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• Note-taking apps (and practices) do make us smarter

  Last updated Aug 26, 2023 | Originally published Aug 26, 2023

  Platformer’s Casey Newton published an interesting piece on note-taking apps yesterday: Why note-taking apps won’t make us smarter.

  It’s a fairly rich piece in that it clearly lays out a number of challenges experienced by people participating in knowledge management and innovation. These challenges — such as the fundamental idea that these tools should be designed to help us think, not just to collect things — are important.

  However, I have to disagree with the headline.

  Does a hammer¹ make someone stronger?

  No.

  But you can do a lot more with a hammer than you can do with your fists.

  Same goes for note-taking apps.²

  These are simply tools³ that offer us different ways to work with the material of our thoughts — our notes! — to shape them into whatever we want to.

  But, as many have described already, it’s how we use the tool that matters.

  What won’t make us smarter is to do what Casey describes in the article:

  I waited for the insights to come.

  And waited. And waited.

  Marginalia

  This was originally published in a Mac Power Users forum discussion.

  ---

  1. …There will come a day when my hammer metaphor is bent so far that it breaks, but today is not that day. ↩︎

  2. And same goes for our note-taking practices, which is often overlooked in articles like the OP but, as many have already discussed here, is the thing that actually matters. Latour and co. had it right. It’s not the person, and it’s not the tool, it’s person + tool. Or: we shape our tools, and they shape us. ↩︎

  3. Or thinking environments, even. ↩︎

• AI is the new plastic

  Last updated Jul 18, 2023 | Originally published Jul 18, 2023

  Data was the new oil, and now AI is the new plastic.

  From user yabones on HN, discussing media companies’ blatant strategies for using “AI”-based text generators to spam content for Google Search Engine Optimization.

  • Automation
  • Data
  • Futures

• Permissionless integration

  Last updated Jul 3, 2023 | Originally published Jul 3, 2023

  In a recent blog post, kepano writes about the power of files for enabling users to have access to and use of their data in the long-term:

  File over app is a philosophy: if you want to create digital artifacts that last, they must be files you can control, in formats that are easy to retrieve and read. Use tools that give you this freedom.

  File over app is an appeal to tool makers: accept that all software is ephemeral, and give people ownership over their data.

  This reminded me of a related insight I had about files over apps a few years ago: the friction-free power of permissionless integration.

  User data should be like a piece of wood on a workbench: you can pick up hammers, drills, screwdrivers, nails, paint, saws, and all kinds of other tools and materials and make that wood into what you want. No special access or permission is required to cut or sand or shape that block of wood. You just pick the right tool for the job and do what you want. It’s your wood, your workbench, and your tools.

  Digital tools should be built so that users can work with their data in the same fashion. Apps should be able to interact with one another to help users shape and learn from their data — their notes, models, drawings, spreadsheets, or whatever — without needing special interfaces to do so.

  This is possible with files. Using files (especially files with open, standard file formats) removes the need to develop special ways of working with user data.

  On the other hand, app-specific data structures create friction and lock-in. To read and change your data in one of these apps, you need to deal with exporting and importing, or only use tools that have been custom-designed to work nicely together (i.e., via an API). Use one of these tools to create and save your data and suddenly that data can only be shaped by a limited selection of other tools.

  

  This creates some ferocious friction. Imagine picking up a piece of paper with your latest grocery list on it. You go to add “Bananas” to that list … only you don’t have the pen you first wrote the list with, and none of your other pens will work with that sheet of paper. Then, when you find the original pen, your monthly subscription to it is expired, and so anything you wrote with that pen is now read-only.

  That’s a scary thing. Remember, we shape our tools, and our tools shape us.

  Being shaped by tools you haven’t shaped is not something anyone should want.

  • Obsidian
  • Methods

• Towards a theory of leverage for strategic systemic change

  Last updated Feb 24, 2023 | Originally published Feb 24, 2023

  My article “Leverage for Systemic Change” was recently published in the inaugural edition of Contexts, from the Systemic Design Association.

