger.

• Give the magazine (or blogger) complete and unfiltered access, let go of any notion of controlling the information.
• Forget the whole idea of delivering a 'message'. (Did that do away with the marketing department?)
• Add comment/discussion possibilities.
• As with any supplier, trust them completely or move on. It will be their call, when, what, how. Trust that mutual respect will keep things on an even keel and that truth is the guidance.
• If they write something negative, accept that as true and fix the reason for the criticism. Immediately and visibly.

That could work.

This is where Robert Scoble operates (in-house variant).

This is where Hugh's blogvertising would come in (outsourced variant).

The blog having the edge on magazines when it comes to keeping the discussion open and two-way. Including the customer in the process at the company in question, giving the blogger a free hand to bat around the firm and its products, and its ideas, and its doings.

Now that would be a lesser evil than "selling their mothers". That would give the magazine/blog better access to the raw data needed to make good news. (Hey, many are writing about companies anyway.)

And let the corporation pay for the bandwidth and professional knowledge that converts daily mundane going-ons into readable and news-worthy posts and articles. Nothing is better than having a fresh eye looking over your shoulder I say, nothing is better than stirring up a good discussion, nothing is better than real-life tests of your ideas. So much more valuable than stupid advertising.

That could work.

If only the corporations have the guts.

If only the corporate marketing departments were willing to make themselves redundant.

[P.s.: Of course 'being paid' makes for less than good journalism, dependency on the source etc.. Absolutely, but what journalist is not dependent on access to sources, something that would make him treat the source with respect whoever or whatever they are? If the journalist's client (the corporation) cannot face truth delivered with respect, dump him. Without credibility the journalist/blogger would be less valuable to the client anyway.]

tree structures should be chopped down

David Weinberger wrote an article here titled "Taxonomies to Tags: From Trees to Piles of Leaves", I love the title!

Let me respectfully add:

Tree structures are useful but bad. Chop them down and burn them in the nearest fireplace.

Do the test:

1. Write a letter, using a word processor, to a friend about some tax issues, some personal stuff and a great new joke you just heard.
2. Save the file to a folder. Choose the folder according to either recipient, theme or whatever you normally choose. Your choice.
3. Wait two months.
4. Find it.

Did you find it immediately? Or did you have to think hard, trying to put yourself into your own mind two months ago - was it in a folder named 'Friends', 'Letters', 'Jokes' or in a folder somewhere named 'Tax issues'?

Next test. Go to any big corporate web site and find out more about the head of marketing.

Did you choose the "About" tab, then looking for annual reports? Or "Corporate" and with luck a tab named "Organisation"? Or did you use the search engine, then scrolling though lots of unrelated articles and documents?

[NOTE: Search is a fix, but as it uses the precise words therein it hardly reflects what the author 'really meant'. Not to mention all the fluff you get from totally unrelated articles/documents.]

The sticky point about two dimensional tree-structures is that you have to assimilate the logic of somebody else. Or yourself two months ago.

Maria Montessori was onto something when she decided that children should learn to write before reading - easier to express yourself than assimilating somebody's thoughts and concepts.

Third test: Say you're working in a large corporation and need specific help.

Did the organisational chart help you? Do titles (= positions) like "Senior fellow of research and development and technical support, low density polyethylene" help you? Would that be the man?

You'd have to rely on some checking around until you found somebody who know of somebody who actually has the knowledge transcending the fine titles. (Manual search that is.)

You have many talents and much knowledge, then you're hired for a specific tree-structure-slot (= position) with a fancy indecipherable title as it happens in any hierarchy. Would that be conductive to your many talents? Would the company you're working for in fact be able to make use of your (now partly hidden) talents and knowledge?

As I said. Chop'em down and make a nice bonfire for midsummer's eve.

Alternative? Perhaps, perhaps, tags. Tags are linked the "right" way, from the source and from the author, not the other way like links.

But they're not very useful the way they're used today - one at a time. Multiple tag selection should do the trick. From two-dimensional data structures to no-dimensional-limited knowledge.

Hang on a few weeks, we're tinkering with a slightly wacky CMS for the heck of it (and to test these ideas in practice) to produce navigation-bar-less-no-trees-in-sight websites/knowledge repositories, should be fun. Watch this space.

manager-firms vs. leader-firms

Just read an article about a very large and old automobile corporation and their efforts to stop the downward slide by using incentives, branding tools, every other tool and method in the book and not to forget fighting whatever and whoever that disagrees (say newspapers) with them.

Nothing out of the ordinary, just a nice example of a very big, very old and very rigid hierarchical structure. A true manager-firm.

A perfect example of how the command-and-control structures spawns the typical management attitudes (direct and control) all the way through to how they behave in the marketplace.

