Archive for January, 2009

First annual review

Published 31 January 2009 Blog 2 Comments

It appears that I have been writing here for a year. How did that happen? It doesn’t seem that long ago, but the statistics don’t lie.

Talking of statistics, here are a few highlights of the year.

  • Most popular post: Ceci n’est pas un pipe
  • Busiest day: Thursday, November 13, 2008
  • Total posts (apart from this one): 55
  • Total comments: 68

However, the experience of blogging and joining a community that I had no real idea existed is more important than these quantitative measures. I am grateful for all the appreciative comments here and elsewhere about things I have written.

So what does the next year hold? Who knows. I want to include more book reviews like the one I did yesterday, and I need to keep to the topic more often. Keep watching…

Book review: Infotopia

Published 30 January 2009 Book Review Leave a Comment

I had Cass R. Sunstein’s book, Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge on my wish-list at Amazon for some time before finally purchasing it. I wish I had done so sooner: it sheds valuable light on key aspects of knowledge creation, decision-making and social software.

Sunstein’s raw material is simple: Condorcet’s Jury Theorem ; some studies of deliberative groups; Eric S. Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar ; and a few examples of powerful uses of technology (especially wikis and prediction markets). By combining these he creates a book dedicated to answering a few simple questions. Why do random groups tend to produce better decisions than carefully constructed discussions? Why does open source software and thinking tend to be more robust than that produced by closed processes?

The book starts by exploring and expanding on Condorcet’s Jury Theorem, which holds as follows (as described in Wikipedia).

The assumptions of the theorem are that a group wishes to reach a decision by majority vote. One of the two outcomes of the vote is correct, and each voter has an independent probability p of voting for the correct decision. The theorem asks how many voters we should include in the group. The result depends on whether p is greater than or less than 1/2:

  • If p is greater than 1/2 (each voter is more likely than not to vote correctly), then adding more voters increases the probability that the majority decision is correct. In the limit, the probability that the majority votes correctly approaches 1 as the number of voters increases.
  • On the other hand, if p is less than 1/2 (each voter is more likely than not to vote incorrectly), then adding more voters makes things worse: the optimal jury consists of a single voter.

In doing so, Sunstein puts a useful gloss on the raw mathematics of Condorcet.

[I]t would wrong to suggest that the best approach to hard questions is to ask a large number of people and to take the average answer. That approach is only likely to work under distinctive circumstances: those in which many or most people are more likely than not to be right… In all of these cases, there is reason to trust the people being asked, and hence the average answer is likely to be right.

But it would make no sense to make policy by asking everyone in the world whether the United States should sign the Kyoto Protocol, or whether genetic engineering poses serious risks… In these cases, there is a great risk that error and confusion will be replicated at the level of group averages. (pp42-43)

Crucially for Sunstein, the consulted group needs to have real (even if only fragmented) information about the facts at issue. The further we get from this position — either because the answer sought is not fact-based or because there is an increasing risk of systematic error or misinterpretation — the less likely it is that a Condorcet approach will work.

Sunstein then turns to the deliberative approach. Can groups (of experts or of generalists) reach reliably good conclusions by discussing the options available? Here he gives the game away in advance by the heading of Chapter 2: “The Surprising Failure of Deliberating Groups.” Sunstein’s case is that the process of deliberation actually works against the kinds of outcome that we intuitively think it should promote: accurate decision-making, open sharing of information, and improved quality of discussion, when compared to random groups.

  1. It cannot be shown that deliberating groups generally arrive at the truth…
  2. Much of the time, deliberating groups do quite poorly at aggregating the information that their members have…
  3. Deliberating groups sometimes outperform statistical groups, but sometimes the opposite is the case. (pp57-58)

These problems are, broadly speaking, a consequence of human psychology and group behaviours. In reaching these conclusions, Sunstein examines a wealth of research in those areas. I have a slight reservation about this aspect of the book. Here and elsewhere research studies and reports are mentioned, but I felt the absence of any context. Because this is not a scientific monograph, it is perhaps reasonable for there not to be a comprehensive analysis of all the research on the topics under discussion. However, it is not possible to judge from the material Sunstein uses how much has been selected to support his argument. I am willing to trust him, but I don’t feel particularly comfortable doing so — particularly in view of the fact that the book depends significantly on exposing and challenging received opinion.

