Hierarchies
“The biggest time-sink in America is email categorization”
I don’t know who said this. I don’t care. Over the last month I’ve found myself inching closer and closer to my computer screen. This always happens at this time of year. I used to think it was just something in the air; the longer days, brighter sun and a need to adjust my screen contrast and brightness. I’ve come to learn that this isn’t it. Nope. Around this time of the year I just begin to really hate my messed up email filing system. I hate the one that holds my network and local files all-year round.
I can’t find a thing. I sit for minutes, tens of minutes, eyes squinting, neck straining, my stomach pressed against the desk, my hand palming the mouse with the poise and grace of an NBA all-star clutch player with the shot clock running down. My finger hovers and - click!- . Folders cascade open. I lean in -click!- files ripple open. No good. –click!- -click!- -click!- I beginning backing out, retracing my steps to safely and logically arrive to my jumping off file folder higher up on my hierarchy.
Pick one of the following: The phone rings, a new email pings in, someone prairie dogs over the top of a cubical wall, I have to pee, someone signs on and my Yahoo IM announces it to me, I rub my burning eyes, it is lunch time, I look at my watch hoping it is lunch time, I stand up to stretch my legs, I check my to-do list on the white board near my desk, I prairie dog over the cubical wall, I look at my visa statement, I daydream about my weekend,…the phone rings.
It isn’t that I’m easily distracted. I’m just busy.
Regardless of the interruption, when I return the scent has run cold. I still know what I was looking for but my files are so many, so complex and organized by necessity in such a moment by moment fashion that they defy logic. I have no idea where I left off. Each place I turn looks vaguely new and vaguely familiar. I’m lost. And besides, in the interim I’ve discovered five more items that need to be found.
My tactic for this works in its own haphazard way. That is up until about six month into the year. Until then (until right now) I simply keep everything in my head. This logic goes that soon enough I’ll stumble upon the original item I was looking for. And sure enough I almost always eventually do….I think. Of course, at that moment of discovery the new thing I am frustratingly sniffing around for is dropped with a delightful sigh and –click!- and the old thing becomes my new priority.
One of JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings characters said “all those who wander are not lost”. I’ve been lost and I’ve wandered. I like being lost, and wandering. I just don’t want to do it in the jittery, twitchy, “why haven’t you responded to my email” overloaded digital information world.
I’m not against lists. I know we live in a society of hierarchies. Information needs to be organized. But chaos exists, my question is, how do we deal with it? Or rather, how don’t we deal with it? It would be nice if we lived in a more circular, multi-dimensional world. I can imagine a world where we thought in circles and not lines. How different would our world be if we thought in dimension instead of not hard and fast goals and singular outcomes?
Yesterday in my “My Retinue” blog I constructed a list. I didn’t organize it consciously. I didn’t even index my family because they are beyond indexing. Instead I just listed a bunch of people, places and things that are important to me. Today I had a number of lighthearted emails about where and how people unraveled on my list. I repeat, they were all lighthearted and good natured email that I enjoyed. My bike, last at number 43 wasn’t happy at all. This did, however, point out to me the importance of placement in our hierarchical world. If YAHOO really does mean the “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.” And my messed up outlook folders represent the old world of hierarchy that I’m completely lost in then SEARCH and by default Google represent the new world.
I increasingly send everything, personal and work, to one of my default gmail accounts. My hard drive has been indexed by the Google utility. In my gmail and desktop application I’ve begun to transition to worrying less and less around hard and fast categories. This was driven home to me a while ago when I was asked why is it that I can search for and find anything, like an out of the way Enoteco in Montepulcian, Italy amongst the billions of internet pieces of information and can’t find my journal entry or version 4 of a graphic design from last week on my hard drive with perhaps 1 or 2% of the information? The answer is SEARCH.
Relying on SEARCH, open and free, is a leap of faith. It can’t come soon enough for my email or my desktop or my information. It is a new way of thinking about information. I see those around me struggling with it everyday. We all think we are keeping up. We all know we are not. When I shove information into a digital basement I trust I’ll be able to find it again each and every time. In the old world I have to know the path and be able to retrace my steps. In the new I recollect, connect and recall. The new relies on giving up a perceived amount of personal control for a step of faith in an algorithm and a network. SEARH, and the mythical algorithm is its own sort of hierarchy. I get that. Still, next time instead of positing a list I might install a search box.
My bike, which will be searching for itself, will be much happier with the result.
All good things, Wig
I don’t know who said this. I don’t care. Over the last month I’ve found myself inching closer and closer to my computer screen. This always happens at this time of year. I used to think it was just something in the air; the longer days, brighter sun and a need to adjust my screen contrast and brightness. I’ve come to learn that this isn’t it. Nope. Around this time of the year I just begin to really hate my messed up email filing system. I hate the one that holds my network and local files all-year round.