  The article ultimately proposes a few key directions for a research agenda on leverage in systemic design (see the table below).

  Table 1. A research agenda for leverage theory in systemic design

  Research area	Research questions	Existing research	Possible studies	Possible contributions
  Dimensions of leverage	- Is Meadows’s (1997) typology complete? - What other features of the “physics” of systemic change might matter?	- System characteristics (Abson et al., 2017) - Conditions for systemic change Kania, Kramer, & Senge, 2018) - Other types of phenomena (e.g., bottlenecks, signals; Murphy & Jones, 2020) - Relative leverage: chaining leverage points (Fischer & Riechers, 2019) - Relative leverage: the context of the changemaker (Klein & Wolf, 1998) - Recursive leverage	- A systematic literature review (Okoli & Schabram, 2010) of leverage points, especially using forward citations (Haddaway et al., 2022) from (Meadows, 1997)	- Understanding the nature of leverage and other mechanisms of change potential in systemic change
  Methods for leverage	- What methodologies are best to identify and select leverage points? - What kinds of evidence will help validate leverage? - How might systemic designers design theories of change (Gregor & Jones, 2007) for leverage theories? - How might systemic designers limit indeterminism (Lukyanenko & Parsons, 2020) in leverage theories?	- Meadows’s (1997) typology’s order of effectiveness - Leverage analysis [Murphy & Jones, 2020] - Assessing potential for change (Birney, 2021)	- Surveying practitioners in systemic design on how they identify, assess, and address leverage points to identify common habits and best practices	- How to identify phenomena useful for leverage - How to evaluate and compare possible leverage points in the analysis phase - How to evaluate the effectiveness of chosen leverage points with evidence gathered from implementations
  Strategy with leverage	- How is leverage best used in developing strategic plans for systemic change? - How are leverage-based strategies best presented and communicated? - How are leverage-based strategies best evaluated and measured?	- Systemic strategy (Murphy & Jones, 2021) - The epistemic benefits of a leverage points perspective (Fischer & Riechers, 2019) - Identifying conditions for systemic change (Kania et al., 2018) - Relative leverage: chaining leverage points (Fischer & Riechers, 2019) - Relative leverage: the context of the changemaker (Klein & Wolf, 1998)	- “Systemic change labs” tracing and comparing the impact of interventions using different kinds of leverage	- How to use leverage to develop better strategies for systemic change - How to account for relative context in the design of high-leverage strategies
  Execution on leverage	- What are the best ways to target different kinds of leverage for systemic change? (E.g., how might we help actors in a system track all of the relevant paradigms?)	- Fruitful friction as a tactic for transcending paradigms (Buckenmayer et al., 2021) - Systemic change happens via multiple dimensions of change (Mulder et al., 2022) - Design Journeys offers several chapters on taking action after identifying leverage points (Jones & Ael, 2022)	- “Systemic change labs” tracing and comparing the impact of interventions using different kinds of leverage	- How to design innovations for each type of leverage

  Some other key takeaways:

  • The concept of “leverage points” dominates modern discussions of leverage, but as Meadows (1997) herself proposed, that is just one paradigm we can use to view the best ways to produce systemic change.
  • There are good and bad kinds of leverage points! See figure 1.
  • A few promising insights about leverage have been proposed recently, such as the notion of “chains” of leverage points (Fischer & Riechers, 2019) and the idea of assessing potential for change (Birney, 2021).

  

  • Articles
  • Systemic-Change
  • Systemic Design
  • Strategy

• Keeping a Working Copy git repo synchronized with Shortcuts

  Published Feb 23, 2023

  Use these Shortcuts to automate syncing a git repo on iOS via Working Copy.

