Everything Is Miscellaneous

From ETS

Everything Is Miscellaneous was discussed on Friday, August 8th 2008

Attendees

• Chris S
• Allan
• Stevie
• Michelle
• Nikki
• Robin
• Jeff
• Emily
• Anne
• Mary
• Jason
• Hannah
• Chris M
• Shelby
• Julie (via ichat)

Your Thoughts on Everything Is Miscellaneous

Please use this space to contribute ideas, questions, or thoughts on Everything Is Miscellaneous. We can use those contributions to drive our face to face meeting, or take them to the discussion area for an ongoing dialogue as we read.

Today, the CAT listing suggested to me this book was on the shelf, but I must have misinterpreted the search result, as it was absent when I visited Paterno Library at lunchtime. So, tonight right after work I splurged pre-payday and bought the book in paperback form at B&N. I'm already intrigued by ch. 1, The New Order of Order, as relates to my search for the book. My personal pride did not allow me to ask for help finding it first thing. However, the genre wasn't clear-cut. I tried the Web, Sociology, and Current Events sections with no luck. I then humiliated myself by having to ask for help (personality issue: in elementary school, I wouldn't even raise my hand if I needed to sharpen a pencil, not wanting to be cast as a help-seeker). I went to the central desk and mentioned the title, resulting in a non-recognizing frown, like, "a book entitled what-the-hay?" (a still-sad effect in my eyes following the demise of small, locally-owned bookstores such as beloved Svoboda's on the first floor of Rider Bldg., where, when you mentioned/presented a book, someone's eyes lit up in recognition and appreciation--OMG the clerks actually liked the books!), then was handed the book a few seconds later upon being led to the "scientific" section quite removed from either "Web" or "sociology." Despite her lack of recognition or caring, I complimented the employee on the speed of locating the item. I'll be reading throughout the weekend to make up for lost time. I already read The Cluetrain Manifesto several years ago, but hadn't made the connection that it was the same author. Mary mja11

My favorite quote thus far: "the solution to the overabundance of information is more information." (p. 13) Seems like a contradiction, but it's well-proven in the few pages before it appears. The chapter "Alphabetization and Its Discontents" also hit home: we had a student doing a card sort user test for us who decided to alphabetize the categories because that's what made most sense to her. The testers (myself included) responded (privately) with "but that's so random!" And it is.

"Discovering what you want is at least as important as finding what you know you want" (pg 9). I'm excited to see where this notion goes as the book plays on - content discoverability is a big deal thats only getting bigger.

"The miscellanizing of this information not only breaks it out of its traditional organization categories but also removes the implicit authority granted by being published in the paper world. Second-order organization, it turns out, is, often as much about authority as about making things easier to find." (pg. 22)

"A skilled thinker, like someone skilled at carving the drumsticks off a turkey, has to know where the joints are" (pg. 32)

"In the third order of order, a leaf can hang on many branches, it can hang on different branches for different people, and it can change branches for the same person if she decides to look at a subject differently... In the third order of order, knowledge doesnt have a shape." (pg. 83)

Michelle (mib105): I have to admit, after struggling through the prologue and first couple of chapters, I'm not seeing the benefit of continuing to read this book. It feels to me like Weinberger is making the same point over and over again, and it's a point I already understood and have put into practice. Is there some piece of wisdom beyond the second chapter that I am missing? Am I dismissing it too quickly? This feels like old news to me.

Mary (mja11): I have finished the book, and very much enjoyed reading it. I appreciated how it led you through the history of how people have attempted to organize/classify/retrieve knowledge through the ages. Until I approached the end this morning, I kept thinking how it reminded me of our discussions of prototype theory when I took semantics in grad school. Some months back, I'd been pondering that subject in re: tags and trying and trying to remember the name of the theorist, and all that would pop in my head was "Lasch," which I knew was wrong. If for no other reason, I thank the author for providing the name: Eleanor Rosch. I looked up my class notes (2-26-87!) and there was the name, plus that of another researcher whose name had been escaping me, Willet Kempton. See, that's why you should never throw anything away, in case you'll need it someday.

"Its not what you know and its not even who you know. Its how much knowledge you give away. Hoarding knowledge diminishes your power because it diminishes your presence." - p230

Related Readings

• Clay Shirky's Blog:
  • Newspapers and the Net: What new media will take the place of old media? Read this post and the full-length piece Clay references in it.
  • Gin, Television, and Social Surplus: Relates to the "What comes next?" discussion. Shirky believes this is a second awakening. In Battlestar Gallactica terms, "All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again". In Everything is Miscellaneous terms, perhaps the third order of order is interchangeable parts of our revolution...
• Bob Sutton's The No-Asshole Rule: relates to our discussion on collaboration and team players. The book is on our booklist. In the meantime, check out Bob's blog.