that “Harry is coming to the meeting” has no information value, for example, if its intended recipient knows this already or if the message is given to the recipient in a language she does not understand. In neither case does the message change what she knows already concerning who will be attending the meeting.
But people don’t exchange information just to reduce uncertainty4. Information, as the data of human communication, has a sender as well as a recipient. The sender may send the data to reduce the recipient’s uncertainty (e.g., “It’s raining out there, better take an umbrella”). But the sender may have other or additional intentions. The sender may want to impress or persuade or ingratiate. The sender may want to increase the recipient’s uncertainty (“Have you considered these other possibilities …”). The sender may even want to confuse or deceive. Likewise, the recipient may have aims other than to simply be “informed” by incoming data. The recipient may, for example, misconstrue the data to confirm or conform to pre-existing expectations.
In a survey of information science researchers described by Zins, C. (2007), information is often defined with reference to expressions of intention. For example, information is “the intentional composition of data by a sender with the goal of modifying the knowledge state of an interpreter or receiver” (p. 485). And information is “data arranged or interpreted … to provide meaning” (p. 486).
A larger point in the work of Shannon endures: the value of information is not absolute but relative to a context that includes the intentions of the sender, the method of delivery, and the current state of a recipient’s knowledge. The information value of data is in the eyes (ears, nose …) of the beholder. What is information? We might better ask, what is information to us? Here are some answers.
Information is what we extract from the data of our senses in order to understand our world.
Information is what’s in the documents, email messages, web pages, MP3 files, photographs (digital and paper-based), videos, etc., that we send (or post) and that we receive (or retrieve).
Information is for representing and referencing worlds distant from us in time or space. For example, information is how we learn about the ancient Egyptians. Information is how we learn of the current plight of people in a remote disaster area. Information is how we learn about the possibility of getting lung cancer in 20 years if we don’t stop smoking.
Information is how we are represented to the outside world, accurately or not, for better or worse.
Information is a drain on our money, energy, attention and time.
Information is how we get things done.
Information is an extension of us.
Information is our challenge and our opportunity. We are bewildered, misled and seduced by information. But there is little we can do in our modern world that doesn’t involve an exchange of information. Information, well managed, gives us a range and reach that far exceeds the limits of our physical selves. We can “see” to the ends of the earth and beyond. We can effect changes large and small: Provide a credit card number to reserve a hotel room; transfer ideas to transform lives.
Information is power.
What then is personal information? What makes it mine (or yours)? Look for the “me” in “mine.” Information can be personal because it is “owned by me” (e.g., the information on our computer or on a flash drive), “about me” (e.g., medical records), “directed towards me” (think advertisements or dinner-time “marketing surveys”), “sent (posted) by me,” “experienced by me” or, at the most general level, “relevant to me.” Information in each of these senses is personal though for distinctly different reasons.
We gain from a management of personal information in each of these senses in accordance with the life we wish to lead. Likewise, we lose if personal information lays unmanaged or is managed by others in ways that work against us.
1.1 A DEFINITION OF PIM
Personal Information Management (PIM) refers to both the practice and study of the activities a person performs in order to locate or create, store, organize, maintain, modify, retrieve, use and distribute information in each of its many forms (in various paper forms, in electronic documents, in email messages, in conventional Web pages, in blogs, in wikis, etc.) as needed to meet life’s many goals (everyday and long-term, work-related and not) and to fulfill life’s many roles and responsibilities (as parent, spouse, friend, employee, member of community, etc.)5.
The definition is broad and formal. But for our purposes, a more informal, working definition will often suffice. Mary Parker Follett, writing at the turn of the last century, defined management (of people) as “the art of getting things done through people.”6 Make a small substitution and we have: PIM is the art of getting things done in our lives through information.
PIM is not (just) about getting back to information we have experienced before, i.e., refinding, nor is it just about being better organized. We can think of people who are well organized—to a fault—but who appear no better able to manage either their information or their lives as a result. Conversely, we may know people who in their offices and their homes appear quite disorganized but who always manage, somehow, to stay on top of things.
We will review evidence from several sources to the point that organization does, in fact, matter. But not just any organization or organization for its own sake. Rather, organizing as a PIM activity should help us to make sense of and use our information. Organization should be towards one ideal of PIM: to have the right information at the right time (and in the right form, of good quality, …) to meet our needs7.
Or consider another ideal: Organizing information and other PIM activities are an integral and welcome part of our daily lives, not a separate chore to be guiltily postponed to “tomorrow.” How might this be? Consider the screenshot in Figure 1.1 taken of a Web site for an amusement park in Sweden. Try it out (in a Web browser of your choice). The view in Figure 1.1 is animated. Cars and trains go back and forth. Carnival rides spin. Animals in the open air zoo move. Flags flap in the wind. Waves lap up against the beach. The water in the pool shimmers. Nothing fancy, but inviting and fun to look at, and functional. A click on the pool, for example, provides information concerning showers, changing rooms and places to eat nearby.
Can we imagine something similar as a kind of dashboard overview for our lives and our information? In the center might be a representation for home and family. Nearby might be representations for work and career, for health and fitness. Farther away there might be a snowcapped mountain or a beach to represent an interest in skiing or a vacation we hope to take. We might zoom in for greater focus on a specific area in our lives or a specific project.
The animation might change appearance to reflect important changes in our world. Clouds on the horizon might signal the imminent arrival of rainy weather; extra cars might represent a real traffic jam on our way to work. Items might change in color or increase in size to reflect looming deadlines.
Figure 1.1: Surely PIM is important but is it amusing?8
Such an animated “PIM dashboard” is certainly feasible even now and even more so as the computational power of our devices continues to improve. Whether the dashboard is merely a novelty or has enduring utility depends upon the nature of its implementation,
