Nods to Supernotes (@acnebs and @tobeagram— you’ve done a great job developing further since April). And Logseq looks like a pretty interesting Roam-like for anyone looking.
At least we’re not writing about “notes” anymore. All the chatter about note-taking seems to miss the point!
How would you differentiate thinking on knowledge vs. knowledge management? Like, you’re looking for reflections on what good and bad “knowledge” might look like?
Rarely do the writers of all this advice on systems / techniques / software explain what they are searching after – at least, not much in depth and only in passing.
I am very curious about what is really going on. What’s driving all the tool talk.
Is knowledge objectively moral? I don’t think so.
No. “What do you want to know?” is not an epistemic question. “How do you know” is, but not “what…”.
My observations are way way way off topic for this forum, so I don’t want to drag this thread down. (Sorry @jsamlarose )
I don’t think your observations are off-point, though. I agree with you: all this PKM talk doesn’t have a clear “so what?”
(By good and bad knowledge, I was referring to good and bad quality.)
Alternatively, I like to think about it with examples. Would Daniel Kahneman or Oprah Winfrey have made better contributions, or would their work have been easier, if “better” knowledge management tools had been available? Are the folks using these tools going to be that much more effective or efficient?
@jsamlarose Thanks for the link to good resources.
Everything is trending to a custom individual solution. When one wanted a proper fitting suit one went to a tailor. Then at the expense of the perfect fit customization went to mass-produced and less expensive. Now with technology, it is becoming easier and eliminating the middle man you are now able to get customized goods and services. Organic meat and produce direct from the farmer. Custom chauffer’s to drive you around to be replaced by AV soon.
Likewise, everyone needs to match their unique workflows, style and preferences into the application software.
To me Drafts is strictly a front-end processor “where text starts”
I think it is kind of a waste of time to shoehorn applications like Roam Research as a task management system when there are so many applications that are much more suitable and efficient.
In my case in one area of my responsibility, I create so much technical and training content that I have wasting too much time data mining my own data so hence I am improving workflows to both locate said data and make it presentable in a modern format to make it more interesting to the end-user learning experience.
While some of the areas are mature and the best application software is done already (i.e. Excel is the best spreadsheet and Keynote/Powerpoint the best presentation software) the front-end capture and research software in the form of note-taking and web capturing apps are still being innovated.
I have leaning towards Supernote especially with their recent updates to knock out Obsidian and Walling to knock out MyMind with both having nicer User-friendly UI’s and they align with my personal workflows and mindset.
Fair enough! So say many. That’s certainly how it was originally marketed, and how I first found it. In the early days, I occasionally used Drafts as a preprocessor for quick capture before pushing whatever I’d captured in one of a few different directions— typically to Evernote or Editorial (which, being synced to Dropbox, allowed me to work with text files I could access via FoldingText, Taskpaper or Notational Velocity on MacOS).
A few things changed for me: Drafts 5 was released; I realised the power of Drafts actions in creating an environment that met the majority of my needs and got over my resistance towards writing Javascript in order to author my own workflows; I went (almost) iPad-exclusive in my day-to-day writing/computing; I felt the urge to refine the number of different applications I was using to do what I was doing. Now (as I saw someone else tweet a while back), Drafts is pretty much my OS.
I already had a few actions that allowed for some basic cross-linking between drafts before the recent Roam-inspired rage for such things sparked up, but the support for double bracket links in Drafts has been welcome. I’ve considered creating something with a javascript visualisation library that might emulate network graphing for linked notes, but while it would possibly look interesting I’m not sure the value would merit the amount of time I’d have to invest to make something functional.
I really do like the look of Supernotes and what they’ve done since I last tested it out. What I’m particularly interested in there (seeing as I already have a primary home for my writing/thinking/knowledge) is the facility to use Supernotes as a platform for collaboration. And thanks for reminding me about Walling…
@jsamlarose Yes the barrier to change over to a new app is very costly in many ways especially since you have putting in a fair amount of time customizing your workflow. I doubt whether the ROI would be worth to switch to another workflow.
In my case I am creating some new processes to pivot into some new business areas as well as purging current software app inventories.
It is a case, if you had to start fresh what would you do and what would you keep the same.
Sometimes it is rediscover gems of many years ago (aka. Leap) or betting on Beta released software that are exploring new territory (aka. Memex).
Then once I am done hacking away, go in deep work on the survivors.
I have taken advantage of all this lockdown time to work on these projects.
@jsamlarose thanks for the shout out! We have lots of great new features planned for the next few months, that we are looking forward to sharing with you:
Desktop apps (Mac, Windows & Linux) Graph view with friends Share pages for cards (i.e. Individual cards publicly accessible from a secure URL) Improved import and export functionality
We also recently had a chat with Francesco from Keep Productive about our future plans – if you’re interested here’s the link.
Rather than “good” and “bad” - even regarding quality - I like to distinguish “useful” from “non-useful”, or maybe “relevant” and “non-relevant”. There’s tons of stuff out there that’s excellent quality that one can accumulate, knowledge-wise, but then there’s the tons of stuff that’s not only high-quality, but is the sort of knowledge that one is intentionally trying to accumulate.
Nothing wrong with facts & tidbits of cool info - but ultimately one has to accumulate not only high-quality knowledge, but high-quality knowledge in fields that enable their work.
For sure. When I say “quality,” I mean “fitness for use.” But we can get a bit more nuanced; what is “useful” knowledge?
Perhaps the most fundamental resource on data quality is a paper by Wang and Strong published in 1996, who expand on the idea of data quality = fitness for use by examining what fitness for use actually means, specifically by asking a lot of data users. In personal knowledge management, you’re both data producer and data user, so their framework is relevant. Here’s what they came up with:
(Had to step away before I finished my thought. Sorry for the double-post.)
I think those dimensions of quality apply to PKM. A “good” PKM system is one that provides the user with all of those dimensions. Or, perhaps more functionally: a “better” PKM system provides the user with benefits in one or more of those dimensions over whatever they’re currently using. Ergo, if you add a newfangled app that increases your ability to interpret your knowledge base more easily, it is probably a good addition.
The interesting thing about PKM, though, is what I said above: PKM makes you both consumer and producer. So a good PKM system also needs to have high-quality data “production” (aka collection, creation, whatever) as well as data consumption. I actually haven’t seen a widely-celebrated framework on that side of data management…
Forgive me if this should be obvious, but what are all the numbers next to the items? Is that the ranking of that item overall in terms of how users feel it relates to data quality? Or is that something else?
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Desktop apps (Mac, Windows & Linux)
Graph view with friends
Share pages for cards (i.e. Individual cards publicly accessible from a secure URL)
Improved import and export functionality
