Monday, September 27, 2004
ORIGINS AND DIRECTIONS
What about the future of desktop search as relate to The MasterList? Indeed, it is our goal at The MasterList to partner with a web-server player (or, with VC, to do it ourselves)to create a web-based desktop organizer that is the one, true VIDA (Virtual Integrative Desktop Application.)
In this genre, there are 3 potentials. 1.) Pure desktop search. Walk into a house of data with no rooms. A thousand colored balloons accost you. You say "socks" and all balloons about "socks" come forward. All others disappear. You say "my socks" and everybody else's sock balloons disappear. Then, you say, "my dress socks" and you have the pair you intend to wear with your best business suit today. 2.) Laissez-Faire desktop organization. Something like Outlook which organizes nothing and is merely a fungible email client rigged with a basic PIM (Personal Information Manager) that consists of contact cards, calendar entries, and to-dos with no organizing architectural principle (such as centricity). 3.) The MasterList Matrix (VIDA). You go to the project-centric set called Bedroom, locate the topic-centric (log) set called Sock Drawer, and open it up to see all your sock links and data. Voila. But, if you have lost your socks, you utilize text search tool (proposed for VIDA) integrated to project-centric relational database to locate the missing socks. Web, desktop, and LAN are organzied through the same organizing mechanism, or "trieur".
Pure Desktop Search such as proposed by Longhorn, Google-Puffin, Blinkx, and other web-based players is NOT the ultimate answer to providing the next killer desktop app. It is however an important piece of the puzzle.
The MasterList matrix is the perfect "trieur" or sorting system for organizing what you already know to get back to it in combination with pure search systems. We call our method of organizing "harnessing". This means that if there are a thousand multi-colored balloons in our database, and we want to find the socks. We merely locate the set label (project, to-do, contact card, folder, email folder, keyword search term) for socks and give it a pull. This brings all socks forward set-centrically (as opposed to an undifferentiated cluster), like a sock drawer opening. And, because it is project-centric, with set-centric layers, we are likely to find our shoes, pants, shirts, wristwatch, and bow tie in close proximity without having to engage in a separate search.
We are scouting for a major player to partner with us and Win The Web. If you are interested in this concept of harnessing the internet and your desktop into a single framework, proscenium, trieur-perspective, please Email me!.
What about the future of desktop search as relate to The MasterList? Indeed, it is our goal at The MasterList to partner with a web-server player (or, with VC, to do it ourselves)to create a web-based desktop organizer that is the one, true VIDA (Virtual Integrative Desktop Application.)
In this genre, there are 3 potentials. 1.) Pure desktop search. Walk into a house of data with no rooms. A thousand colored balloons accost you. You say "socks" and all balloons about "socks" come forward. All others disappear. You say "my socks" and everybody else's sock balloons disappear. Then, you say, "my dress socks" and you have the pair you intend to wear with your best business suit today. 2.) Laissez-Faire desktop organization. Something like Outlook which organizes nothing and is merely a fungible email client rigged with a basic PIM (Personal Information Manager) that consists of contact cards, calendar entries, and to-dos with no organizing architectural principle (such as centricity). 3.) The MasterList Matrix (VIDA). You go to the project-centric set called Bedroom, locate the topic-centric (log) set called Sock Drawer, and open it up to see all your sock links and data. Voila. But, if you have lost your socks, you utilize text search tool (proposed for VIDA) integrated to project-centric relational database to locate the missing socks. Web, desktop, and LAN are organzied through the same organizing mechanism, or "trieur".
Pure Desktop Search such as proposed by Longhorn, Google-Puffin, Blinkx, and other web-based players is NOT the ultimate answer to providing the next killer desktop app. It is however an important piece of the puzzle.
The MasterList matrix is the perfect "trieur" or sorting system for organizing what you already know to get back to it in combination with pure search systems. We call our method of organizing "harnessing". This means that if there are a thousand multi-colored balloons in our database, and we want to find the socks. We merely locate the set label (project, to-do, contact card, folder, email folder, keyword search term) for socks and give it a pull. This brings all socks forward set-centrically (as opposed to an undifferentiated cluster), like a sock drawer opening. And, because it is project-centric, with set-centric layers, we are likely to find our shoes, pants, shirts, wristwatch, and bow tie in close proximity without having to engage in a separate search.
We are scouting for a major player to partner with us and Win The Web. If you are interested in this concept of harnessing the internet and your desktop into a single framework, proscenium, trieur-perspective, please Email me!.
