“The Paraphernalia of It All”
Frank Zappa
[will someone prove that I am not imagining all this or am actually all on my own][Remind me which track from which album?]
The Paraphernalia
The Idea is that the Gadgets (here, the tools, productivity, creativity) can get in the way, and be a bit of a barrier.
Really?
Yes really. I find this all the time and joke about technophobia where there is more to this which is messing about with the gadgets. There are lots of gadgets. Alot of them quite big, some of them intimidating. I need technical assistance to use a lot of the gadgets.
A Thinker collaborates with an Engineer to make a working prototype of the ideas.
So the team is thinker and realise, builder, nuts and bolts, so it floats. Ideas engineered into solutions. A collaboration.
Big Tools, Small Tools
I am thinking here of really simple tools. Is there a need for really simple tools? I need simple tools. Simple information modelling tools. Setting aside Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat. To construct models of thinking to represent structured thinking. No barrier.
To do what? To model thinking and understanding graphically and visualisation. Visual thinking. Just a simple and powerful way. To employ and represent structured thinking. Your structured thinking. As an Independent Thinker able to communicate and share simple but powerful models of their thinking and facilitating searching for key stuff …..
Messing About With Gadgets
Messing about with the gadgets, getting in the way and delaying pinning down the idea. Where the need, the want, is to represent and record what (you, them, me). Easily, simply without delay.
Call it creativity in communication
Call it creativity in communication. Where models of thinking are created and as interfaces to thinking e.g. the learner, the teacher, the student, the friend, the colleague, the team-member; the independent thinker, the team member.
Tightly Coupling Thinking and Doing?
The idea is to tightly couple thinking and doing. Where doing is showing your model of thinking and understanding, what you think, what you know.support the cognitive process of thinking, structured thinking, and the construction of models of your thinking (and understanding) – employing the minimal simplest tool in a short tightly coupled exercise. Information capture. The capture of thinking. If creative thinking- then represent the thinking in a simple visualisation – in the form of simple graphical models. “Thinking Models”. Representation, communication and sharing. As easy as showing stuff and copying stuff and sharing stuff in social media.
Where the model is the interface to thinking.
Platforms; Suites; Walled Gardens; The State of the Art
Its all out there – free and subscription. MSOffice 365, Adobe Acrobat, Google World, Apple Garden, not forgetting ‘PowerPoint’, ‘Keynote’ and ‘Miro’
Pretenders, Minnows
Pretenders, Interlopers, INDIES, original thinkers, innovators of tangible software: small, simple information modelling tools? [Oh no. not another one?]
Minimal Paraphernalia
Small gadgets. ‘Frameworks’ – simple graphical information modelling only.