What's closer to 'directing' than 'branding'? Throwing millions and millions at the 'consumer' until he succumbs and goes "OK, OK, I give up, I'll buy your stuff...".

Or using incentives and rebates and pestering the sales force to wear down their shoe-leather and motor-mouth any innocent bystander. Is that not command-and-control in disguise?

Or using extensive market research methods to ask the market about every step they take. Integrity anyone? Building credibility by asking me all the time?

They're all about using tools - marketing tools, sales tools, branding tools - and guess what, tools are what comes first to the command-and-control mindset.

The leader mindset does not do tools, it relies on visibility, credibility and integrity, none of which can be truly enhanced by tools. Personal stuff only in that department.

Why don't such corporations just shut up and do what they should do - make a product they believe in, stand by it proudly and show the way to the future.

Maybe they should start out by dumping the structure, get rid of the managing mindset and let the leaders out. Yeah, as if that would ever happen.

[PS: Some of the big manager-firms are moving, letting bloggers and evangelist transgress the rigid structures. Letting leaders develop outside the manager structure as it were. Good.]

Extreme Life Planning

A rather unhealthy aspect of hierarchies and 'positions' is that education is slot-oriented. Produce-pegs-to-fit-into-slots.

Parents that ever-so carefully ekes their 16 old daughter into becoming an accountant, a MD, a nurse, a whatever. A peg made for a something-slot that may not even be there in six years time.

Where did the renaissance man go?

I'm a father.

I have friends who are parents.

This is what I tell my sons, this is what I suggest to other parents:

First you had Extreme Programming.

Then I suggested Extreme Business Modelling.

Both based on a general direction using frequent iterations to implement early for real-life testing. And of course, do not set a fix path at any stage, use the direction as the guide while life and reality adjusts the course underway.

From that follows Extreme Life Planning.

The general direction being 'what the child enjoys', usually identical with his/her talents.

Follow that urge to study the areas one enjoys. And all of them, do not focus on one or a few - keep even the peripheral ones in the beginning.

Iterations and real-life testing will soon happen: Is your interest strong enough to keep you going through the inevitable rough patches? Is there progress, is the interest waning or increasing? Are you drifting towards new areas?

Welcome new interests, embrace them, follow if necessary.

But, as for Extreme Programming and Business Modelling, you need to finalise every step - and time and resources are real constraints, use common sense. Fluttering around like a butterfly would not produce much of a program, a business nor a sustainable life path.

For end-of-education implementation, keep the opportunity-radar on - adjust the squelch and gain to catch even the job opportunities that you never thought of.

Good thing in today's networked world; the kids knows this intuitively - only thing lacking is for the well-meaning parents to shut up. And they should.

And the future will thank you, the young person, for becoming a renaissance man/woman able to live without a slot - or fill any of many slots if required.

thanks London and Copenhagen

Another trip, more new friends, highly enjoyable - thank you all!

Spent Tuesday in London at the Geek dinner, nicely arranged by Hugh - great food, 118 nice people!

Reboot happened in Copenhagen on Friday and Saturday - superb speakers, excellent arrangement (thanks to Thomas and his crew!) and a perfect venue.

So to all I met, thanks again for many great ideas, insights, jokes, for listening, for the laughs - hope to see you all again soon!

[UPDATE: Here are some very good reviews and snippets of info from Reebot: Ric, Ballpark, Scoble, Doc - I'll add more when I stumble over them on a Monday morning...]

on (completely new) software

Beside chirping away on these pages I focus on making software, run-your-business infrastructure software. Something that is so different from current software in general that it ended up being called "that, that...eh...thingamy".

Every now and then I reread Joel Spolsky's excellent article on "Good Software Takes Ten Years. Get Used To It."

It saves me from going nuts.

Some Mondays I'm sure that Thursday will be the day, then a mundane feature uncovers an earlier assumption to be, eh, stupid. And programmers does not wear wristwatches.

What Joel really says, and to which I've had to adjust day by day, month by month and year by year: Creating a new toaster, yet another CRM system, another car - is about taking a template, rethink, redesign, plan and execute. Then missing the Thursday would be bad planning and execution.

But creating the first light bulb in the light of gas lamps, or the car when the individual transport concept was horse and carriage - that took a bit longer. Technically tricky, conceptually even more knotty.

Time-planning when you do not know the path to the mountain, nor the height, only having a crazy idea that there is a mountain there, then time sheets are kind of moot.

Bring enough food and shelter, call the office and tell them you'll be back whenever, and live with it. Even if you risk looking stupid for some time.

We can see the top now, and amazing it is, from afar. And we still have plenty of food left.

p.s. Yep, we think of course it's on par with the first light bulb, but hey, we need the energy. You decide when we get back from the trip - fancy gas lamp or electric light... :-)