I’m just over half-way through reading David Weinberger’s new book, Everything is Miscellaneous.
The blurb on the dust-jacket tells me that the book “shows how the digital revolution is radically changing the way we make sense of our lives”.
In a way that’s spot on but in a way is does no justice to the actual power of the book.
Weinberger looks at some of the concepts we’re currently familiar with – such as tagging images or searching for books on Amazon and arranging our favourite blog posts using del.icio.us – and links this to a much wider revolution in information production, storage and retrieval.
Working from Aristotle to the present digital environment Weinberger touches on how information production and knowledge-formation is changing dramatically and will call into question the way institutions – from businesses to Government – operate.
Indeed this may well have the potential to re-shape civil society as we know it.
Four key take-away points so far:
- Filter [information] on the way out, not on the way in;
- Put each leaf [of info] on as many [organising] branches as possible;
- Everything is metadata and everything can be a label
- Give up control
I’m looking forward to finishing the book and seeing what others make of it.
Nick Carr has already trashed it before reading all of it; but Mayfield‘s on with it and McIntosh is too.
Technorati tags: David+Weinberger; Everything+is+Miscellaneous; information; digital+revolution; book+reviews
Thanks for this informative blog