If you are reading this and are not familiar with Thomas Vanderwal as of yet you need to start paying attention to him and his body of work. I have known Thomas since mid 1999 when we met through the local Company of Friends in Washington, D.C. It seems kind of strange that some 6 years later here we are doing very similar work, but on the other hand it makes sense since we are both huge fans of user foucsed information architecture and experience design.

In preparation for speaking to him after his recent talk on the Personal InfoCloud at WebVisions 2005, I finally read most of his body of work which includes the Model of Attraction. We are in relative agreement on the major points he addresses, especially in regards to what he calls our Attraction Receptors, though I do have one additional metaphor which Thomas addresses indirectly.

I believe that in addition to the scent of information attracting and repulsing us, the information needs to taste good to us as we consume it. It must tickle the fancy of our minds by dancing on our own unique palate in order for us to really appreciate and assimilate the knowledge it contains fully. While the presentation must appeal to us visually, and the descriptors/summaries must sound good, it is the tonality, perspective and spine which must taste good.

From qualified research and even more anecdotal evidence, we know that some people require statistical data, others need stories and others are more balanced in order to best absorb knowledge. Further, we know some people want to get right to the point and others want to meander around the edges and get a broader feel for it. Additionally, we have to consider that some people are more emotional, ruled by their hearts and others are more judicious, ruled by their minds and logic. I first encountered this concept in the business world when selling advertising for New Times in Miami, FL. Patrick Flood was our ad director and he loved the numbers. I on the other hand, as you can tell by reading me, am a story lover. Patrick pointed this out to me in regards to reading people and adapting a sales pitch as necessary to get to the sale. I also have read a great deal about this in the works of Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar and Selling Power magazine. This is what I am referring to when I speak of information needing to taste good to our palate in order for us to get the most from it.

If a person does not like the taste of the information, they may simply stop consuming it, regardless of the intrinsic value. This is the brussel sprouts metaphor of knowledge – if you dont like the taste of brussel sprouts, then you wont consume it and you wont get those important nutrients contained inside. Just as if a particular post or article does not taste good and you can not suffer through it, you will not get the most from the valuable insights it offers.

Getting back to the Model of Attraction, I wanted to point out what I believe to be a fundamental error in perspective. As I understand it, Thomas speaks about the Personal InfoCloud following us, being attracted to us, which I only partially feel is true. I see it more as having the Personal InfoCloud available to us, carried around by us rather than seeing it as following us – but this is minute as I can easily concede that either would be correct though I am more fond of thinking as it being something we can carry around with us and access remotely.

He, and other Information Architects in the know, often speak about the need to put the user at the center of our focus and to think about the user’s needs. However, in some of Thomas’ work I have read and what I have heard in speaking with him, he refers to the information as being attracted to us rather than us being attracted to it. It seems to be me that this approach is information centric rather than user centric. To this end, I contend that the perspective for the Model Of Attraction, and the discussion about it, needs to shift to think of the user as being attracted to the information rather than the other way around.

I contend that the process actually should be thought of in different stages. First, we seek to discover information/knowledge based on our situational needs. Then in scanning through the available choices, we are attracted to certain items more than others based on a multitiude of factors. This includes first and foremost our current situation, then our past experience, levels of trust in the source, visual appeal of presentation and in the act of consuming/reading, how it tastes to us. We are attracted to information, which is the remote object of attention, the information is out there waiting for us to retrieve it and if we so choose to keep it within our Personal InfoCloud. While we do have quite a few ways in which the information now comes to us, rather than us going to get it, I contend that RSS feed aggregators and services like PubSub are merely serving as our agents, retrieving information on our behalf rather than thinking of it as information being attracted to us.

This is a relatively simple semantic argument, because I know Thomas means that the attraction is akin to magnetic attraction meaning that the user and the information become attracted to each other. Yet it is important for us to always think about such matters by being the user looking out rather than the other way around. All too often companies make this mistake with their information architectures and outbound communications. They are so entrenched in their organizational viewpoint, that the communications they create are reflective of how the organization looks at their world not how the world looks at their organization.