Having laid the theoretical foundations, Sunstein moves on to practical matters. He focuses on two areas: prediction markets and social and open source software. These chapters are fascinating. In his treatment of prediction markets, Sunstein revels in showing how markets in information match Hayek’s assertions about markets generally. However, he also highlights the problems that can be caused when the purity of the market can affect the quality of information sharing. These markets are as subject to manipulation, bias and bubbles as traditional ones. Within certain parameters, though, Sunstein is confident.

Prediction markets remain in their early stages. … [I]n many domains, they perform extremely well — better than surveys, better than deliberating groups, better than experts. Their promise is most likely to be realized when knowledge is genuinely dispersed, when a wide range of people know relevant facts, and when their incentives lead them to reveal, through investments, what they know. (p144)

There is a curious detour in the middle of this chapter, in which Sunstein looks at the way Hayek’s views on markets relate to the persistence of information over time (rather than space, which is the focus of the rest of the book) and compares them to Edmund Burke’s assertion that long-standing traditions are generally to be preferred, being rooted in the judgments of particular people tested over time.  Ultimately, Sunstein is less convinced by Hayek’s proximity to Burke on the question of meritorious persistence.

What Hayek and Burke appear to miss is that traditional practices are often the congealed product of earlier informational or reputational cascades. Often morality consists of inefficient or unjust practices defended by entrenched groups and factions. …

In many cases, traditions last not because they are excellent, but because influential people are averse to change and because of the sheer burdens of transition to a better state. It is for this reason that celebrations of traditions have always met an ambivalent reaction in free countries. (p125)

It was particularly striking to me that Sunstein invoked Burke at this stage, as he had earlier ignored the Englishman’s dictum on representative democracy in preference to the identical view expressed by Roger Sherman in the first US Congress:

I think, when the people have chosen a representative, it is his duty to meet others from the different parts of the Union, and consult, and agree with them on such acts as are for the general benefit of the whole community. If they were to be guided by instructions, there would be no use in deliberation.

Sunstein has previously relied on Sherman’s words in his works The Partial Constitution (1993: 22) and Republic.com (2002: 41), so we should give him some credit for recycling.

When Sunstein turns to examine technology, he treads much more familiar ground. His analysis owes much to Eric Raymond’s, topped up with lessons learned from Wikipedia, Intellipedia and similar efforts, and a critique of blogs as mechanisms for exaggerating apparent consensus. There is a long-standing tradition of approval of open source and similar processes coupled with denigration of proprietary and closed development. (I even contributed to the tradition myself in a critique of competing Internet standards processes.) Sunstein adds little here, beyond publicising the existing views and, much more importantly, linking them to his more abstract material. This really makes a difference, but I am still unsure why people deliberating together in groups do a poorer job of reaching the right conclusion than those contributing openly to a wiki, to open source software development or to an Internet standards process. What is different? Is it the quasi-anonymity offered by the latter processes? Or is it a consequence of politicisation (in the most general sense) of the deliberative process. Sunstein doesn’t even pose these questions, let alone offer an answer.

What he does do, in his final chapter, is to start to offer solutions for the flawed deliberative process. He recognises that, rightly or wrongly, this tradition is not going away. Instead he suggests ways in which the improved effectiveness of some of the other approaches in the book can be introduced into deliberating groups. Unfortunately, this chapter is tantalisingly short. I would have appreciated more here — Sunstein’s solutions are just too sketchy.

Infotopia provides a valuable and informative summary of some important concepts. Its measured and thoughtful tone stands out amongst works of a more evangelical nature that cover similar ground, and is therefore highly recommended. There are gaps, but perhaps in time those will be filled by others.

Challenging the orthodoxy

Published 28 January 2009 Clients , KM , Lawyering , Web2.0 1 Comment

Given the focus of this blog I suppose I should welcome Michael Idinopulos’s almost heretical conclusion that law firms are misguided in using wikis to support know-how activities (at least as an initial use case).

