Divide and Conquer

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Author Message Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI, CDT Senior Member Username: rliebing Post Number: 1075 Registered: 02-2003 Posted on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 07:00 am:    091021 SIMPLE! "DIVIDE AND CONQUER¨ OR CONCENTRATE? by Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI, CDT, Cincinnati, OH Is it our lot in life to jump at the first opportunity to buy a new electronic gizzy-watchit, and have yet another way to connect and share information? [was going to say communicate, but not sure that is always the case!] With iPods, Twitter, Blogs, Facebook, cell phones, Blackberries, Wikis, innumerable web sites and the parade of other modern wizardry is where you place information on one not of use to someone with one of the other gadgets? The point, dear friends, is that we may be approaching that point where we have a gadget to exchange information¡¨ with each individual we know-- hundreds of those things to further distract us. You get e-mails from 10-feet away? Anybody working on a Master electronic index so we can find what we want-- quickly? Will there be fewer gadgets when that happens? I'm old enough to remember the 12¨ high column telephone [Grandma called it "the instrument¨!] even before one with a dial, where you picked it up and talked to Central, i.e., a real live operator [before Lily Tomlin was born] who connected you to your number [a simple 4-digits]. There was a very good prospect that several other folks shared your conversation using the same party line. Interesting times! OK, I'm old, but I still wonder [out loud on occasion!] what is happening to us in organizations when we place good information one place but not on all the outlets that may be sent to and used by other members? Used to be that 10% never got the word-- often by pure error. But now it seems we can choose to share with only select groups that have some common interest in our topics. Why? With our "Toyland¨ of gadgets we can do more, but seem to like to restrict information flow, by storing it in remote places. What, indeed, is the goal or aim of all the gadgets and resources, in the end [other than selling more stuff]? CSI now has a small bazillion newsletters, at least two a week to my mail box. The vast amount of information is new and good, but maybe not on-point with CSI interests and programs-- and is accompanied by a raft of references to other places in encyclopedic manner. Not to malign CSI since it is true of so much lately, but the overabundant header and footer data and side ads are a little much [a real pox on most web sites]. The disclaimers often outnumber the "claimers¨! Let's beat on one item, just for the heck of it. If ALL of the info about specs and BIM were in one place, how many gigabytes would be involved? [notice my use of modern lexicon!] Would it all be read? How much of the info would be contradictory? how much would augment? Is it better to have a lot of information stored in one place, but poorly indexed; or stored in many places but inaccessible; or in some perhaps yet to be developed, well-indexed system? [Like the internet itself-- a coming technology]. The internet has such a trove of information but it is so "closeted¨ that a form of gridlock is in place-- how do we find ALL the pertinent information about a given topic with any reliability? Would the basic value be to have it all in one place, even if segmented into sections or relevant parts? How do we store all this "stuff¨ and ever have some chance of retrieving it, on demand? Just today, posted on a forum on a web site, got an answer for a link to a reference in my post from another web site, that then was mentioned as having been posted on a blog, but without source reference! Smacks of a yesteryear thing called, "Britannica¨! It is a 2-Advil pain in several places. Wonder where KISS [not the group- the concept] went? Yea, just simple! Indeed, our evolving world is becoming an invisible electronic encyclopedia, where we simply allow the software gadgeteers to fragment our information, inhibit sharing and simple mutual communication, while all the time reaping huge profits via our confusion! And they work on! Do we really-- really!!!!!need this? ¡"Hello, Cosmos! Can I find information about __________ ____________________, anywhere out there¡¨? Hey, maybe that old way WAS better! ['Course, maybe I'm just nosey!] Now let's see where is that damn grocery list my wife e-mailed me, when she couldn't find her cell phone to text me when her Blackberry battery went low? Gosh, all you had to do was feed passenger pigeons and they were always ready to go!!