(If possible, I edit and re-read every bit of communication, every email and letter I send.\u00a0 Even trivial or routine emails, to my my wife, my children, my parents, a friend, I go over, trying to tighten the language, fix the grammar, and add a bit of humor or elegance or elegant humor, to make it more readable.\u00a0 I doubt anyone will ever publish my correspondence, but I get joy writing as if someday, someone might.\u00a0 I wrote the following email to an online collaboration specialist in the organization I work for about an online archiving and collaboration site I will be setting up for my office.)<\/p>\n
Dear ____,<\/p>\n
Thanks for sending this info. I\u2019m looking forward to designing (collaboratively) a Desk Officer SharePoint site\/template.\u00a0 I\u2019m starting to write down the elements I think it would need.\u00a0 What I especially\u00a0want is some help setting it up and making it look good.\u00a0 Also, I\u2019d like to discuss issues of taxonomy and metadata.\u00a0 For example, is\u00a0the particular document\u00a0an action memo or a meeting request for a Principal? Actually, it\u2019s both and maybe even fits another category or two. \u00a0The puzzle: how to name and archive it so it\u2019s not lost forever but easily findable now and by future generations of officers.<\/p>\n
In my last office some considered me a SP power user.\u00a0 From scratch, I set up a site for collaborating on and storing documents.\u00a0 I remember creating one workpage for historic documents and another for current documents.\u00a0 Does that sentence suggest to you when I was educated?\u00a0\u00a0It illustrates what I call linear thinking, a pre-Internet construct. Throughout my education, kindergarten to Masters, I searched for books in libraries using card catalogues.\u00a0 I call how my children (raised in the online era) think, spherical.\u00a0 A single word or link can lead in many different directions, even on different planes. The problem with how I named those two pages: at some point, a current document becomes finished, instantly becoming historic.\u00a0 Like I was going to transfer that document from one \u201cshelf\u201d to another?\u00a0 Clearly, not a useful taxonomy.<\/p>\n
I look forward to sitting down with you and whoever else it makes sense to include, and plan how to make this happen.\u00a0 It was nice meeting you last week and I look forward to seeing this project happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(If possible, I edit and re-read every bit of communication, every email and letter I send.\u00a0 Even trivial or routine emails, to my my wife, my children, my parents, a friend, I go over, trying to tighten the language, fix … Continue reading