  • Shortcuts
  • Automation
  • Obsidian
  • Workflows

• How to learn the most from the Obsidian community

  Last updated Feb 14, 2023 | Originally published Feb 14, 2023

  1. Think of a curiousity or a question
  2. Search!
     a. … the web (e.g., via the unofficial Obsidian community search engine) b. … the Forum for information ( use the forum’s Advanced Search capabilities)
     c. … the Discord server ( learn more about power search tools in Discord here)
  3. Ask on the Discord or the forum! (Make sure you review the list of channels in Discord to find the best place to post.)
  4. Get more ideas and start again at (1) 😉

  If you learn to make the most of the different pools of knowledge, you can always find rich answers — and you’ll ask better questions, too.

• A Templater script for updating file titles and dates in YAML

  Last updated Dec 15, 2022 | Originally published Dec 15, 2022

  This Templater script gives the current Obsidian note a proper YAML title, date, and lastmod field. This facilitates integration with Quartz/Hugo.

  It requires MetaEdit (as well as Templater, obviously).

  Update file titles and dates with this Templater script

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  <%* let file = tp.file.find_tfile(tp.file.title) const {update} = app.plugins.plugins["metaedit"].api const {getPropertyValue} = app.plugins.plugins["metaedit"].api const {position, ...rest} = tp.frontmatter; let content = tp.file.content; let newFileContent = content.split("\n"); let isYamlEmpty = Object.keys(tp.frontmatter).length === 0 && !content.match(/^-{3}\s*\n*\r*-{3}/); /* reset selection to the top of the document to make sure the action doesn't clear any text */ let editor = this.app.workspace.activeLeaf.view.editor; if (editor.getSelection === "") { // no text is selected } else { editor.setCursor(editor.getCursor()); } async function updateCurrentFile(someContent, someFile) { someContent = someContent.join("\n"); await app.vault.modify(someFile, someContent); } let propNameForLastModified = "lastmod"; let fileLastModifiedDate = "\"" + tp.file.last_modified_date("YYYY-MM-DD\THH:mm:ss") +"\""; if (isYamlEmpty) { // No YAML yet newFileContent.unshift("---"); newFileContent.unshift(`${propNameForLastModified}: ${fileLastModifiedDate}`); newFileContent.unshift("---"); await updateCurrentFile(newFileContent, file); } else if (rest.lastmod === undefined) { // YAML exists but no date field newFileContent.splice(1,0, `${propNameForLastModified}: ${fileLastModifiedDate}`); await updateCurrentFile(newFileContent, file); } else { // YAML exists and a date property exists await update(propNameForLastModified, fileLastModifiedDate, file); } /* Now we can assume YAML exists, so let's add the rest of the metadata */ let propNameForDate = "date"; let fileCreatedDate = "\"" + tp.file.creation_date("YYYY-MM-DD\THH:mm:ss") + "\""; if (rest.date === undefined) { // YAML exists but no date field newFileContent.splice(1,0, `${propNameForDate}: ${fileCreatedDate}`); await updateCurrentFile(newFileContent, file); } else { // YAML exists and a date property exists await update(propNameForDate, fileCreatedDate, file); } let propNameForTitle = "title"; let fileTitle = "\"" + tp.file.title + "\""; if (rest.title === undefined) { // YAML exists but no title property exists newFileContent.splice(1,0, `${propNameForTitle}: ${fileTitle}`); await updateCurrentFile(newFileContent, file); } else { // YAML exists and a title property exists await update(propNameForTitle, fileTitle, file); } new Notice (tp.file.title + "'s title is now " + fileTitle + ". Last modified date metadata updated to " + fileLastModifiedDate + ".", 2000); _%>

  • Obsidian
  • Automation

• Why the grass is greener: Making sure that shiny new alternative tool is actually going to help you

  Last updated Nov 3, 2022 | Originally published Nov 3, 2022

  “The grass is always greener on the other side.” The popular idiom discourages whoever’s listening from seeking out alternatives, suggesting that other options always look better from wherever we’re currently standing. But it has a funny problem: nobody ever explains why the grass is greener on the other side.

