One of twelve projects at the Minciu Sodas virtual laboratory.

Features of Tools for Thinking

Features of tools that support thinking, and how these features support thinking. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Indiana University, and Computer Sciences Corporation are institutions with myriads of knowledge workers who want tools that match their needs and styles. What makes for a complete and harmonious set of tools for knowledge work? Of special interest to: Companies with many knowledge workers, Enterprise Application Integration solution providers.

We invite you to answer our questionnaire Who helped me think?

The Suggested Features include proposals by Zigmas Bigelis for The Brain, made by Natrificial Software Technologies. They may be thought of as a first step towards analysis of software features, and what they give of value. Analyzing various products can help generate a profound list of software features, and help understand how features, and combinations of features, support thinking. [Andrius Kulikauskas, 7/99]

General References

Some basic references, found in When does non-linear text help?, Dennis Shasha, in Proceedings from the First International Conference on Expert Database Systems, Larry Kerschberg ed., April, 1986, are:

V. Bush, As we may think Atlantic Monthly, 176, 101-108. July, 1945
D. C. Engelbart and W. K. English, A research center for augmenting human intellect AFIPS proceedings, 1968 fall joint computer conference, 33, 395-410.
D. C. Engelbart, Collaboration Support Provisions in AUGMENT AFIPS 1984 Office Automation Conference, Los Angeles.
D. C. Engelbart, R. W. Watson, and J. C. Norton, The Augmented Knowledge Workshop Proceedings AFIPS National Computer Conference, 42 (Arlington, Virginia), pp. 9-21, 1973.
N. Yankelovich, N. Meyrowitz, and Andries van Dam, Reading and Writing the Electronic Book, IEEE Computer, vol. 18, no. 10, October 1985, pp. 15-32.
D. R. Raymond, F. Wm. Tompa, Expressiveness in Information Systems: Videotex and the Naming

Problem

[7/99, Andrius Kulikauskas, Thank you to Dennis Shasha]

A famous researcher in the system analysis world R. L. Ackoff (1989) has identified five misassumptions, which are incorporated in most computer based information systems. They can be described as follows:

Most critical information need is for more relevant information. This is false: The most critical need is for less irrelevant information. Many people already now suffer from information overload. A number of studies have shown that as the data flow increases, the amount of information managers use in making decisions actually decreases. The important question is how to distinguish between the relevant and irrelevant information. The relevance of information is a relative issue. The same information even for the same user can be relevant or irrelevant depending on a situation.
If people are given the information they want, they will perform better in their business. This is the second misassumption. The better phenomenon or business activity is understood, then the fewer parameters are required to describe it. So, people don't need all information they want. They need just what is required in a specific situation.
If people are given the information they need - in contrast to what they want - they will perform better. The condition under which the information system developer knows what information is needed to solve a particular problem is when he has a complete understanding of an overall situation in some business activity, in which a person is involved. This includes knowledge of the people involved, activities performed and their interactions with the environment.
The more information is shared in an organisation, the better it will perform. This is only true with the prerequisite that there is no conflict among the members of this organisation.
Users of information do not have to understand how the information system is working, they need to understand how the information is to be used. The trouble is that without mutual understanding between system designers and users, they have no criteria for determination of the relevance and reliability of a specific information. That's why users frequently are provided by misinformation.

[From a paper by Remigijus Gustas, 1999]

Navigation

Rapid Navigation in Online Documents: Design of documents and viewers to support structured hypertext and easy skimming is a huge Web opus put together in response to the first-annual large conference about e-books (electronic books and handheld viewers). The anonymous? author, hoff@cybtrans.com, writes, "I think current developers are fairly satisfied with today's presentation of reference-lookup material and isolated task material, but the really sore spot is conceptual learning. *That* need, conceptual learning, is why there are thousands of computer books on the shelves of bookstores." Research about hypertext navigation and web structure-handling capabilities by hoff@cybtrans.com is a long page with a tremendous of information and links regarding hypertext navigation. [http://www.cybtrans.com/infostrc/navresearch.htm, 7/99. Andrius Kulikauskas]

Divergent or Convergent

Divergent tools tend to expand the solution space, or increase the dataset. Convergent tools have tend to rate different potential solutions, or reduce the dataset down. They are generally used to make comparisons and analyze situations and factors. [Steve Raiff, 10/99]

Objective or Subjective

The subjectivity of the tool is the amount by which two people may differ in their application of the tool. Some tools are incontrovertible, while others are very subjective in nature. Most objective tools are measurable in quantifiable terms. Most subjective tools are measured in relative terms. [Steve Raiff, 10/99]

