Replying to whole thread --
I'm assuming that we are all familiary with graphic and hypertext
representations and why that is helpful in retaining and communicating
systemic features and complexity. I'm raising the more specific issue of
how to deal with the linearity that intrudes under two conditions: the
production and arrangement of lots of text, and the need to make a
coherent presentation. Mind maps during idea production are fine until
you run out of screen space, which, at brainstorming speed, occurs
instantly on a screen and soon on a white board. Then everything gets
clogged up. I'm much happier with a text-oriented jumbler. It allows me
to create and break elaborate linkages at much higher speed with much
higher numbers of items of any size. Given my strategy, I face two
issues.
The first is that I don't have something pretty to show at every moment
during development. I consider that unimportant, but I might be wrong. I
put together pictures later, based on much better thinking. I go crazy
when people start with slides, then keep going back to the garbage they
began with, often ignoring the excellent dialogue that occurred in the
meantime.
The second issue, which I was getting at in the prior message, is creeping
linearity. Linearity is an unavoidable form for my way of developing and
for anybody's way of presenting. The form doesn't need to ruin the the
process or product, but it can if not controlled.
Consider music. When bad music "falls flat", it either feels like it is
running up and down a bunch of notes (like 12-tone, until you get it), or
feels repetitious (like rock, until you're intoxicated). Warfield appears
to be using "iterative" to distinguish a kind of linear pattern that
doesn't fall flat, but instead builds an apprehension of complexity. In
good music, the first iterations of a theme are often incomplete, and only
become forthright and complete after the audience is conditioned.
(more to come on jumbler resistance, and Beer quotation on agendas)
-- kent_myers@smtplink.sra.com