From an adoption standpoint, however, general know-how is usually a bad place to start. Lawyers are incredibly busy, and general know-how lies squarely above-the-flow of their daily work. Because lawyers lack incentives to contribute their knowledge to the rest of the firm, invitations to participate in social software implementations are often greeted with a polite “Thanks but no thanks.”

I am not sure how I feel about this, so bear with me while I try to work it out.

My initial thoughts were that firms might be using wikis to drive know-how into the flow, rather than leaving it above the flow. This could have only a limited impact initially, but I don’t know whether this is because know-how will always be above the flow, as Michael argues.

Michael starts his critique by recognising that the reason for the concentration on know-how is one of jurisdictional engagement.

The first decision-makers in a firm to “get religion” on social software are usually in firm-wide knowledge roles: CKOs, directors of know-how. They pursue general legal know-how because that’s their organizational jurisdiction. It’s the aspect of the firm’s activity for which they are responsible.

Obviously, I can only plead guilty on that point. Which is probably why the critique stings.

On one hand, I wonder whether Michael’s view is informed by his own expectations of how wikis might work. In this connection, I was very taken with Andrew McAfee’s simple approach to evaluating Enterprise 2.0 products:

I usually dodge questions about specific vendors and their offerings, and instead answer how I’d look at any particular deployment of collaboration software to see if it met my definition of Enterprise 2.0.

I find this pretty easy to do. I check to see if the environment meets three criteria: Is it freeform? How frictionless is contribution? And is it emergent?

In this context, the key criterion for me is emergence. As McAfee explains, “My best-effort definition of the phenomenon is the appearance over time within a system of higher-level patterns or structure arising from large numbers of unplanned and undirected low-level interactions.” If we set out to define a wiki as the place where know-how is stored, I am sure that success is by no means guaranteed. However, if it is just one place where know-activities can take place (not just storage, but capture of conversations and creation of know-how), I think we might have a really useful additional tool in our set. Not everyone has to be engaged, but if some are, then that is really valuable.

On the other hand, I do think Michael’s point about client engagement is a good one. I didn’t work in a law firm before e-mail, so I don’t know how the adoption process worked then. My guess, however, is that there was some resistance until it became clear that it made access to and by clients easier. I see no reason why wikis (and other novel technologies) should follow a different pattern. Michael gives excellent examples of wiki use across the firewall that show how successful this approach can be.

Except… For me, one of the things that wikis might do (admittedly to a lesser extent than blogs) is to expose people’s personal know-how processes. These are absolutely within the flow. Everyone has their own way of gathering the things that are important to them. For lawyers this is almost invariably paper-based. They have files and folders full of old agreements, articles, case reports and so on. Each of these can trigger a stored memory when necessary (and vice versa). I have a vision in which people can identify their own know-how by tagging it where it is (which is how I use delicious.com) and exposing their thought processes through a blog or collectively in a wiki. If wikis are in the flow for some, but not others, surely we should lead by example.

Coincidentally, Jack Vinson covered similar ground yesterday in asking “Do Web 2.0 tools help personal effectiveness?” The summary answer is “No.” In more detail, Jack is keen to underscore the distinction between the tool and the way in which it is used.

[T]he tools don’t make me more effective. It is the process in which I am using the tools. I can have a sheet of paper and a pen and be very effective, or very ineffective. The question is my process (and my mental state), not the tools I have at hand.

Those of us in a role where we can champion social software inside the firewall need to be aware of this. Our leadership must concentrate on processes and mental states. For some people this will clearly lead to a client focus such as the ones that Michael describes. For others, personal motivation may be enough to drive personal KM activities or even group know-how development.

The lesson I take from Michael’s ultimately justified corrective is that we should stop pushing when people are clearly resisting our fine words. There will be other opportunities elsewhere in the business. We should focus our efforts on the battles that we can win most easily. Once we are done with those, our successes will breed success elsewhere. (Crucially, this is a lesson for all types of tools, not just the ones that a particularly shiny and new at the moment.)

Housekeeping

Published 22 January 2009 Blog Leave a Comment

I have changed the blog theme, and may be making some other minor changes. The last one I was using did not have an important navigation tool: links to previous and next posts. This one has those links at the bottom of each post. I can’t believe it took me a year to spot the absence.

