Sigurd Rinde vs. hierarchy :

Do the test:

1. Write a letter, using a word processor, to a friend about some tax issues, some personal stuff and a great new joke you just heard.

2. Save the file to a folder. Choose the folder according to either recipient, theme or whatever you normally choose. Your choice.

3. Wait two months.

4. Find it.

Did you find it immediately? Or did you have to think hard, trying to put yourself into your own mind two months ago – was it in a folder named ‘Friends’, ‘Letters’, ‘Jokes’ or in a folder somewhere named ‘Tax issues’?

I also like this :

The sticky point about two dimensional tree-structures is that you have to assimilate the logic of somebody else. Or yourself two months ago.

Tree structures should be chopped down

Sigurde then goes on to suggest something even wilder. Why not tag people within organizations rather than put them into slots in the org.chart.

Hey! You can officially be a programmer, and accountant, and tea-maker : all at the same time, if that’s the part you play.

Seems like Thingamy are going to support this idea in their software too :

Hang on a few weeks, we’re tinkering with a slightly wacky CMS for the heck of it (and to test these ideas in practice) to produce navigation-bar-less-no-trees-in-sight websites/knowledge repositories, should be fun. Watch this space.