Messiness as a Virtue with David Weinberger, 5/3, 6 p, Berkman Center
from the event e-mail:
"David Weinberger’s Web of Ideas: ‘Messiness as a Virtue‘
Wednesday, May 3, 6 pm
Berkman Conference Room
1587 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA
It’s been our assumption in our Western tradition that a well-organized system is a neat system with a minimum of categories, lines and exceptions. But that assumption about systems of ideas seems to have been imported from how we arrange physical objects. As we digitize information and knowledge, we are being freed for messiness. For example, the Web would not have succeeded had orderliness been a requirement, and complex data systems may be enriched by allowing items to be probabilistically filed under multiple categories. What effect might this have on our view and use of knowledge? Is messy knowledge still knowledge? Is messiness a reflection of reality, a reflection of our social engagement with reality, or just evidence of sloppy thinking? The debate rages on, surfacing in arguments about the role and nature of the Semantic Web, codes of ethics for bloggers, and the value of folksonomies. Come join this open discussion, kicked off by David Weinberger. Pizza will be served."
I was planning to go to a book group instead of going to David Weinberger’s next Web of Ideas talk, but when I read the title, I knew I couldn’t miss it.
Addendum: I’m at the event and we’re webcasting: http://harmony.law.harvard.edu/webcast.s…. I’m blowing off a book group to be here. (Sorry, ladies!) I’m kinda glad because I really like David Weinberger as a presenter (well, and a person, too). He does cool stuff. Hearing him talk about organization is kinda neat. And I like the software he uses for his presentations. (I need to find out what it is. Maybe I can use it. Doh! It’s PowerPoint. I wonder why his looks so different from mine …)