Time and Promotion

Published 16 January 2009 Development , Learning , Work 1 Comment

Heather Milligan has just published the third blog post in a series on “Marketing Me.” The series (of four planned posts) is intended as a counter to what Heather calls “the worst piece of advice I ever got.” This was: “Do a good job, Heather, and they’ll notice you.” Naturally enough, they didn’t.

The third post, entitled “When do you find the time?” contains some really useful tips:

  • Manage your process
  • Avoid distractions
  • Clear your life
  • Make social networking part of your job
  • Take Advantage of Technology
  • Filter the Noise
  • Have faith, it will settle down

One of the actions under the heading “clear your life” resonated with something I wrote about last year. Here’s Heather’s story:

I went through my calendar and started to cross out everything that really wasn’t necessary, beginning first with the television. What was I watching that I didn’t enjoy? What was complete junk that I really didn’t need to watch? Gone.

And here is Clay Shirky:

And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way, now that we have a unit, that’s 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television. Or put still another way, in the U.S., we spend 100 million hours every weekend, just watching the ads. This is a pretty big surplus. People asking, “Where do they find the time?” when they’re looking at things like Wikipedia don’t understand how tiny that entire project is…

Coincidentally, Charles Arthur has posted a link to a long interview with Clay Shirky in the Columbia Journalism Review. He then poses an interesting question:

But what also occurred to me that is not said anywhere, ever, yet seems to me to be ineluctably true is that part of the falling-away of long-form content (which includes novels and newspapers and other things that require some time in a quiet place) is down to the way that life is just getting more intense.

Is it just me, or are people generally having to run harder to keep up? I’m intrigued by the question of how many hours people have to work to have the “average” standard of living. I’m sure there’s data that American workers haven’t seen an increase in living standards over the past howevermany years. I wonder if the same exists for Britons, Europeans, people all over the place? Even as living standards rise, the rising tide means that if you fall out of the boat you’ve still got a lot of swimming to do.

The comments on Charles’s post are worth reading as well. There is an emerging theme that we tend to fill what we think is empty space with things like TV, radio, music, video games and so on, and that the increasingly portable nature of those things makes us think that we have no time to spare. In fact, those activities represent someone else’s priorities and we could use the time better to think about things that are more important to us.

That leads to Heather’s point about social networking:

I was asked recently how I was learning/managing social networking and my work load. Well, part of the answer is that my continuing education, which is what this was for me in the beginning, is part of my job. As the marketing professional for my law firm, I must keep up with not only the happenings in the industry, but the advances in technologies.

In addition, by marketing myself, I am building relationships with peers, vendors, reporters, publishers, and other professionals which all benefit my firm.

That is clearly more important than watching yet another cookery programme on TV, surely? I certainly think it is. If your life is too intense, I think you need to work out whether that intensity is being driven by things that are in fact of  little interest and value to you.

More on lawyers and innovation

Published 14 January 2009 Innovation , Lawyering Leave a Comment

Here are two bonus links following on from yesterday’s post.

From Tim Corcoran: Galileo Was Wrong: The Earth Revolves Around Lawyers.

On a number of occasions where we gathered with the board or executive team of an acquisition target in a secret location to discuss a business combination, we always invited the lawyers because there were items on the checklist that only they could handle. But they otherwise didn’t speak much. When outside lawyers were invited, they sat next to the in-house lawyers and spoke even less. Again, none of this is meant to demean the important role lawyers play in doing deals, but the point is they were there to identify and quantify risks in executing the deal so the business people could incorporate this into the financials, or choose to build versus buy if the risk was too great. We never asked for a go/no-go decision, and we didn’t ask for exhaustive explanations of the legal issues in play. We asked about the obstacles, the techniques to overcome the obstacles, and the cost of doing so — and not the legal cost, i.e., the legal bills, but the cost to proceed. For example, I wouldn’t want to know how much the law firm will charge to counsel us on new regulations; I wanted to know how complying with new regulations would impact the cash flow projections. Again, the point is, on the business side we rarely think of things in legal terms, but in terms of how legal issues impact our ability to proceed.

In point of fact, the earth does not revolve around the lawyers.

