Couple of interesting comments to my last post. Harvey Kirkpatrick from itopik wrote:
"I would argue that all the efforts are complementary and can be automated by some and humanified by others. We are choosing to humanify a bit the process hoping to be a bit more intelligent in our organization as Yahoo was in the beginning. Seeing linkages that perhaps software might miss. Granted slower, but in the end a lower signal to noise ratio we think."
It's a good point - we humans have a marvelous ability to 'think outside the square' and see linkages where computers can't (right now). But I think computers are at their most useful when they automate tasks, which frees up the human brain for more creative things.
I am day-dreaming though. In practical terms itopik is successfully 'doing the business' promoting weblog topics, as are k-collector and Topic Exchange. The developers are out there taking risks and building stuff. All I can do is applaud and support those efforts in my weblog. As Harvey says:
"It is my hope that we can build a village of good efforts and be mutually supportive."
The other interesting comment on my previous post was from Prometheus 6, who linked to me out of blogging courtesy (or charity?). But I'm glad he did because it made me realise I need to clarify one thing. When I said that "Topics can and should be 'exactly the size of one idea'", I meant to make it clear that each weblog post can be associated with more than one topic. Prometheus 6 said it well:
"Really good, really informative writing can draw of diverse conceptual roots, and the "topic" can be "these multiple things correlate in this fashion," but it might not be...Good writing just kind of flows."
Speaking of "flow", I read Rogers Cadenhead's post the other night about the Russian positivity guru Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He wrote a book called 'Flow'. Rogers quoted this gem, which I'll end my post with ('cause it's so darn positive):
"Problems are solved only when we devote a great deal of attention to them and in a creative way."
10:16:44 PM 
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