Category Archives: Collecting Ideas

Docear — Literature Management and Writing with Mind Maps

Words – so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Kurt wrote me a comment about docear, a software that integrates a PDF reader (with annotations) with a Mind Mapping tool. And the software really integrates them, like reading the annotations/highlights and making them available in the Mind Map. The following video gives a good introduction:

Whereas annotations and comments in PDFs are nothing special, I really love the way the highlighted sections and comments can be automatically extracted from the PDFs. This is something where many literature management tools are lacking: I can annotate or highlight in my PDFs, but I want more … I want the text available outside of the document. And looking from the video, docear can give you this. Likewise, using Mind Maps for writing is an interesting idea (cf. this posting about writing articles with Mind Maps).

However, I am not so sure whether the approach be docear does scale to literature management. A Mind Map is a hierarchical structure, and in many cases, one might want to put one paper in different sections or categories. One reason why I use DEVONthink and tags for my literature. Likewise I want to be flexible in the way I work and use Circus Ponies and Scrivener for writing. Also, I am unsure whether I would trust my literature to one software, also I expect that the PDFs are annotated in the files itself and can be exported — and thereby still be used without the program.

But it looks like an interesting idea if this is the way you want to work. If Mind Maps are your way to work, why not use a program that combines your literature management software and your Mind Map for writing in one package? However, what I can say about the software is limited, as I do not have the time for an in-depth testing at the moment. If I had, I’d make sure that my PDFs can be exported (with annotations/highlights) and use a naming scheme like author_year.pdf or author_author_…_year.pdf to make sure I can leave the software if I need to, then give it a try.

So, what are your experiences with it? Would you try docear?

Poster: How to Organize Your Creativity?

I have translated the poster I did for the MinD-Akademie 2011 in English. I love it — it shows on one (very large) page the whole concept that I try to convey with “Organizing Creativity”. If you prefer it in German find the German version here.

I will probably do a similar version for the second version of the Organizing Creativity Book (still working on it) and use it as navigation help for the Organizing Creativity Wiki (likewise still working on it). But until both are ready, have fun with this poster (note: due to the size — DIN A0 — it is about 7 MB).

oc-poster-englishThe poster shows the different steps that are necessary in organizing creativity. While the process goes top down (yellow arrow in the horizontal center), each step is also another occupation with the topic (yellow arrows upwards to occupation with the topic), which leads to further ideas. I have left the footer for the moment — in case you are wondering it translates as “MinD-Academy 2011 — Future and Research”.

The Future of Your Research: How to organize (a) scientific work?

To put it differently: You are highly qualified people who should not be wasted in the wrong job. You are ambitious, in the sense that you want to accomplish something, be advanced, move forward. Choose the right environment if you can. PhD positions are qualification positions — it is not sufficient that you do your work well, the work must also allow you to move forward and improve/qualify yourself.
Presenter Note from “The Future of Your Research — How to organize a scientific work?”

I’ve finally translated the presentation I did at the MinD-Akademie 2011 regarding “The Future of Your Research — How to organize a scientific work?”. The slides include the presenter notes, which in turn include the script. It’s not my best translation work, so don’t be surprise to see a lot of “broken English” — but at least it’s readable, I think.

Note that due to copyright constraints, I cannot show the pictures I did show in the presentation. I have replaced these images with grayed out placeholders and an image description in square brackets.

mind-akademie-2011-english-grayed-out-picturesClick on the slides to see the presentation as PDF (about 5 MB).

If you have further points that should be included in a presentation like this, I’d appreciate a comment. :-) The recommended literature is also shown here as a separate posting.

Presentation: How to Organize a Scientific Work [German]

Kurz gesagt: Ihr seid hochqualifizierte Leute, die man nicht auf der falschen Stelle verschwenden sollte. Ihr seid ehrgeizig, im Sinne von ihr wollt etwas erreichen, gefördert werden, weiter kommen. Sucht euch das passende Umfeld genau aus wenn ihr könnt. Promotionsstellen sind Qualifikationsstellen — es reicht nicht, dass ihr die Arbeit für die Stelle gut macht, die Arbeit auf der Stelle muss euch weiterbringen und euch selbst weiter qualifizieren.
Vortragsnotiz aus “Die Zukunft deiner Forschung — Wie organisiert man eine wissenschaftliche Arbeit?”