From Christopher Fahey: Innovation, Transformation, Therapy, Practice (via Scott Berkun).

The conversations around innovation over the past few years have in large part focused on producing innovation where it does not exist. It hasn’t been about innovation itself, but rather about cultivating innovation. It’s been about transforming groups of people who, without clever and forward-thinking leadership, would utterly fail to innovate. The literature, then, is aimed at people who fancy themselves as that same clever and forward-thinking leader.

To those of us whose everyday job is to innovate — e.g., designers — the hype around “innovation” has always seemed a little weird. As if not innovating has ever been an option for a designer. We do this all the time!

So what Nussbaum and the innovation cheerleaders have been talking about all along has not been about how innovative people can be more innovative. It’s been about how to take teams that cannot or will not innovate and getting them to actually come up with new ideas.

Perhaps we can only hope to create better bricklayers.

Lawyers: architects or bricklayers?

Published 13 January 2009 Clients , Creativity , Design , Innovation , Lawyering 1 Comment

Yesterday lunchtime I managed to get out of the office for a walk at lunchtime. As I did so, I pondered a question that has been at the back of my mind for some time. It is my impression that innovation in law firms tends to occur most in the delivery of legal services, client care or in some peripheral law firm activity (marketing, finance, IT, etc). It is fairly rare that we see real innovation in the law itself coming out of law firms. (Some evidence for this impression is provided by the annual Financial Times survey of innovation in law firms.)

As I pondered and wandered, I admired the characteristic brickwork of Manchester’s historic cotton warehouses. Cruelly, I wondered whether many lawyers were simply bricklayers — putting the right blocks together in a particular way to achieve the desired result: an agreement or set of agreements to achieve the commercial aims of their clients. Extending the analogy further, there are significant similarities between the creation of a new building and the conclusion of a corporate or commercial transaction.

At the outset there is a client and the client has a need. No legal work is done without an external driver. Similarly few if any buildings are created purely speculatively. The client’s need (for a building to fit a particular purpose or for a new acquisition) is usually arrived at entirely without interference by professional specialists. However, once the need has crystallised, the professionals are needed to make the need a reality: an architect in the case of a building, a lawyer in the case of the transaction. At this stage, the client’s need might permit innovation (in building design or in legal structure). However, it is almost impossible for that innovation to create an opportunity for a new type of client need.

An example of the kind of innovation I mean is the development of steel-framed structures. Once the potential of that kind of building was realised by clients, the development of densely-built cities like New York and Chicago became possible. I can’t think of a legal innovation with an equivalent impact on the scenery of business, work, trade or commerce. (That is not to say that there isn’t one — it is late and my mind is tired.)

So at least one lawyer seeing to the client’s needs is an architect – creating the best structure to deliver what the client wants, dealing with other professionals (including regulators), managing key specialists (including hod-carrying lawyers), and ensuring that the client is kept happy. Innovation in all of those areas is possible, but it must be secondary to the need to deliver what the client needs as effectively as possible. In many situations (probably the vast majority), that effectiveness is probably most likely to come from doing the usual job. Similarly, many architects might want to be innovative, but ultimately the client wants something from the pattern-book, so that is what they get.

If my analogy is correct, it must have implications for our KM efforts. There is scope for KM to support innovation, but bricklaying lawyers need a different kind of innovation than the key architects. And innovations created by the architects might never relate to technical legal issues. How do we support them without knowing where the opportunities are?

Thinking about ownership

Published 7 January 2009 Collaboration , Creativity , Work 3 Comments

Back in November, Mireille Jansma mentioned on Twitter that David Weinberger had suggested that the act of public sharing could effectively transfer ownership to the public. Since then I have been pondering the nature of ownership in an environment where collaboration and knowledge sharing is increasing. This post contains some of those thoughts in a more or less structured form.

[Just so we know where we are, it is important to note from the outset that my understanding is that IP law (in most jurisdictions) provides that material produced by employees as part of their employment becomes the intellectual property of the employer. (If this is significantly wrong, please can an IP lawyer correct me.) However, this does not mean that your employer owns what is in your head, before it is crystallised into something tangible as a consequence of  the employer's instructions.]