Creative or Analytic

This distinction refers to the manner in which thinking occurs. Creative thinking tends to occurs in a non-linear, breakthrough manner. Creativity is a rather nebulous concept. One persons creativity is another's doldrum. Thus, it is a relative scale used to describe the amount of perceived variance from one's usual mode of thinking. Analysis thinking tends to occur as a linear, predictable process. Analytic thinking can further be broken down into deductive or inductive reasoning. This distinction refers to the type of logic used to derive conclusions. Inductive reasoning involves making conclusions based on things that occurred in the past, or relating the problem to a different field that has similarities. Most tools that use analytic thinking methods are deductive in nature. [Steve Raiff, 10/99]

Perceptions Involved or Cognitive

Perception involves the senses. Perceptive tools tend to refocus ones perception into possible solution areas that one would not normally delve. Cognitive tools serve to enhance the processing that occurs in the mind. [Steve Raiff, 10/99]

Association of Data with Tasks

Frequently in planning, working and identifying daily and long term tasks and ideas for future tasks or followup, we make notes to ourselves for various purposes - telephone numbers (general, for our personal telephone book or for specific calls related to specific tasks, issues, contacts or information needs), names, business, article, books, ideas, formulas etc. A useful tool dealing with organizing ideas or tasks would make provisions for inputting and associating this data with specific tasks in a task list. [8/99, Edmundas Kulikauskas]

Prioritization of Tasks

It would be good if the task list or document would also permit prioritization of the tasks by category, say A and subcategories, such as must do now, later, today, or time ordered; other tasks may be important, say B category tasks which are important, but can be performed at a later date; then other tasks, say category C could be optional, or desirable tasks. Easy means for upgrading and downgrading the prioritization of the tasks must be available, and sorting or display by priority is a must. [8/99, Edmundas Kulikauskas]

Prompts for Motivation

Such a task organizer could also include prompts to motivate us, such as questions "do I need to break this task down ?", "what is preventing me from working on this task?", "what is the first or next thing I need to do to make progress on this task?" Even rewards could be assigned and identified for each task as a motivation. [8/99, Edmundas Kulikauskas]

Other Suggested Features

The Brain enhancement: Proposals and questions of Zigmas Bigelis. The second column, PR = Priority, and is up for discussion. [Zigmas Bigelis, 6/99]