Note: The following presentation (PDF with Notes, which contains the script) is about ways to organize a scientific work. I did this presentation at the MinD-Akademie 2011 in Hannover and thus it is in German. It was my best presentation ever. Loved the audience :-) . Regarding an English version, I’ll be doing a translation soon. [Update: Translation is online in this posting.]

mind-akademie-2011-vortrag-graubilder-mit-skript-cover-2Auf das Bild klicken um die PDF angezeigt zu bekommen (ca. 5 MB). Ein Teil der Bilder in der Präsentation sind ausgegraut, weil ich leider nicht das Copyright für diese Bilder besitze. Das mindert die Qualität der Präsentation, auch wenn sie nur zur Illustration eingesetzt wurden. Auf der anderen Seite sind alle wichtigen Informationen in den Notizen vorhanden. Das Design der Folien beruht zum einen auf ein Template von Apple’s Keynote (Cover), wobei die Seiten von den Aperture/iPhoto Photobüchern inspiriert sind. Die Angaben zur empfohlenen Literatur ist hier als eigener Eintrag verfügbar.

Poster: Wie organisiert man seine Kreativität? [German]

English Note: This posting is about a poster I did submit to the MinD-Akademie 2011, showing on one (very large) page how one can organize one’s creativity. It was accepted and well received. The poster is in German, but I will do a translation soon. [Update: Translation is finished and available in this posting here.]

MinD-Akademie 2011 Poster

Das Poster zeigt die verschiedenen Punkte die wichtig sind, um Kreativität zu organisieren. Während der Prozess von oben nach unten läuft, ist jeder Punkt auch eine Beschäftigung mit dem Thema (gelbe Pfeile nach oben) und führt entsprechend zu weiteren Ideen (mittige Pfeile nach unten). Auf das Poster oder hier klicken, um das Poster als PDF in DIN-A0 zu sehen (die Bilder selbst sind runterskaliert, so dass die Datei “nur” ca. 7 MB groß ist). Die Datei ist in der Dateigröße reduziert, die Bilder sollten aber trotzdem in druckbarer Qualität sein. Das Poster, das ich ausgestellt hatte, habe ich in Hannover gelassen (vielleicht hat es ja ein nettes Heim gefunden, sonst wurde es halt entsorgt). Ich musste los, habe mein Poster nicht gesehen (oder ich war grad blind) und ich habe mich auch von einigen Leuten nicht (bzw. nicht richtig) verabschieden können (war auch was k.o., auch wenn’s/weil’s riesigen Spaß gemacht hat). Ich hoffe, ich sehe ein paar Personen bald wieder, auch gerne mal zu Besuch in Tübingen, auch wenn ich die Namen grad nicht verfügbar habe (ich denke, ich habe den Networking-Workshop wirklich gebraucht — war gut und eine gute Erinnerung).  Ich wünschte halt, ich hätte mir die Namen notiert, von den Personen, mit denen ich interessante Unterhaltungen geführt hatte (hmm, in der Badewanne eben gab’s eine nette Idee für eine App bzw. die Fortführung einer älteren Idee dazu  … ;-) ).

Sketching at Work

design_for_a_flying_machine

Leonardo da Vinci [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (cut)

I’m currently listening to a presentation by Prof. Martin Eppler about “Sketching at Work” — showing the power of sketches in business contexts. Sketching is a very powerful tool in creativity and as far as I can see, his book (look into it) or here (order) offers a lot of ideas how you can use sketching to solve and discuss your problems.

Very interesting book and I agree, now that we have tools like the iPad that allow sketching (esp. if you use pens like the Pogo sketch pen) sketching is back.