I make this argument, because we, as information presenters need to be mindful at all times of wearing the users shoes and not being so focused on the information itself. We must be consistent in order to truly embrace user centered design, and the power of language is one of the most telling and powerful tools in this endeavour. To this end, I contend that with a minor and consistent adjustment in semantics and perspective, that Thomas Vanderwal’s Model of Attraction will be a foundational aspect of best practices in information architecture philosophy for many years to come.

In a prior post, I spoke of the need for a classification system for Blogs to make it easier to find specific posts about topics of interest and to better filter RSS Feeds. In essence a simple sort of Blog Classification at the individual posting level to let people who might be interested in what you have to say more easily hear you. It is a core principle of user centered design, and Bloggers needs to consider the people who consumer their thoughts as much as software companies and traditional media. This is especially needed in light of the fact that most average people (not us early adopter tinkerer types) will most likely only have one Blog.

In fact one of the early problems that I saw with Blogs is the fact that many people use only one Blog. That single Blog contains all sorts of stuff about their dogs, their favorite sports teams and their travels as well as their useful Insytes about emerging trends, political opinions and more. The fact is, while the personal stories may be interesting, I don’t really have the time to read through all of that and complete my other reading and my work. I need an easy way to get just the posts on specific topics of interest.

Some believe that tagging alone is the answer to this, but some tags may be equally valid in the several different types of Blog classes. For instance – the tag Orioles may be valid in a personal story from someone who loves baseball, but someone interested in the study of birds would find this irrelevant. While certain aspects of contextual analysis may help to further refine search results and filter reading lists, even that has its problems with relevance as we have all experienced. While tags are most certainly needed and helpful, a billion plus personal folksonomies will only take us so far – at least in terms of easy discovery and consumption of materials of interest, which we would want within our personal InfoCloud.

Many members of the emergent Citizen Media are quick to discard the things that traditional media embraced. But this approach is just not sane. We should always study those who have come before us to see what key Insytes they developed and modeled that will still work for us today. I believe one such construct of value to us is The Sunday Paper. I further believe that the sections of The Sunday Paper make an excellent basis for a Blog Classification schema. (expanding on my earlier thoughts, I was previously intending to keep this quiet until we launched and was able to do something real with the idea)

Recently it came to my attention that Dan Gilmore has launched HonorTags as an attempt to address this same problem. I applaud his efforts, but sincerely hope we have a chance to work together on this important area of mutual concern and that he, and you consider the Sunday Newspaper Model for the basis of a Simple Blog Classification system. They certainly have the right approach with regards to helping people self classify, but this only works for the tinkerers who are comfortable with HTML and/or are motivated to type the tags and/or those who are even aware of the system. The point of posting is the primary point of input for this classification system. To this end, I propose that rather than call them honor tags, we instead consider the “BlogClass” as the primary tagging mechanism. (I now own blogclass.org which I will gladly donate to this effort)

The primary value of Blogging is the simplicity of publishing as opposed to the several steps necessary to create web pages and then upload them and maintain an index. It is the simplicity of the tools that expands the audience of potential publishers, and this is where the focus should be. Creating such ‘workarounds’ is only valid for an initial iterative user feedback loop. If we do have several tens of thousands of posts with such HonorTags, we can easily demonstrate the power and need of such a classification system. We can also get a good statistical breakdown of the types of posts being created and in what volumes over different time frames.

For me, the benefit of a Blog Classification system is obvious (after all, it is one of the core precepts of my new company Insytes). HonorTags as a proof of concept is definitely welcome, needed and it is an iterative step in the right direction. Still, I recommend pushing forward with all due haste for an industry wide standard created from within the industry and the user community. All we need to do is to form an ad-hoc industry group of Blog Tool companies, RSS companies and others to discuss and begin adoption of a form based Classification system built into the web interfaces of the largest players in the space. Since most of the larger ones are based in Silicon Valley or have representatives here, this would seemingly be a very easy and simple product feature request to push through with the ongoing support of a standards body.