Sunday, September 26, 2004
TRIAGE, TRIER, TRIEUR
I just learned that I have been operating under a misconception. I always assumed that "triage" was related to the word "three", meaning to divide into task queues by 3's. Example. High. Medium. Low. It turns out that is logistically quasi-accurate. But, as a matter of word origins, it seems that Triage relates to the French transitive verb "trier", meaning to pick, choose, sort, select. It goes back as far as medieval woodsman selecting firewood. You know kindling, bigger sticks, heavy lumber.
Looking at my French-English dictionary, I see also that the French have a word "Trieur", meaning a sorting-machine or screening machine. The MasterList system provides a framing mechanism for access to data on your computer and on the web, that I would say is a trieur. The goal is to sort or screen what you know. The key to The MasterList is to tag it as a database object the moment you know it. Call it a to-do, a calendar entry, a note, a contact, an email, a folder, a keyword search term, the goal is to be able to get back to it.
The best way to sort what you already know is through the filter of what you already know. That is what the project-centric categories, sets, labels, names, and other relational indicators that make up The MasterList system are all about.
I just learned that I have been operating under a misconception. I always assumed that "triage" was related to the word "three", meaning to divide into task queues by 3's. Example. High. Medium. Low. It turns out that is logistically quasi-accurate. But, as a matter of word origins, it seems that Triage relates to the French transitive verb "trier", meaning to pick, choose, sort, select. It goes back as far as medieval woodsman selecting firewood. You know kindling, bigger sticks, heavy lumber.
Looking at my French-English dictionary, I see also that the French have a word "Trieur", meaning a sorting-machine or screening machine. The MasterList system provides a framing mechanism for access to data on your computer and on the web, that I would say is a trieur. The goal is to sort or screen what you know. The key to The MasterList is to tag it as a database object the moment you know it. Call it a to-do, a calendar entry, a note, a contact, an email, a folder, a keyword search term, the goal is to be able to get back to it.
The best way to sort what you already know is through the filter of what you already know. That is what the project-centric categories, sets, labels, names, and other relational indicators that make up The MasterList system are all about.
Saturday, September 11, 2004
PULL SYSTEMS VS. PUSH SYSTEMS: WHERE DOES THE MASTERLIST STAND?
If you know me, our product The MasterList, read the postings in this Blog, or White Papers on our product website, you maybe have seen the following terms over time: kaizen, incremental improvement, just-in-time inventory, Edward Deming, landscape theory, complexity landscape, action sequence, event horizon, deixis (here-there, this-that), aspect(perspective shift),origo (agent, ego, self). And, other terms of similar ilk. That's because The MasterList is not just a product for getting things done, it is a system and a state of mind for getting things done.
The theoretical underpinnings that make The MasterList a unique software power tool for getting things done are a result of the accidental streaming together of several paths into a single confluence. These include: my intensive training in linguistics at Berkeley, particularly at the conceptual or "modal" level looking for consistent structures across all languages, including sign languages, and even animal behavior to determine what is universal about how language as a "marker", signal, or determinant of action; my partner Jo-Anne's work in manufacturing and her studies of Edward Deming, Japanese TQC, and just-in-time inventory at Yale School of Management, and in the field; my legal background which forced me to approach action sequentially, logically, analytically, and against intense timetables spread over a large inventory of multiple projects that needed to be handled simultaneously; and feedback from our growing, supportive customer base as to practical and theoretical aspects of our system and our program - a user base which represents a cross-section of elite professionals, thinkers, and just-plain busy people who have been searching out a simple software architecture to help them dramatically improve their day to day performance of what needs to get done.
Which brings me to The Toyota Way, by Jeffrey K. Liker, the best self-management book I have read since Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled. Liker's book demonstrates step by step, historically, and as a recipe, how the Toyota Production System (TPS) has brought Toyota to world pre-dominance not only as a quality leader, but as a profit leader. TPS, as Liker explains it, is embodied in 14 very specific, systematic management principles that recognize the importance of the individual, the significance of pattern, the recognition that aspect shifts (visual changes in product or on the line) should signal attention to action, and how flow really works when it is created by "pull" vs. "push".
All of this struck such a chord with me, that I have decided to give our product the TPS test. I believe The MasterList system is a "pull" system for flow that works in accord with the 14 principles embodied in TPS. I intend to explore each of the 14 principles in turn in subsequent postings, as relates to The MasterList system.
What is a "pull" system? Liker explains it simply. You have maple syrup on your kitchen shelf. You make your favorite pancake breakfast and notice that the bottle is low. You put maple syrup on your grocery list, or you get the single bottle you are keeping in reserve in the pantry, and then put maple syrup on your grocery list. Later, you go to the grocery store and buy 1 bottle of maple syrup. That same day a grocery store clerk notices that there is room on the shelf for 6 bottles of maple syrup which have been sold. He goes to the stock room and gets 6 bottles. The next day, the inventory manager notices that the maple syrup is down to the last 2 cartons, so he places an order for 4 more cartons from the warehouse. Later that week, the warehouse notices that it is down to 1 section of storage rack for maple syrup so it orders sufficient pallets to fill the rack. Do you get it? That's "pull" and it creates flow from the origo (you, the consumer in the kitchen short 1 bottle of maple syrup).