Very interesting :-)

P.S.: If you like to look at presentations which work heavily with sketches, look at the presentations at Khan Academy or (more professionally) the RSA Animate videos.

Preventing Duplicate Input in DEVONthink

“It’s like deja vu all over again.”
Unknown

Something that can happen very easily regarding the references you store in your idea collection are duplicate entries: the same image, document, etc. is inserted twice (or multiple times). And easy way to prevent this in DEVONthink is by using a smart group looking for duplicates in the Inbox only (Note the “Search in: References Inbox”).

preventing-duplicatesI use a database named references and limit the scope of the smart group to its inbox. Whenever I put something in the inbox (new images, files, etc.) DEVONthink compares it to the content of the database and if it finds a file with the same content, it makes the filename bold and blue — and it appears in the smart group.

duplicates

This way I can simply select and delete the duplicate entries in the smart group and remove the newly copied files, without touching the files that are sorted in my collection.

Sente — Reference Manager for Mac and iPad

“If I had thought about it, I wouldn’t have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can’t do this.”
Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M “Post-It” Notepads.

I’m currently looking at Sente, as it is supposed to work well with DEVONthink. I don’t think that I will change my literature management from DEVONthink to Sente, but there are a couple of features that look really nice and much better solved than in other programs or reference managers:

Quicktags

Tagging is highly important when you have a couple of thousand references (which you will have very quickly), but it is often poorly supported. Sente not only offers auto-completion and has a text field large enough to enter tags, it also offers a Quicktags window where you can hierarchically sort the tags and assign them with a single click. Best thing is that the parent tags are implicitly assigned to the references as well, not as ‘real’ tags, but as implied tags.

quicktags

QuickTags
The image is a screenshot from the Sente Instruction Video from the website.

Note Taking worth talking about

I don’t understand why most reference manager offer poor note-taking capabilities. Often it’s only a text field, that’s it. Sente offers the first clever way of taking notes. You highlight text and click on a button and it creates a note with title (automatically from the first few words, you can change them), page number, quotation, and your own thoughts. I still have to find out whether you can export these notes, but the way it is done is perfect. Just what you need.

notetaking

Notetaking
The image is a screenshot from the Sente Instruction Video from the website.

Quick Conclusion

From first glance Sente looks like a Reference Manager where the programmers actually thought about it and offered ways to deal with literature that make sense. Still, it’s unlikely that I switch my literature to Sente, as I am quite happy with DEVONthink. But if you are looking for a powerful literature manager for Mac (and iPad!) have a look at Sente.

Interesting Discussion going on about Thesis Writing

“I wrote them down in my diary so that I wouldn’t have to remember.”
Professor Henry Jones, about why he and his son need to go into the lion’s den to save his diary, in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989)

I’m currently preparing a presentation for a student group about organizing an academic work (focus is on a dissertation thesis, but it can be applied to any major written work). Interestingly, there are currently a few questions about establishing academic work flow, esp. regarding storing citations. The discussion is going on in the posting about Circus Ponies Notebook for Academic Writing (e.g., Thesis Writing).

If you have ideas I’d like to hear them — how do you manage your sources?

Questionnaire for Organizing Creativity 2

It’s been a few years since I wrote “Organizing Creativity” and in the meantime I have learned a lot. I am also critical of the style of the book — I wanted to write everything I knew, I did and it shows. It contains a lot of information, but it is not exactly easy to read.

So, I am currently working on a new version, more concise and more useful for practical application. For this version I would like to ask you for your input. How do you organize your creativity? What skills and tools did help you? What gave you a boost in working. The questions are very broad and no matter how trivial or supposedly widely known it is, I really like to hear about it.

Which skills help you to be creative?

Which tools help you to be creative?

Is there anything else you think is important for creativity or its organization? If so, what is it?

In which areas are you creative?

If you want to, you can also give your name and eMail, but you don't need to. I promise not to abuse this information.

Your Name

Your eMail

Thank you in advance :-)

Daniel Wessel