The comment of David Weinberger’s came during the online conference Corporate Learning Trends and Innovation 2008. It is possible to review the conference, but the recording comes in a whole-day chunk. Weinberger’s session starts at about 3:53:00, and the key quote comes at 4:52:32-4:53:20, in response to the question “How do we deal with copyright in a crowdsourced world?” Weinberger started his answer by referring back to the US Constitution: “The real interest of copyright in the US is… in creating a viable public space.” He then went on as follows.

We want to, I think, not only redraw the balance… but we want to gain back the notion that we have lost in the past couple of decades that the aim of copyright is not to provide creators with a natural and inalienable right to their own stuff they create as if it were just another piece of property.

We want to get back, I think, to the notion that if you create something for the public, the public to a large degree owns it. And you [the creator] get the benefit from it for some limited term — I like making money off what I write — but then ultimately the aim of this is to get stuff out into the world that the public can use. 

I am not sure that Weinberger’s comment is as inflammatory as Mireille feared, but it is still useful to ponder who has an interest in the stuff we create collaboratively (and by this I include the joint venture of blogging with comments, as well as the more usual wiki-related collaboration).

The question of ownership and blogs came up in a discussion on the 3 Geeks… blog about the proper relationship between a law firm and the blogs created by their people. Following an initial post, Greg Lambert returned to the topic with a detailed summary of the pros and cons of personal blogging as opposed to using the law firm brand. In a comment, Doug Cornelius offered a middle way.

Ideally, I think a legal blog should not be formally branded by the firm and should not have the firm’s name in the blog title or URL. The blogger should clearly state that they work for the firm, but the views do not necessarily reflect those of the firm. The law firm should link out to the blog, but not have it integrated into the official firm site. Link the blog in the person’s bio and let the firm’s clients know it is there (but the views are those of the individual).

The firm gets the benefit of association for good blog posts/discussion and can disassociate for those that are bad or contentious.

Interestingly, Jordan Furlong looked at this question back in March last year.

I actually don’t think a law firm with more than a handful of lawyers really can blog, because blogging is by definition personal and can only really be performed at an individual, not a corporate level. A firm can set up a number of blogs for its lawyers to write, seeking brand power: a fleet of lawyers all writing great blogs on important subjects under the firm’s letterhead. But these blogs will all have different voices, use varying degrees of formality, address matters in more or less depth, publish at different frequencies — each one reflecting the individual behind it. All that these blogs will have in common is the banner and design.

The thing is, lawyers aren’t cans of Coke: a law firm can’t issue a brand promise about what each and every interaction with its lawyers will feel like. The same applies even more so to lawyer blogs: you can’t brand tone and personality, and a great blog invests heavily in both these things. Blogs, by definition, can’t support a law firm brand.

If Jordan’s last statement is true, then law firms should not be seeking to own the blogs run by their people. However, I am not sure that it is true that “you can’t brand tone and personality.” If your brand is more than a visual identity — a logo and a letterhead — then it must be about tone and personality. Those are the things that distinguish different firms. At any given level in the legal market, there is no sensible distinction between firms in the legal work that they do and the quality they produce. What does make a difference is the way that the work is done. It is in that respect that I think a law firm can potentially make a real difference by showing how it works through the way its lawyers communicate. That must include blogging — for those firms whose culture and brand support full engagement with the medium.  

It is clear that there is confusion about ownership when it comes to wikis. This is amply demonstrated by a comment e-mailed to the Guardian by a reader:

I’m e-mailing in regard to your story on Wikipedia [here]. It’s a pity there is not some clear e-mail address underneath each article so that we might e-mail the author directly. It’s the New Media way!

Except that it is not the new media way, is it? Clearly, material on Wikipedia cannot easily be said to be the creation of any one contributor. However, inside the firewall the material created on wikis probably does belong to the organisation — reflecting the copyright position I mentioned at the outset. How comfortable a position is that? Does the firm want to own something which is by definition fluid and possibly inchoate? Do individuals take the view that they are giving up their knowledge to the organisation by collaborating? I don’t know — it will be interesting to watch and learn. 