In contrast, a "push" system begins with Mega Maple Syrup Corporation which needs to push 5,000,000 gallons of maple syrup to market. It discounts to the warehouse who stores more than what will be "pulled" in the ordinary course of business. The warehouse then puts pressure on the individual stores to take its maple syrup ahead of need and beyond capacity. If all else fails, the consumer is given coupons to buy more than it would ordinarily "pull".
Most software systems for getting things done are "push" systems. Microsoft Project comes to mind. But, even a simple calendar and to-do list which jams everything together in one urgent presentation creates "push" and does not operate by "pull".
Like-wise many so-called to-do list systems are Push systems, not Pull systems. Systems that ask you to make a list of lifetime goals, 10 year goals, 5 year goals, 1 year goals, this month's goals, and this week's goals are Push systems.
What is a to-do list system that is Pull system? What would it look like? Well, for one thing, it begins with pull at the origo (self, agent, you - the maple syrup consumer). Then, instead of asking you to make life lists, it asks "Look. Within the ambit of where you are, and what you are now doing, what are the 5 things you should or could be doing right now?" From there it allows you to progress those items into ambit-changes, positional changes, project-changes, task-shifts, etc.. and to cue or mark them for return, pushing them out of the immediate ambit into a first or second circle of concern beyond the ambit of the moment, towards what I would call the event horizon (the outside boundary of all undone, defined tasks). Beyond the event horizon, you have the planet of the unknown, the solar system of potentialities, and the universe and meta(multi)verse of all potential relationships and interactions with everything.
Time-out. Google, web-browsing, even desktop search engines deal with universes and metaverses of knowledge. That makes them "push" systems for organizing and acting on data. A "pull" system must be focused, have cues, be sequenced, create flow, be level. In other words, it should embody the best management systems for creating flow as a dynamic towards productivity.
Why did I mention The Path Less Traveled in the same breath as a management book? And, why am I calling The Toyota Way a "self"-management book? Because The Toyota Way involves a tale of how respect for creating flow in individual paths leads to a confluence of productivity according to a system which is based on belief and experience that creates a pull, rather than by enforcing a top-down push. Liker raises the challenge in his book of applying The Toyota Way to service organizations, professional work, entrepreneurial accomplishment, and just plain goal achievement. Scott Peck's book was about dealing with the fact and consequences of having to make choice and take action in a difficult, complex world. The result is an ad hoc path, tailored to you. Liker's book is about a system to make best choices if the path you have chosen is to manage action towards a result. Both state a case for the power of the Mind as the strongest determinant for achieving a path with heart, that is at once ad hoc, enjoyable, challenging, and in which you are able to control results or ranges of results, if you are willing to let go of axiomatic pre-definitions of goals that ignore insight, experience, and flow.
The MasterList is the ultimate tool for individuals who are working their way down that path. My goal in subsequent postings is, for better or worse, to examine each of the 14 Principles and to see how The MasterList stacks up and embodies them, and demonstrate best methods for implementing them.
If you know me, our product The MasterList, read the postings in this Blog, or White Papers on our product website, you maybe have seen the following terms over time: kaizen, incremental improvement, just-in-time inventory, Edward Deming, landscape theory, complexity landscape, action sequence, event horizon, deixis (here-there, this-that), aspect(perspective shift),origo (agent, ego, self). And, other terms of similar ilk. That's because The MasterList is not just a product for getting things done, it is a system and a state of mind for getting things done.
The theoretical underpinnings that make The MasterList a unique software power tool for getting things done are a result of the accidental streaming together of several paths into a single confluence. These include: my intensive training in linguistics at Berkeley, particularly at the conceptual or "modal" level looking for consistent structures across all languages, including sign languages, and even animal behavior to determine what is universal about how language as a "marker", signal, or determinant of action; my partner Jo-Anne's work in manufacturing and her studies of Edward Deming, Japanese TQC, and just-in-time inventory at Yale School of Management, and in the field; my legal background which forced me to approach action sequentially, logically, analytically, and against intense timetables spread over a large inventory of multiple projects that needed to be handled simultaneously; and feedback from our growing, supportive customer base as to practical and theoretical aspects of our system and our program - a user base which represents a cross-section of elite professionals, thinkers, and just-plain busy people who have been searching out a simple software architecture to help them dramatically improve their day to day performance of what needs to get done.
