Subject: [TS] Implications of import/export standards
From: Andrius Kulikauskas (mslab@attglobal.net)
Date: Fri Feb 18 2000 - 22:34:56 EST
Hi,
My name is Andrius Kulikauskas and I'm the Director of the Minciu
Sodas laboratory, www.ms.lt, devoted to caring about thinking. Members
of our laboratory include Ben Darnell, as well as TheBrain, LLC,
www.thebrain.com, MindManager, www.mindmanager.com, and KK Aw, inventor
of Multicentrix, www.multicentric.com
Currently we are working to develop an import/export standard for
groups of thoughts, in particular, for sequences, hierarchies and
networks of notes. My feeling is that the lack of an import/export
standard has made it too risky for people to use software for organizing
thoughts on ongoing projects, because products get discontinued and all
of the notes get trapped.
In joining, Ben wrote that this standard is of importance to him.
Our work on the import/export standard is at:
http://www.ms.lt/importexport.html
TheBrain, LLC is sponsoring our investigation "Linking Locally is
Thinking Globally" at:
http://www.ms.lt/ms/projects/formatkinds/991230linklocal.html
We are working to figure out what kinds of links software and standards
use to structure thoughts. For example, TheBrain uses a directed
network (child-parent) and a nondirected network (jump). MindManager
uses a radial tree. I invite you to visit and to help: we are
collecting examples of how an import/export standard might be used, also
examples of software tools out there, and standards for information.
Our agreement with TheBrain, LLC allows us to create a converter, in
the public domain, between TheBrain file format and the import/export
standard that we are developing.
We are pursuing our standard through the Infrared Data Association
because they are a fast working and open spirited standards group for
mobile computing, and the makers of such software are interested in
mobile computing. I am the convener of the new IrDA special interest
group Flow of Experiences with a mandate to develop our standard. We
are having our second meeting in April in the San Francisco area.
For that meeting I would like to demonstrate the capability of
passing groups of notes between TheBrain and MindManager. This will
help make concrete to our colleagues there - primarily engineers from
companies like Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard - what this is
all about.
They would be twice as impressed, I think, if they could see
exchange between these programs and Thoughtstream on the Palm OS. I am
writing to ask, if that my be interesting, and if it might be doable.
I don't want to take away from your studies, which should come
first, never mind Bill Gates. Through the Minciu Sodas laboratory,
however, I work to organize people to help each other and build
relationships while we work on shared endeavors. Basically, I would be
interested to explore organizing the design of a converter between our
standard and your Thoughtstream. I have contacts in Palm who I could
approach to finance this work. Also, I'll be going to the MobileInsight
executive conference, March 5-7, and the President of Palm Computing
will be speaking there, so I may be able to catch him.
I have another thing on my mind that expands on this. Once we
define a preliminary standard, it would be great to develop an
interactive multiconverter. A piece of software that would walk one
through to move sequences, trees and webs of notes in and out of
different programs, and interactively helping one turn a web into a
tree, for example. This type of software could ultimately evolve into a
streamlined user interface that would be the center of our work with a
computer.
I would like to organize the development of such a multiconverter as
a group effort. Many questions arise, including social (who to
approach), financial (what might be the role of incentive and
compensation), and technological (what programming languages to use).
I know very little about your software and your community, but would
like to learn more. I should buy a Palm OS device soon to be able to
demonstrate your software, and other Palm OS for organizing thoughts
(do you know of any)? What Palm OS device do your recommend?
Finally, I will be traveling to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to visit
my sister. In particular, I will be there Friday, February 25th. I'm
curious, Ben, if you'd be interested to meet. Also, I'm curious how
many of us are in North Carolina, maybe we could have a general
meeting. I could also give a short talk on our work (I should add that
I have a Ph.D. from UCSD in mathematics).
Ben, congratulations on all of your work. I look to all of us with
excitement that this might lead to directions only imagined and not
quite yet.
Yours,
Andrius Kulikauskas
Director
Minciu Sodas laboratory
http://www.ms.lt
ms@ms.lt
+1 (619) 298-7019 until April 29th
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