Phrase for the weekend
While reading some materials, I came across voodoo categorization. I like this phrase. This explains that much of our categorization is based on fiction, or (appropriately) arbitrary definitions.
Let me back-track and give some context: I'm working on some information architecture for a collection/cache/chaotic stash of our documents, and I dug around the web for some reading/self-educational material, and found this phrase in Clay Shirky's article "Ontology is Overrated - Categories, Links, and Tags". (My geek-side is refreshed after reading yet another article by him: "Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality".)
I guess we're dealing with lots of voodoo categorizations in, say, our email filing systems. My emails are in a bit of a mess: folders aren't adequate because I don't have time to file them religiously enough and the fact that these folders don't capture categories well (what do you do with emails that span multiple categories?) The search vs. browse question seems more and more relevant (see Gmail, for example) when we apply that to our wealth of files, with respect to filing, storing, and retrieving them in an interim content management system here. One of the major things to change is the ingrained work habits of people. People need to name their files appropriately and fill in meta-data for all their documents (go and fill in the File->Properties - just do it, your Google Desktop Searches will turn up more meaningful results). One set of widgets that should be banned is the font and font-size pickers in Word (or any editor); styles and stylesheets should be the way to go - it helps format your document visually and semantically. *sigh* I know what heaven will be like: well-formed, semantically correct with streets paved with gold.
Anyways, I'll think more about these things after this long-weekend.