Which brings me to The Toyota Way, by Jeffrey K. Liker, the best self-management book I have read since Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled. Liker's book demonstrates step by step, historically, and as a recipe, how the Toyota Production System (TPS) has brought Toyota to world pre-dominance not only as a quality leader, but as a profit leader. TPS, as Liker explains it, is embodied in 14 very specific, systematic management principles that recognize the importance of the individual, the significance of pattern, the recognition that aspect shifts (visual changes in product or on the line) should signal attention to action, and how flow really works when it is created by "pull" vs. "push".
All of this struck such a chord with me, that I have decided to give our product the TPS test. I believe The MasterList system is a "pull" system for flow that works in accord with the 14 principles embodied in TPS. I intend to explore each of the 14 principles in turn in subsequent postings, as relates to The MasterList system.
What is a "pull" system? Liker explains it simply. You have maple syrup on your kitchen shelf. You make your favorite pancake breakfast and notice that the bottle is low. You put maple syrup on your grocery list, or you get the single bottle you are keeping in reserve in the pantry, and then put maple syrup on your grocery list. Later, you go to the grocery store and buy 1 bottle of maple syrup. That same day a grocery store clerk notices that there is room on the shelf for 6 bottles of maple syrup which have been sold. He goes to the stock room and gets 6 bottles. The next day, the inventory manager notices that the maple syrup is down to the last 2 cartons, so he places an order for 4 more cartons from the warehouse. Later that week, the warehouse notices that it is down to 1 section of storage rack for maple syrup so it orders sufficient pallets to fill the rack. Do you get it? That's "pull" and it creates flow from the origo (you, the consumer in the kitchen short 1 bottle of maple syrup).
In contrast, a "push" system begins with Mega Maple Syrup Corporation which needs to push 5,000,000 gallons of maple syrup to market. It discounts to the warehouse who stores more than what will be "pulled" in the ordinary course of business. The warehouse then puts pressure on the individual stores to take its maple syrup ahead of need and beyond capacity. If all else fails, the consumer is given coupons to buy more than it would ordinarily "pull".
Most software systems for getting things done are "push" systems. Microsoft Project comes to mind. But, even a simple calendar and to-do list which jams everything together in one urgent presentation creates "push" and does not operate by "pull".
Like-wise many so-called to-do list systems are Push systems, not Pull systems. Systems that ask you to make a list of lifetime goals, 10 year goals, 5 year goals, 1 year goals, this month's goals, and this week's goals are Push systems.
What is a to-do list system that is Pull system? What would it look like? Well, for one thing, it begins with pull at the origo (self, agent, you - the maple syrup consumer). Then, instead of asking you to make life lists, it asks "Look. Within the ambit of where you are, and what you are now doing, what are the 5 things you should or could be doing right now?" From there it allows you to progress those items into ambit-changes, positional changes, project-changes, task-shifts, etc.. and to cue or mark them for return, pushing them out of the immediate ambit into a first or second circle of concern beyond the ambit of the moment, towards what I would call the event horizon (the outside boundary of all undone, defined tasks). Beyond the event horizon, you have the planet of the unknown, the solar system of potentialities, and the universe and meta(multi)verse of all potential relationships and interactions with everything.
Time-out. Google, web-browsing, even desktop search engines deal with universes and metaverses of knowledge. That makes them "push" systems for organizing and acting on data. A "pull" system must be focused, have cues, be sequenced, create flow, be level. In other words, it should embody the best management systems for creating flow as a dynamic towards productivity.
Why did I mention The Path Less Traveled in the same breath as a management book? And, why am I calling The Toyota Way a "self"-management book? Because The Toyota Way involves a tale of how respect for creating flow in individual paths leads to a confluence of productivity according to a system which is based on belief and experience that creates a pull, rather than by enforcing a top-down push. Liker raises the challenge in his book of applying The Toyota Way to service organizations, professional work, entrepreneurial accomplishment, and just plain goal achievement. Scott Peck's book was about dealing with the fact and consequences of having to make choice and take action in a difficult, complex world. The result is an ad hoc path, tailored to you. Liker's book is about a system to make best choices if the path you have chosen is to manage action towards a result. Both state a case for the power of the Mind as the strongest determinant for achieving a path with heart, that is at once ad hoc, enjoyable, challenging, and in which you are able to control results or ranges of results, if you are willing to let go of axiomatic pre-definitions of goals that ignore insight, experience, and flow.
The MasterList is the ultimate tool for individuals who are working their way down that path. My goal in subsequent postings is, for better or worse, to examine each of the 14 Principles and to see how The MasterList stacks up and embodies them, and demonstrate best methods for implementing them.