I can’t find a thing. I sit for minutes, tens of minutes, eyes squinting, neck straining, my stomach pressed against the desk, my hand palming the mouse with the poise and grace of an NBA all-star clutch player with the shot clock running down. My finger hovers and - click!- . Folders cascade open. I lean in -click!- files ripple open. No good. –click!- -click!- -click!- I beginning backing out, retracing my steps to safely and logically arrive to my jumping off file folder higher up on my hierarchy.
Pick one of the following: The phone rings, a new email pings in, someone prairie dogs over the top of a cubical wall, I have to pee, someone signs on and my Yahoo IM announces it to me, I rub my burning eyes, it is lunch time, I look at my watch hoping it is lunch time, I stand up to stretch my legs, I check my to-do list on the white board near my desk, I prairie dog over the cubical wall, I look at my visa statement, I daydream about my weekend,…the phone rings.
It isn’t that I’m easily distracted. I’m just busy.
Regardless of the interruption, when I return the scent has run cold. I still know what I was looking for but my files are so many, so complex and organized by necessity in such a moment by moment fashion that they defy logic. I have no idea where I left off. Each place I turn looks vaguely new and vaguely familiar. I’m lost. And besides, in the interim I’ve discovered five more items that need to be found.
My tactic for this works in its own haphazard way. That is up until about six month into the year. Until then (until right now) I simply keep everything in my head. This logic goes that soon enough I’ll stumble upon the original item I was looking for. And sure enough I almost always eventually do….I think. Of course, at that moment of discovery the new thing I am frustratingly sniffing around for is dropped with a delightful sigh and –click!- and the old thing becomes my new priority.
One of JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings characters said “all those who wander are not lost”. I’ve been lost and I’ve wandered. I like being lost, and wandering. I just don’t want to do it in the jittery, twitchy, “why haven’t you responded to my email” overloaded digital information world.
I’m not against lists. I know we live in a society of hierarchies. Information needs to be organized. But chaos exists, my question is, how do we deal with it? Or rather, how don’t we deal with it? It would be nice if we lived in a more circular, multi-dimensional world. I can imagine a world where we thought in circles and not lines. How different would our world be if we thought in dimension instead of not hard and fast goals and singular outcomes?
Yesterday in my “My Retinue” blog I constructed a list. I didn’t organize it consciously. I didn’t even index my family because they are beyond indexing. Instead I just listed a bunch of people, places and things that are important to me. Today I had a number of lighthearted emails about where and how people unraveled on my list. I repeat, they were all lighthearted and good natured email that I enjoyed. My bike, last at number 43 wasn’t happy at all. This did, however, point out to me the importance of placement in our hierarchical world. If YAHOO really does mean the “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.” And my messed up outlook folders represent the old world of hierarchy that I’m completely lost in then SEARCH and by default Google represent the new world.
I increasingly send everything, personal and work, to one of my default gmail accounts. My hard drive has been indexed by the Google utility. In my gmail and desktop application I’ve begun to transition to worrying less and less around hard and fast categories. This was driven home to me a while ago when I was asked why is it that I can search for and find anything, like an out of the way Enoteco in Montepulcian, Italy amongst the billions of internet pieces of information and can’t find my journal entry or version 4 of a graphic design from last week on my hard drive with perhaps 1 or 2% of the information? The answer is SEARCH.
Relying on SEARCH, open and free, is a leap of faith. It can’t come soon enough for my email or my desktop or my information. It is a new way of thinking about information. I see those around me struggling with it everyday. We all think we are keeping up. We all know we are not. When I shove information into a digital basement I trust I’ll be able to find it again each and every time. In the old world I have to know the path and be able to retrace my steps. In the new I recollect, connect and recall. The new relies on giving up a perceived amount of personal control for a step of faith in an algorithm and a network. SEARH, and the mythical algorithm is its own sort of hierarchy. I get that. Still, next time instead of positing a list I might install a search box.
My bike, which will be searching for itself, will be much happier with the result.
All good things, Wig
posted by wigdawg at
11:59 PM
1 Comments:
Assertion: Search solves a self-inflicted problem created by a digital culture. The assumption that everything, every detail, is worthy of saving and indexing.
My argument: Its not. When people talk only things that are actionable or otherwise significant are retained. Everything else is just a detail.
When everything is given equal value we remember nothing, find nothing, and become frustrated with our humaness.
Maybe we should take a lesson from human nature and not assume everything is important. I'm tired of searching for files. I'd rather be searching for solutions.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home