#	Pr	Keyword	Description of proposal or question	Note
1	1	Automated browsing and navigation	The user selects The speed of browsing Do you want to see notes How much levels from the active thought What child select for the next step What junk select for the next step And so on	Such a browsing could assist for friendly browsing of complicated Brain and to assist for generating of new thoughts or ideas
2	1	Brain FAQ	To create one brain as a FAQ
3	1	Brain Glossary	Create as an sample and as a part of manual Brain Glossary
4	1	Brain Index of manual	Create as an sample and as a part of Brain Manual
5	1	Brain Manual	Create as an sample and as Manual
6	1	Brain PROPOSALS	To create one Brain for users proposals	Any proposal should have children as features, e.g. proposal approved For discussion Implemented Rejected
7	1	Parent and group Different cases for using	There are different semantic meaning in parent-child relationship, e.g. 1. A parent is a name of the entire object Children are the components 2. A parent is the name of group of similar objects or objects of the same class or category 3. A parent is an aggregated idea Children are features or detail information parcels about idea 4. A parent is a result (output) Children are inputs 5. A parent and children are parts of rule If (children) then (parent) or vice versa The rules could be used for creating intelligent systems in future And so on	I suppose that it would be very useful to show that using of rather simple structure of relationship assist in solving very different and sophisticated tasks or problems. A good example is an expert system based on rules IF THEN I have been a project leader of R&D management expert system and has been surprised at first how structure of rules is simple
8	1	Using of The Brain Project management	The network structure is very convenient for project management. We should need to have such features Selecting of thoughts with content that include the data and meet the requirement of data (thoughts from the first data to the second, or later then data in the content , or earlier) Selecting of thoughts that contains person Selecting of thoughts with priority in content (Pr=1) Selecting of thoughts with the level identified in the search criteria	A lot of thoughts mean activities. The set of activities means a project.
9	2	Aggregating of information	For different users group we need to create different types of information, e.g. for politicians we should create aggregated information that is easy to understand, for managers-specialist you need an information that it is aggregated using aggregated indicators of their profession, for public you should add sometimes emotional (sound and more images) information and so on	The algorithm of aggregation is sometimes mathematical expression, sometimes you should need to use thesaurus or semantic network , sometimes intuition and so on.
10	2	Generate keywords	It would be very convenient to select keywords from the list that is generated during entering name of thoughts or note Then user select from the proposed list or enter his own keyword or keywords	Two options The list is created by user during implementing and using of The Brain The list as the thesaurus is inside of The Brain. Such thesaurus are in some intelligent products, e.g. search engines The best is to use semantics network of terms
11	2	Management of information gaps in The Brain	Comparing two thesaurus (one smaller created by user (automatically) and the second larger inside of system could help to find information gaps in solving problems, in evaluation of projects, in analyzing of information and so on	Typically an ocean of data and drops of information The next step is generating or assisting for generating of knowledge When you select an information for problem solving, e.g. on WWW it is very important to identify gaps of information
12	2	Printing of marked thoughts	One application of The Brain is preparing of report or document	You should use The Brain for collecting of information from different sources (your own thoughts, results of searching on WWW, email messages and so on) After studying and analyzing of the collected information you should add the relevant links, mark the thoughts the most important and then it would be very useful to prepare a sequence of the marked thoughts and finally to print The sequence could be created automatically and/or manually
13	2	Thesaurus of terms Semantic network of terms	One option. Such a component could be as one Brain and it could be merged The second option. An user creates thesaurus or semantic network during entering information The third option. Thesaurus or semantic network is inside of The Brain	Thesaurus or a semantic network should be used for intelligent search prompting of ideas (thoughts) aggregating information
14	2	Updating a Published brain	Is it right that anybody who first open the Published brain has a right to update it ?
15	2	Visualization maps for links	To include an image to the note of thought and to link any point of this image create	In Appendix C the fine screenshot with some comments is published. It would be fine to use such an image with links for manual or help. Such an graphical interface would be very convenient interface when you will create very large and sophisticated brain
16	3	Agents	For DISCUSSION. Feature of Brain to add agents developed by users
17	3	Automatic search of metaphors or analogs	In full life information cycle it is very important the right understanding of communicated or transmitted information of information	Therefore finding of metaphor or analog is an excellent solution for explaining the meaning(sense) of your problem or project.
18	3	Groups of information	Examples of parents or groups of information Problem Project Solution Communication topics URGENT The most important	It would be useful to discuss to use different colours for different types or categories of groups
19	3	Navigating and visualization 3D	To show a lot of plexes as landscape with hills (first level) and different shape objects depending on their category or type. Links for parent and child should have one colour, jump links ? other colour	Hills can be created using different criteria Number of level A number of children and grandchildren Marked keywords Coefficient of weight for any thought (New feature or property for thought). The coefficient should be assigned automatically after search
20	3	Random browsing or navigating through the brain	One of creative techniques is using of random words or random websites. I suppose that it would be easy to create the mode of random browsing of Brain. 31The speed of browsing and features of Pause and exit should be created.
21	3	Search in email content	Does search is operating in email message?	In search (page 50) description search in files and webpages are mentioned
22	3	Thought content Contact In Dialog box Select Content	It would be very convenient to add contacts type of thoughts
23	3	Thought content email In Dialog box Select Content	It would be convenient to add email as one of type of content	You can add email and now but it would be more friendly and more convenient to have in one dialog box all types of thought content types
24	3	Thought content Schedule or Calendar In Dialog box Select Content	It would be very convenient to add scheduling type of thoughts	As The Brain may be used instead of a few Microsoft products it would be useful to add and calendar or scheduler
25	3	Thought PINS for a lot of pins	If you have a lot of pins you should not be able to see names of pins For DISCUSSION. It might be recommended to create one thought PINS and to select it as a pin Children should be pins categories and grandchildren should be the pins.	I did not have too much time to test The Brain as my PC has failed. Therefore this proposal only for discussion
26	3	User interface	How to link sound or message when a condition in a thought is completed, e.g. when data and time has came to carry out	It would be very useful to include, as the Brain should be used as a one interface with PC. One of the main tasks is scheduling
27	3	User interface	How to link a sound or message when email described by rule (From, Subject) is received, content of the website in the thought is changed,	Email application usually sounds when a new email comes. The Brain has a feature to connect message of email
28	3	Using of software module Privacy status for scheduling	The module is used for defining date when privacy date comes It might be used and for other procedures Scheduling Sending of message And so on
29	3	Visualization Different colours of different categories of thoughts	Icons are very small and different colour might be more convenient
30	3	Visualization	The thesaurus or semantic network of keywords could be once more type of visualization	I suppose that one of the largest problems is visualization of large Brain Therefore the more tools the better
31	4	Email copying to Notes	Does message will be copied together with attachment ?
32	4	Error	In picture of properties on page 48 (number on my printer) name of thought is Online but in the text name is Writers
33	4	Publish a Brain	When publishing can you create a new category?