The group can determine the nature of its organizational structure, but at the core should be a working group who reviews all user-generated suggestions for further classification on a weekly basis. This can be facilitated by a simple link element that would pop up the suggestion form. The group should move to approve or decline suggestions on a bi-monthly basis. It should also include power user input, perhaps through several open community seats in the group or even through an iBoard which can be polled on potential additions and discuss the merits of the suggestion.

Whatever the outcome, I am just glad to see this industry moving in this direction and that the pace is sound and the Insytes shared by all.

… so why aren’t more people using them. I have known of them since college, but a few years ago a close friend introduced them anew in the face of difficulty capturing a complex business plan. More recently, I started using them to capture ideas for building Insytes and then at Gnomedex 2005 I saw Hobie give his presentation on Mind Manager from MindJet. Since then I have been hooked – it is so intuitive I understood 80+% of the core functionality in about 30 minutes.

Am curious if you have used them or if you know of other software out there that is similar. I have previously used the brain, but found the UI not to my liking – I know there is a good one for the Mac that used to be around, but I cant seem to find it now.

Am also interested in speaking with anyone who knows of any studies into the use of MindMaps for collaboration (psychological, effectiveness, economic forensics etc…). I found a great piece describing how to make notes rather than take notes – I agree with his anger about this important process not being taught in school – especially since I felt the same way after getting out – that the system never taught me how to get the most from it. Had someone shown this to me earlier (perhaps even as early as 4th grade) I would have gotten so much more out of all those years of school.

One of the great things about MindMaps for note making is that you have a basic structure that also allows you to go outside of itself and come back easily – to capture ideas for future needs within its structure and continue pressing forward with the central purpose of the day. For super smart day dreaming kids, it allows them the ability to stay with a slower moving class while they move off andd process deeper insytes as they develop.

Just saw a spot on late night tv for the Sleep Number Bed. Was about a frisky, experimental couple who had tried everything looking for the best nights sleep – water beds, space beds etc… Now they have finally found it by each getting their own numbers for their own personal perfect comfort.

Is really going directly after the most likely to buy segment – appealing to the affluent, adventurous, experimental, desirous of comfort niche segment with ‘people like themselves’, just telling their story with some history, some insight/advice and some comedy to make you feel good about it. Hits dead on with all aspects of The Communications Strategy as well – and a quick cruise through their web site shows that they really get it. For example, their Learning Center is the most prominent item on their home page in upper left navigation and they have a What is your sleep # estimator to advise on getting a good nights sleep. For instance, for me it said I would be better off choosing a firmer surface for my mattress whereas I always want a fluffier feather bed variety like at the W Hotels.

I would be interested to see what sort of communications they have with purchasers after the sale – if anyone knows, please contact me….

Found a great article on this subject at DrubkenBlog – if you dont have one yet and are on a Macinsosh, this is a long but important read…

OK – me thinks this is really getting overheated, though I also believe the money is moving more smartly this time. But over on CNET there is a blog post about there being too many blogs about blogs and he is calling it the BLUBBLE.

1 – Just as the media is making inroads with niches (i.e. The Fly Fishing in Saltware channel) people who self-publish online (i.e. Blog) will create even more micro-niches (such as the former members of co-ed softball league championship dynasty who want to know what is happening with the team today)

2 – So an audience may only be 3 people, but they are 3 people who care.

3 – BLUBBLE? are you serious – please oh please don’t let this become a new buzzword

4 – Also, contributing to the rise of blogs are people, like myself, who post to 3 or more blogs for want of segmenting my audiences and making it easier for them to read what I consider important within a different context. On this blog, it is business strategy and trend related thoughts. On The Noble Pursuit it will be more focused on evangelizing that core idea.

Finally, I was debating on whether I would use MSN Spaces, LiveJournal, Bubbler, Yahoo 360 or Tribe for my personal journal but then again, I dont have much time to stay on top of the personal stuff as it is, so I am waiting them all out to see who advances best – Alex has certainly caught Tribe up with the Yahoo folks with the latest release of the Tribe profiles, so it is a tough call to pick a favorite, but Tribe and Yahoo 360 seem to have the best overall experiences.

