Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Bottom-up Technography
Author: garret p vreeland Posted: 3/26/1999; 4:36:43 PM Topic: ADSL Msg #: 4581 (In response to 4560) Prev/Next: 4580 / 4582
I really like the concept of having a category for people to voice their particular negativity, but handling it in a contributory atmosphere to keep the flow going. What a great idea! It shows great respect for the individual, yet does not ignore the goals of the group. An elegant solution to a common problem. Meeting planners, write that one down LARGE.Risk. What I admired about audience polling was the same thing you were able to engineer here; a way for any given audience member to make suggestions without risk. Removing that risk factor is essential to effective participation.
I couldn't quite understand what generated the contributory energy ... was it the suggesting of solutions? When focus groups were hesitant to delineate problems, once we got them on suggesting solutions, all the problems became self-evident.
You've illuminated some mistakes we made; by starting at the top and working down, we missed valuable opportunities. The audience itself forced us to adapt to the bottom, after starting at the top. So you might say we ended up converging in the middle. As I look back, there was a lot of extra work from that misjudgment ... and we didn't learn from it, because we just didn't see it.
There are some new ideas here that are percolating in my brain ... but I do want to continue something from my previous thread, if you don't mind ...
What do you think of including more comprehensive information into the outline via URL or embedded link? I see someone else picked up on it. I have many ideas for this ... I know we are *not* emulating whiteboard here, but this is a personal peccadillo -- I tend to think in pictures/symbols a great deal, and expression of creativity can loosen a group and encourage risk taking. To be able to tack a flowchart or initial concept drawing to the outline would be very powerful for me personally. Link content wouldn't, of course, have to be just graphical ... it could be documentary in nature, a link from anywhere on the internet, sound, whatever. Once broadband is more widespread, I know quite a few people who would kill to be able to call up video on demand within this kind of framework ... or attorneys, to document case information, then present to juries or other attorneys in an organized fashion.
The ability to keep a meeting tightly focused ... yet be able to escape the linear text paradigm and jump into richer, deeper and more "authoritative" content quickly on demand. Swift, seamless flexibility. This shouldn't break the flow of the outline paradigm. Focus narrow, focus broad ... by a key or button click. It would dovetail nicely with the Frontier DB or GDBs as they stand, and all the other features coming on line in 6.0.
As attractive as the concept is, my fear is turning Frontier into a web browser, foolishly duplicating something we already have. Frontier is an edge tool with many specific methods of use, but (heaven forbid) not an "all-in-one" tool.
Does this functionality really have to be included in the physical outline, or can it be served by running a browser concurrently, or controlling the browser via Frontier ... or, controlling Frontier via the browser (if I understand RPC correctly)?
What do you think?
This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:49:05 PM.
© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.