Author John Butman got a daily email from TED — the organization dedicated to “ideas worth spreading.” This got him to wondering: Are these really ideas? Are they truly worth spreading? Who is trying to spread them and why, and to what end? In a talk at the Chautauqua Institution’s Hall of Philosophy, Butman shared his …
Organizing for Creativity — the Heart of Personal Knowledge Management
Many stereotypes surround the creative process and creative people. One of the biggest is the romantic notion that it’s okay for such people to be disorganized — in fact, that chaos and creativity are somehow directly related. The whole premise of personal knowledge management (PKM) is exactly the opposite — that we can collect ideas …
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The Rhetoric Of Reperception — 8 Ways to Test and Transform Your Ideas
As a college student I had the good fortune to meet Bob Gish, an English professor who turned me on to Styles and Structures: Alternative Approaches to College Writing by Charles Kay Smith. This head-exploding book is a liberal education between covers. Styles and Structures is out of print, but you can still find used …
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10 Principles for the Care and Feeding of Ideas
I blog to explore a single question: How can I systematically capture ideas, refine them, and implement the best ones? My answers lead me in many directions — from the traditional practice of creating a commonplace book to the new field of personal knowledge management. While this sometimes takes me down nerdy paths, I remind myself that the purpose …
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What Is Personal Knowledge Management?
This blog is all about personal knowledge management (PKM). But what the heck does that mean, anyway? The answer matters, because the way that we define PKM influences how we do it and why we do it. Taking a cue from William Jones's wonderful book Keeping Found Things Found: The Study and Practice of Personal …
