New users introduce themselves...

[stumpf]

Hi all!

This thread is for new users to introduce themselves to this forum.

My name is Simone Stumpf and I work on the TaskTracer project at Oregon State University (http://eecs.oregonstate.edu/TaskTracer/). I'm interested in PIM systems that use machine learning or AI to assist users in finding (and refinding) information.

I look forward to stimulating discussions in this forum, and hope to see to you in person at conferences, workshops, etc.

[jsiess]

Hello,
I am Judith Siess, an almost-retired librarian. Most of my career was in Ohio (the Cleveland area), but I have just moved back to my hometown, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois (GO ILLINI!).
I have been the Publisher and Editor of The One-Person Library: A Newsletter for Librarians and Management for 11 years, but it will cease publication in April 2009. I also have written several books, one that would be relevant to this forum: Time Management, Planning and Prioritization for Librarians, Scarecrow Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8108-4438-9. It is appropriate for anyone, not just librarians--in fact, most of my research was in the business literature.
If anyone wants to "talk" to me, feel free to email me at <jsiess@ibi-opl.com>. I check my email often, so will respond relatively quickly.
Cheers!

Judy

[david.h]

Hello,

My name is Dawei Hou, a current research assistant of a PIM project "Keeping Found Things Found" in Information School of UW.(http://kftf.ischool.washington.edu). And I am a finishing graduate student too

I'm interested in PIM, Nature Language Processing especially test processing using statistical approach, and software development.

See you around the forum

[MarkRennes]

Hello.

My name is Mark Gregory. I am a teacher of business information systems at ESC Rennes. This is what the French call a "grande école"; that is to say, a private higher education establishment, which functions at university level. My school is also an associated research centre of the British Open University. I am registered on its PhD program.

The title of my research is " Towards a better understanding of how individuals and small groups use computer-based information and knowledge representation tools".

My research is still at a fairly early stage. If I had to introduce my research in the form of in the form of a “dinner conversation introduction”, this is what I would say:
"
¨ People like you and me are knowledge workers: we live by our wits. Some of us are markedly more productive (effective and efficient) than others.
¨ To a greater or lesser extent, we all use computers to help us to Get Things Done (GTD) and to Keep Found Things Found (KFTF). Computers can help us to do these things, as individuals and as we coordinate our work with others in small groups or teams.
¨ We observe nevertheless that many knowledge workers under-exploit and may indeed resent computers as a tool to get their work done, to manage their personal information and to share it selectively with others.
¨ Many people get things done without much formality - keeping To-Do lists on paper and a paper agenda (diary) and a dog-eared paper Address Book (the loss of which would potentially be catastrophic).
¨ Some use their smartphones which they synchronise with PC-based programs. The same people may even use tools like Google Desktop, so that they can quickly retrieve their well-managed personal information. But are they more productive than their more conventional friends and associates who stick with the old ways?
¨ Beware the 'Google fallacy': this holds that we don't need to manage information, we only need to tap into it when we need it; we can always get what we want by searching for it.
* This is only partly true; we work better if we structure our information and manage it well, rather than depending entirely on searching it.
¨ OK, I admit it: I am a bit of a geek and I synchronise my Treo phone with my PC-based PIM program!
¨ So: tell me, how do people like you get their work done? How do they and you manage their time and information and knowledge? How can people like you be helped to improve?
"

Now of course all you good people on this site know a great deal more about personal information management than this!