  That’s because it isn’t. The truth is that your side is just yellower/trampled on/eaten… and that’s because you’re on it.

  Moving to a different place will be fine at first. Then you’ll use it, too, and eventually it’ll look the same as where you started.

  (In this metaphor, you’re a goat. 🐐)

  In workflow design, in addition to the novelty of “shiny new object,” new and alternative tools are great simply because they don’t have the cruft you’ve built up in the old tool. That cruft might be noisy notes, a lifetime of guilt-inducing task management, or even just bad habits and behaviours. The problem isn’t the tool. It isn’t you, either. It’s you and the tool.

  So, after switching, the problems seem to go away… only to re-emerge (possibly in a new form) later because the issues are generated by your usage, not by the tool.

  The solution is to fall in love with the problem, not the (shiny, potential) solutions.

  1. Determine what your issues actually are, and try to figure out why they’re happening.
  2. Then, abstractly identify how you might be able to mitigate the problems.
     • Don’t say “I’ll use Bunch,” say “If I standardize certain work spaces on my computer, I can develop muscle memory for using those workspaces, reducing distraction and allowing me to spend less cognitive energy on finding everything I need to get engaged.”
  3. Last, identify some tests or success conditions that will tell you whether the solution is actually working. This’ll help minimize irrational perspectives on how well the honeymoon stage is going.

  Only after taking those three steps should you choose a tool. Find something that can implement the abstract principles you’ve articulated, and be sure to follow-through on the tests.

  In doing this, you’re actually creating and implementing a rough design theory. You’re using design science to make your work as easy and engaging as it can be! High-five for that.

  • Workflows
  • Tools
  • Design
  • Apps-or-Tools

• Automatically download Reminders into your Obsidian notes with Shortcuts

  Published Nov 1, 2022

  Want a quick, hands-free, one-step method to capture reminders and tasks into Obsidian? Take advantage of Reminders, Shortcuts, and Shortcuts’s automations feature.

  This Shortcut will extract all reminders currently incomplete in a given list and append them to your daily note.

  Here’s a screenshot of the full Shortcut

  

  Download it and set it up (i.e., answer all of the configuration questions). Then, create Shortcuts automations (via the Automations tab in Shortcuts) that run on whatever triggers you want (e.g., “Whenever the Obsidian app is opened” and “9am”). Add a “Run Shortcut” action to that automation, then select the shortcut you’ve just configured.

  🎉! Whenever the shortcut is triggered, the reminders in the designated list will be added to your daily note.

  You can now say e.g., “Hey Siri, add ‘Pick up milk’ to my Obsidian list,” and that item will (eventually) be added to your daily note.

  • Obsidian
  • Workflows
  • Automation
  • Shortcuts

• RSDx and RSD11

  Last updated Oct 27, 2022 | Originally published Oct 21, 2022

  # Talks and workshops at RSDx and RSD11

  Recently I helped host a set of workshops and sessions as a part of RSDx, an online series developed as a part of the Systemic Design Association’s conference programming and as an addendum (or perhaps pre-dendum? I don’t understand Latin, I’m afraid) to RSD11 (more on that below).

  I designed one of the sessions, a workshop addressing the question “How should systemic design’s scholarship system work?” The session featured provocations from my friends and colleagues Lewis Muirhead, Stephen Davies, Marie Davidová, and Birger Sevaldson before groups split up to develop some design principles for supporting scholarship in systemic design. It was based on one of the discussion papers I authored for the conference:

  • Knowledge innovation is systemic and fractal and that should be reflected in our models of publishing

  Then, the 11th Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposium was the following week, held at Brighton University in the UK and everywhere you can connect to the Internet. I had a couple of contributions:

  • A call for scaling literacy
  • Leverage is Fractal, Relative, and what else? We need a theory of leverage in systemic design
  • A Case Study of Systemic Theories of Change and Action: The Ecotrust Canada Home-Lands Initiative

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