Then today, Stephen Collins tackles ownership from a quite unexpected angle. In a long and thoughtful post on employee engagement and retention, he came up with this gem:

…we need to understand that our staff are on loan, particularly the good ones. We don’t own them or their personal brands. We only have them until we stop giving them engaging things to do. We should be prepared to let the reputations of our people and the new people we can attract act as a positive influence on the brands of our businesses. We should learn from our superstars and let them be free with how they do their jobs and get on.

Ultimately, we are all responsible for the value we create. And we also get the most benefit from what we do — even if the organisations we work for take a bit of credit along the way.

Working effectively

Published 3 January 2009 Personal , Work Leave a Comment

At this time of year many people resolve to adopt new ways of working, which they hope will make them more effective at their jobs. Even at other times, sites such as 43 Folders and Lifehacker, tools like David Seoh’s Printable CEO and books like David Allen’s Getting Things Done are perennially popular. Even I have a copy.

In fact, I have spent many hours searching for more effective ways of working. As far as I can tell, this is the ultimate displacement activity. But I have never had any success with any of the methods advocated in these sources. Part of this is undoubtedly due to my innate laziness. However, I have come to the view that although I am interested in new working techniques and ways of organising my time and activities, I am a basically disorganised person and I am unlikely to change that. As such, I have settled on some techniques that may only work for me.

At the heart of this system (if it is a system) are two principles:

  1. The more complex a way of working is, the more likely it is to be ignored.
  2. The test of a good system is how well it fits with existing practices.

Over the years I have discovered that I just don’t do categorisation. My CDs are stacked irregularly, my bookshelves are a shrine to serendipity, my e-mail is never filed in topical folders. However, I do have a fairly strong sense of time. If someone asks me to find something in one of the many piles on my desk, I do so by thinking when I last saw it. That will put it in a particular place, or close to some other things I was working on at the same time. I have tried storing e-mails in folders as I work on them, but the only result is that I can’t find them when I need them. Instead, I keep everything in a folder for each year. I find Outlook’s native search function is quite good enough to find anything I have stored away.

img_3869_webI have a fondness for gadgets. This also extends to non-electronic things — especially stationery and pens. As a result, I have had many Moleskines. I have also acquired a few very nice fountain pens. I have tried to use the Moleskines to fit particular productivity mechanisms. However, I got bored with most of them. Finally, I settled on a simple solution — basic note-taking. I now combine my basic tendency to thing of things chronologically with my interest in pens and paper. Essentially, I now make notes all the time (as long as I remember). As well as capturing things on delicious or in e-mail, I make a note of the salient points that made me want to store them away. I make notes of conversations. I make notes in meetings. As I do this, I mark the notes in the margin — a box marks a to-do (with room for a tick when it is done); an asterisk marks something important; an arrow marks something relevant to a future date or for someone else. In order to mark the passing of time, I start each day with the date, and mark continuation pages with the date in the top left-hand corner. I also use a different pen on alternate days. One day will be the Lamy 2000 using blue ink, the next I will use black ink in the Rotring 600. I also sometimes use the notebook for first drafts of or notes towards blog posts or other writing — I tend to do this in pencil.

Since starting this process about three months ago, I have impressed myself by keeping up with it. I really think it might work for me. I even managed to carry undone to-dos over when I filled one notebook. Obviously, the note-taking is only part of the process. In order to keep up with the tasks I set myself, I set aside some time each day and a little more at the end of the week to review recent notes. Occasionally, this has brought to light other things that I had not marked as significant at the time. It has also helped me keep my focus on my key priorities.

It may seem odd that I use pen and paper, with the drawbacks that old technology entails. However, I think the advantages outweigh those drawbacks. My penmanship is pretty poor, but I think it is improving as I use it more, whereas my very basic keyboarding skills seem to have reached a plateau (at not particularly speedy). Pen and paper are also more acceptable to use in a wider variety of contexts. So I aim to use the right tool for the job. Another reason for avoiding a technology solution is that it helps me avoid the distractions that are just an Alt-Tab away.

Having tried it, I think my method works because it is simple, and because it fits the way I naturally think and work. Anything more complex might become an end in itself. This method is, for me, a facilitator. It might not work for anyone else, but I think those basic principles are still a good test for systems of various kinds — whether personal or organisational.

Happy New Year!

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