Mimi:
My experience with software from Microsoft (regarding this matter) is
that when it tries to guess what you would like to do, like auto
formatting text, auto correcting it or Clippie appearing when you don´t
want it, is that it does not do what one wants, they are difficult
(like auto formatting) to revert and in the end takes time from you.
We all agree in the fact that we are far behind real intelligence, if
that will be at all possible for a machine (at least for the time
being).
My notion of assistant/secretary is more on the line of filters.
Some rule based actions that with the correct parameters would free us,
but most, help us with proactive actions.
A good ans simple example (though not perfect) would be junk controls
with adaptive learning.
On the other hand the idea of a Clippie visually speaking is not what I
would want for Chandler.
Chandler itself is a name of a person, I do not think it is neccesary
to have some visual representation, only the good action/habits would
make the difference.
Chandler is already much more than this, and I am not underestimating
all the excellent work that has been done already (implemented or not).
Yours,
Daniel Vareika
Mimi Yin wrote:
I think
the notion of a smart personal assistant is a powerful one...and I'd
like to add one more layer of nuance to it, which I think might make
the difference between users finding the assistant mysterious and
annoying (ie. Microsoft's Clippie) versus useful and an active partner
in managing their information.
Two of the many differences between an assistant like Clippie and a
real life assistant:
1. You can't ask Clippie: Why did you do, what you did?
2. You can't give Clippie direct feedback: Why don't you try this next
time instead?
I think before you can have 2, you need 1...Meaning, every auto-magic
thing your "personal Chandler asst" does for you needs to be presented
in context. You need to understand why and how Chandler decided to
pull up those articles on Vietnam...If you did:
1. You could navigate to look at things "in the environs" of the
Vietnam articles your assistant pulled up to see if there were things
it missed (ie. Day trip over the Cambodian border)
2. Allowing the user to do #1, provides them with a way to close the
feedback loop and possibly turn it into a virtuous, self-perpetuating
cycle. Not only can the Chandler assistant provide helpful
suggestions...the user can provide some helpful suggestions back to
the assistant as well.
Mimi
On Sep 28, 2005, at 11:17 PM, Philippe Bossut wrote:
Mimi
Yin wrote:
One
thought is that we often files things as "Read someday maybe"
primarily because they came to us at the wrong time. As in, one day, I
know I will want to visit Vietnam, so I want to archive this article
on Pho cafes in Saigon for that "One-day in the future" trip.
The problem is that when we finally get around to planning that trip,
will we even remember the resources we filed away in some huge
"Travel" folder years ago? And even if we remembered that we had it,
would Google find it faster than hunting for it in our PIM?
So the key is, "Someday maybe" items need to reappear on their own
later on the "time is ripe" to receive such information. (ie. If you
later on finally get around to planning your Vietname trip, rather
than having to go dig in your Travel folder to find those articles
which you may or may not remember anything about...can the system
present you with a: Hey, remember this stuff about Vietnam you tagged
2 years ago? tickler)
In that case, it's a smart tickler, not something you set ("remind me
about Vietnam in x months") as described in GTD but something in
Chandler that is able to 1) analyse the context of what you're doing
and 2) provide automatically references to your personal archive that
could be relevant to this context.
It's a very interesting idea. I personally think that software should
be more proactive at doing things for you (in this case, fetching
relevant infos you forgot you had) rather than simply reacting to
user's orders. We'll be moving toward an active assistant away from a
passive one.
Cheers,
- Philippe
|
