The Future of Personal Information Management, Part 1. William Jones

Chapter 4. Our information, forever on the Web⁷⁹. We must learn to live with, through and “on” the Web. Many of us look for ways to move from scattered “nomadic camps” on the Web to consolidated, permanent settlements where our investments in the management of our information pay off. We need help from our applications. How to transition from vertical, monolithic, “do everything” applications that fragment to horizontal, PIM-activity-centered applications that work together towards a common unity of personal information?

      Chapters in Part II (“The Future of Personal Information Management, Part 2: Building Places of Our Own for Digital Information”) are as follows.

      Chapter 5. Technologies to eliminate PIM? We have seen astonishing advances in the technologies of information management—in particular to aid in the storing, searching and structuring of information. These technologies will certainly change the way we do PIM; will they eliminate the need for PIM altogether?

      Chapter 6. GIM and the social fabric of PIM. We don’t (and shouldn’t) manage our information in isolation. Group information management (GIM), especially the kind practiced more informally in households and smaller project teams, goes hand in glove with good PIM.

      Chapter 7. PIM by design. What are some of the methodologies, principles, questions and considerations we can apply as we seek to understand PIM better and to build PIM into our tools, techniques and training?

      Chapter 8. To each of us, our own. Just as we must each be a student of our own practice of PIM, we must also be a designer of this practice. This concluding chapter looks at tips, traps and tradeoffs as we work to build a practice of PIM and “places” of our own for personal information.

      Some final notes and caveats:

      References to scholarly articles of direct relevance to PIM are grouped together into bibliographies at the end of both Parts I and II. Web references and non-PIM references for background reading are generally included directly in footnotes.

      I am an unabashed citer of Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/) articles when these are reasonably clear and objectively written. The interested reader should use these articles not as a final destination but as a springboard (through references cited) for further study of a given topic.

      Although each chapter builds upon previous chapters, each stands on its own. You do not need to read in sequence. But do try to read the next chapter, “Some basics of PIM,” before reading the others.

      The book is not a step-by-step “how to.” It aims to help you in your efforts to figure out things for yourself.

      The book is not a review of the latest and greatest in PIM tools and technologies. Such a book is out of date even as it is being written.

      This book is no crystal ball. How then, is this a book about the “future” of PIM? In two ways:

      The book makes reasonable extrapolations from present trends into the future.

      The book considers a “present perfect” of basic truths concerning our ways of processing information that have, are and likely always will have relevance.

      Present trends and a present prefect of enduring truths: With these clearly in focus, may we each be empowered to determine our own future. May we each lead the lives we wish to live through the artful use of information.

      ________

      ¹For general discussions concerning information and its definition see Braman, S. (1989), Buckland, M. (1991, 1997), Capurro and Hjørland (2003), Cornelius, I. (2002), Machlup, F. (1983).

      ²See, for example, Broadbent’s “Perception and communication” Broadbent, D. (1958) for a discussion of the information processing approach to understanding human intelligence.

      ³See Shannon, C. (1948) and Shannon and Weaver (1949) for a description of “The Mathematical Theory of Communication.”

      ⁴For “post-Shannon” views of what information is and how it might be measured see Aftab et al. (2001), Capurro and Hjørland (2003) and Cornelius, I. (2002).

      ⁵This definition of PIM is taken from Jones, W. (2007).

      ⁶Daft, Richard L, 1988, Management, p. 5, Dryden Press, ISBN-13: 9780030094736 ISBN: 0030094739.

      ⁷Jones and Maier (2003).

      ⁸The screenshot is taken of the web site for Furuvik in Sweden (http://www.furuvik.se/#1041).

      ⁹For more on group information management, see Lutters et al. (2007).

      ¹⁰For a review of information literacy initiatives see Eisenberg et al. (2004).

      ¹¹Pratt et al. (2006).

      ¹²See, for example, Fiske, and Taylor (1991); Hutchins (1994); and Suchman (1987).

      ¹³The interested reader is referred to Gibson’s groundbreaking work on affordances (1977, 1979). Also very interesting and more accessible are Norman’s discussions on the impact that “everyday things”—computer based and not—can have on our ability to handle information (1988, 1990, 1993).

      ¹⁴For a discussion of individual differences as these apply to PIM, see Gwizdka and Chignell (2007). (See also Boardman and Sasse (2004), Malone, T. (1983), Whittaker and Sidner (1996).)

      ¹⁵For a fascinating study of how (how well) people retrieve photographs they have taken, see Whittaker et al. (2010).

      ¹⁶See, for example, Jones et al. (2005).

      ¹⁷The signal-detection analysis was originally developed by Peterson et al. (1954). For its application to keeping decisions see Jones, W. (2004). For a more general discussion on the interplay between cognitive psychology and PIM, see Jones and Ross (2006).

      ¹⁸See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_information_manager, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Personal_digital_assistants, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_personal_information_managers.

      ¹⁹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Wizard.

      ²⁰http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinfeld.

      ²¹See, for example, Fidel and Pejtersen (2004), Gershon (1995), Lucas (2000) and Pirolli (2006).

      ²²See, for example, Belkin et al. (1993).

      ²³For more discussion on information management and knowledge management in organizations, see Garvin (2000), Selamat and Choudrie (2004), Taylor (2004) and Thompson et al. (1999).

      ²⁴See, for example, Fonseca and Martin (2004) and Rowley (1994).

      ²⁵See, for example, Karat et al. (2006).

      ²⁶Why stop with knowledge? Factoring in “wisdom” we might have the following sequence: Information is data in motion; knowledge is information in action; wisdom is knowledge in perspective.

      ²⁷Pauleen D. and Gorman G., Farnham Personal Knowledge Management: Individual, Organisational and Social Perspectives, in: Gower Pub Co. Retrieved from http://www.gowerpublishing.com/default.aspx?page=641&calcTitle=1&isbn=9780566088926&lang=cy-GB

      ²⁸