During the summer of 2002 was when I first started organizing my ideas around what is becoming Insytes the company. Of course, everything up to that point lead me to this, but I distinctly remember sitting in a park in London on my way to a business partner’s wedding in Greece when the concept of the situational knowledgebase came into focus. In that notebook I just rediscoverd one of the foundational Insytes upon which this system is being built.

Reflection/meditation is the process of being still and thinking about something in order to determine how we feel about it.

Writing is the process of choosing words to share that feeling with others.

Music plays those feelings on our emotional strings.

Video powers the messages wtih action and images.

More to come later this week – later today even after my day of meetings…

Just found John Furrier was podcasting from the show.

Am here in Santa Clara at the SDForum Vertical Leap conference which has a WIKI here.

This morning brings even further evidence of the need for better relevance in search results. There are some 30 different companies in the vertical search space that I have identified so far this morning, with many more stealthily hiding behind new variants on the NewCo virus. There were 3 that asked questions and made pitches even that could seemingly be identifyng the same trends we are pursuing with solutions. Thankfully, having done this for so long, I think we may have a leg up on some of these – but only time and execution capabilities will prove that.

In the meantime, here is what I learned this morning

LookSmart CEO Dan Hills is a bright guy who also sees the value of sharing his knowledge and Insytes with others. It seemed that he was making a pitch for people with vertical focus to look to companies like his as a potential partner. His mantra is serving the people who have a passion, a need or a repetitive task to get them where they want to be and help them get tot he next place. Further, he noted that people will seek search engines for convenience, reputation and community.

Most importantly he noted what I have been saying all along – the real key to vertical search is to leverage people first and then apply the technology to making it an even better experience, not the other way around.

From the VC Panel:

Heard a great phrase for the first time in a long time – “becoming an eyeball bandit” – ie, being the first screen on a pervasive device in front of Yahoo, Google and others. This was a key focus with InfoApps when we were looking at selling customized PDA’s – we were going to rebrand the startup screen on each device we customized…

The problem with “expert advice” paid sorts of sites is that you have to discount the future result somewhat based on the uncertainty of the quality of that result – had not considered that before, but it is certainly true. While a strong reputation in a given subject matter will remove parts of that discount, the purchasers initial uncertainty would still introduce a discount preventing full market efficiency.

Also noted from Mark Kvamme and Theresia Ranzetta that their focus is on dollars out, not dollars in. More concerned with Return on Time (ROT) than with ROI. Their decision to back a company and an enterepreneur is their decision on a multi-dimensional analysis of opportunity costs.

Theresia also noted that the vertical seardch ideas has existed for a long time, only it was previously called a “focused media property.”

The rest of the day has some interesting panels, especially the future of vertical search and searching the blogosphere but this part of the day is definitely why I came.

I was asked by someone at Gnomedex (forgot his name unfortunately as I had a few beers) why I Blogged – I didnt really have an answer until a few mintes ago when it finally hit me…

I resisted sharing my professional Insytes for many years, trying to figure out how to apply them to new companies. But now I truly see that sharing such things with others, really truly is something that creates more value then it gives away. As Newton said, (paraphrasing) We stand where we are today on the shoulders of those who stood here before us – today more than ever, we also stand on the shoulders of our peers. That just makes sense to me on some guttural level and as such I am moved to do something about it. It still feels uneasy sharing important things that could make a competitive difference in my endeavours… but I also believe in the power of being a Lovecat, certain relevant aspects of living in a Transparent Society and the notion of a Fast Company in the Work 2.0 Economy. I have also seen how tithing in some form or another produces more wealth for the tither then the recipient. In the emerging world of the Wisdom economy, the broadest creators of value will be those who participate in sharing knowledge, developing Insytes, exchanging experiences and producing innovation. Those who collaborate well with others and have the best sources of wisdom are the leaders of tomorrow, forever expanding their own understanding of the world around them. I am pleased to be amongst such people here @ The CEO Bloggers Club – I look forward to watching our ranks go.