Information Coping Skills for Memory Loss? Writing it down ...

I slapped a list of blogs in my wiki for me. (I'll explain why in a minute)  Someone posted the url to a listserv.  Another person responded

It's just another list (that is obsolete as soon as its posted). There's not even a description of what the blogs do. The taxonomy is rudimentary and not very informative. There are many such lists on del.icio.us and elsewhere, and on these social networking sites there is at least the basic evaluation of how many others link to the sites. So what makes this list noteworthy?  I'm interested in your thinking process.

Absolutely true!

So, I'm adding some context as to why.

The short answer.  My memory is fading.

Many times, I'm asked by newcomers to RSS readers what is the best way to get started is finding blogs to read.  My advice is to find one or two blogs that you really find useful and then gradually add blogs that are referenced by that blog and that you find enjoyable.  The follow up question is something like, how I can find nonprofit blogs on xyz topic or what blogs would you recommend.   So, I thought this list might be an easy to point newcomers to blogs when I'm having a senior moment.  It's part of helping people to easily adopt RSS readers as an information coping skill

About those memory lapses.  I used to have a photographic memory, but it has dimmed with age.   In my younger years, I could easily remember phone numbers, urls, addresses, people names, or what I ate for lunch. I can't do that anymore which is a normal part of aging or a by-product of consuming too much information called Internet Alzheimers.

It is extremely frustrating for someone who used to rely on her memory and have it not work. I never developed good habits like writing stuff down or being super organized.  As a non-linear thinker, I often get distracted too. I hate it when I can't instantly pull facts out of my brain. 

Over the past few months, I've noticed that when I'm writing, and I think of someone's blog, but I don't have the URL at hand I can't remember it! I find myself stumbling. I go to my blogreader or email and then I get distracted or I can't quickly extract it from del.ici.ous because I didn't tag it carefully or I can't quite remember the correct name of the blog.  I remember where or when or if I blogged about it. But, you see, it is taking too long to retreive the URL and I really want to link to it.

What can I do?

I thought if I put a list of the blogs that I read and would like to link to in a blog post, it would be an efficient way for me to grab the url.

So, this list is not a finished product meant for wide spread consumption.  It's a work in progress for myself. I put on a wiki for easy maintenance and for whoever stumbles upon it and might find it useful as I believe in open content and open thinking.  Admittedly, it is probably only useful to me in its current state. I could have password protected it and just kept it to myself, but I am lazy - it would have put an extra step to type in the password.

Of course, I have crazy ideas about a zagats guide to nonprofit blogs, a collaborative effort built on a wiki or elsewhere.  Has anyone developed that?  There was an early attempt here and here.  I have no ownership of the idea either -- so take it, run with it .. 

For many years, I taught web development and building - in the very early days of the web.  I actually invented a term and technique called critical browsing.  I would have my students look at web sites based on design criteria and discuss the web sites. If you want to see some really old pages and laugh ...

So, my wild fantasy would be a wiki with:

a-critieria of what makes a good blog

b-list of blogs, with descriptions, organized by categories

c-some sort of social rating system against whatever critical identified in point a - to do it right would take some programming skills.

Comments

[John Powers]

I'm sure you know that your blog is very valuable, or else you wouldn't expend so much effort on it. But I think it's very hard to know how all the readers find it valuable.

Over the weekend I hosted my nephew who works for a library in special collections and has a fairly new PhD. Web 2.0 is new to him, but the many resources seem useful for his job and academic pursuits.

I showed him your blog. I wanted to show him your posts on wikitation, but found searching your blog rather inefficient. Part of the problem is that Wikipedia, which he knows, isn't really a good example of what a wiki is good for. He doesn't know about SlideShare and the 1000 and 1 resources you've discussed over time. Diving into you blog archive for just one thing didn't seem to show him how useful your blog would be for him.

Your wiki list of blogs excited me because it seemed like a great way to show him why your blog would be useful. The list is informative, that it's on a wiki is informative, that you have many links to more of your stuff is informative, but mostly it's important that all of these connect to you and your work so he can discover more.

Something that sets your work apart from others is you don't assume everyone is as far along the Web 2.0 path as you are. What's more you model being a pattern-seeker/pattern-maker. Open content and open thinking allows readers to find meaning in your work that you might not have anticipated or intended.

[Beth]

John,

Thanks for the feedback. I really need to get rid the search .. and do some housecleaning around here. I can't find things!

[trish]

What several of us have emailed is that if BETH has a list of blogs, we all want to know who's on it.

And you know that Benjamin Franklin said that he was sorry, in his old age, that he had never mastered the virtue of ORDER. In his youth, his memory was good enough so that he didn't really need to, but as he aged, he began to feel the want of order. There's also a funny joke in his Autobiography about loving one's flawed self...

[John Powers]

I can think of many more worthwhile ways for Beth to spend her time than doing house cleaning on this blog.

Search works just fine. The problem was me trying to introduce what blogs are and wikis and the idea of wikitation all at once to my nephew.

Beth's Blog is a "must read" and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Just today I saw a comment on a new blog where the blogger is trying to champion African charities. A comment left told the blogger to read Beth's Blog!

[haneyarmstrong]

Shoot, by the time I logged in I forgot what I was going to say.

But I do love your blog!

[John Powers]

The blog where I saw the suggestion to check your blog out is Africa's Hope and the blogger is Mary Marete.

[greg]

I really like your suggestion about building your blog list because that's how I built mine. More to the point, I'm 57 and am appalled (and just a little concerned) at my short-term memory loss. What bothers me the most is that I feel I've been left behind by a lot of the new tech developments because I just don't move quickly enough to keep up with them. I still use my cell phone simply to talk on, and I am utterly dazed by all the lingo. I only understand a portion of the language in some of your posts.

Oh, well... such is life.