At this stage, my slightly more detailed questions are these:
1. What is PIM?
There are two key activities associated with personal information management. These are:
¨ Getting Things Done (GTD)
* See for example Allen, David (2001). The essential here is deciding what to do, and when: clearing the decks for action now on tasks deferred earlier and which now properly have priority.
¨ Keeping Found Things Found
* See for example Jones, William (2007). The essential here is to store personal information as it arises in a way which permits its easy retrieval and manipulation; which implies searchable and also organised or classified
2. How can we classify PIM tools and approaches?
2.1. Knowledge workers (notably, managers and professionals) have access to many computer-based tools which they use in more or less systematic ways
¨ The obvious ones: Word, and email
¨ The ones which impose structure in order to increase precision
* Take-it-or-leave-it simple PIMs: e.g. Outlook
* Roll-your-own personal information management: information-oriented (that is, not particularly calculation-focussed) spreadsheets (e.g. Excel) and personal databases (e.g. Access)
* Evolved PIMs: PIMs which enable their users to structure and to restructure their information as necessary
¨ Personal Information Managers: PC programs which are used to:
* Manage personal information, like:
(a) Personal notes/journal
(b) Address books
(c) Lists (including task lists)
(d) Significant calendar dates
(e) Birthdays and Anniversaries
(f) Appointments and meetings
(g) Archives of email and instant messages
(h) Fax communications, voicemail
(i) Project management features
(j) Web pull (e.g. articles, webpages) and push (e.g. RSS feeds)
* Classify by keywords
* Integrate with smartphones
¨ Group Information Management
* Shared agendas - meeting scheduling
* Collaborative development of documents
* Whether this is realised by their users or not, group information management systems have a critical dependence on shared classification schemes:
(a) Traditional approach: imposition by the tool
(b) Better approach: support for shared, emergent ontologies - bottom-up
2.2. The tools themselves may need to evolve or be replaced

3. Why and to what extent is PIM important?
¨ ICT has arguably done all it can to improve intra-organisational efficiency at the operational level
* At least, in larger enterprises
¨ There's still some scope at the inter-organisation level and (still!) at the more strategic levels
¨ But a real challenge lies perhaps in the personal productivity of executive and tactical managers and of professionals
4. Who currently uses PIM?
5. How useful is this in terms of productivity or work quality?
6. In what ways can and do people and teams manage information? How do they Keep Found Things Found (KFTF)?
We observe, for example, some or all of the following:
¨ Sometimes people don't make huge efforts to structure information when they store it; they depend on search tools to find it again when they need it
¨ Perhaps most knowledge workers are a little more systematic
¨ Using operating system files, folders and subfolders
* These are usually hierarchical in nature; as a consequence, files sometimes need to be duplicated and sometimes are duplicated by error
* Misnaming a file or misfiling it can make the information it contains difficult or almost impossible to rediscover
¨ Using office productivity tools
¨ Using content management systems (CMS) and wikis
¨ Using specialist PIMs and GIMs
7. In what ways do people use that information in order to get things done? How do they Get Things Done (GTD)?
8. Some of the available tools are usable 'out of the box'. Some are additionally or exclusively tool builders.
¨ What tools and tool-builders exist? How can they be classified?
¨ How can the tools and tool-builders best be appropriated?
¨ How can people and teams evolve better information management without being or becoming geeks (that is, without significant diversion into areas which they are not paid to do or which are not the focus of their study), and without significant recourse to geeks?
9. Why do so many people not use computer-based PIM?
¨ Many people stick with paper, either entirely, or make only simple use of computers to write documents, send them, and search the web
¨ My Initial Problem Diagnosis went something along these lines:
* What is actually wrong with current tools / what can be improved?
* To make use of many of these tools, we have to "structure" our data
* This typically forces us to sacrifice, to limit the expressiveness, of the information stored
Expressiveness: the ability to communicate meaning.
* We sacrifice freedom in favour of structure in order to facilitate storage, retrieval, querying (answering ad hoc questions about the data) and communication; and we still do not achieve the level of communication that we strive for
* So how do we, the knowledge workers, retain and express meaning?
10. How can people be assisted (educated, trained, mentored) so as to get better at KFTF and GTD?
¨ In what ways can people improve their PIM?
¨ Do different people need different types or styles of PIM?
¨ How can and do the modes of use evolve for individuals and for all users?
¨ How can existing users get a better return on investment?
¨ How can new users be helped to get started and go further?

When I write all this down, I realise that I have set myself an impossibly complex agenda -- parts of which many of you have worked many years to master. I hope that by being admitted to this forum, listening to and inter-changing with as many as possible of you: that I shall be able to make some contribution to this exciting and under-researched area.

[atrofimo]

Hi all,

My name is Alex Trofimovsky, and I'm a first year doctoral student in information science at the State University of New York at Albany. One of this things I am I am interested in is finding and refinding. I have some questions about creating tasks for a user study which I will post shortly and try to get some help from this forum.