vanderwal.net

InfoCloud Overview Finally Posted

I have long thought I had a write-up of the four InfoClouds, as I have been presenting about them since late 2002 with a public presentation in early 2003. These are central to a many of my models and thinking, but are a subset of the Model of Attraction that is the foundation for most things, and it only has its draft write-up available, Model of Attraction - First Draft :: vanderwal.net.

The Overview of the InfoClouds – Personal InfoCloud is now written and posted covering all four InfoClouds (Personal InfoCloud, Local InfoCloud, Global InfoCloud, and External InfoCloud). I have been wanting to point to this for a long time. I have a few other posts coming that have needed this to exist to make the other future posts clearer and easier to write.

Familiar Ideas with a Lot of One’s Own Content Make Writing More Work

A week ago when I picked up my task to write this, as something that I really wanted to write was blocked by this not existing, I thought this should be 2 or 3 hours and posted. Uh… well, not so much. I have around 400 to 500 Keynote presentation decks from the last 20 plus years or so and many have some information about the InfoClouds, with the heavily used four cloud image that slides in the pieces as I talk through them. I also had a few workshop Keynote files with the longer more detailed definitions of each of the four InfoClouds and why they are important. But, finding those files specifically was a little more difficult than I thought. Using the new macOS 27 Siri really helped out quite a bit to find and hone a search within the files.

Many versions and variations of definitions for Personal InfoCloud and Local InfoCloud were what really slowed things down. The different variations are all honed for the audience and contextual relevance. Getting that sorted out for a broader audience and more general focus took looking at 15 to 20 different framings with slightly different shadings. Those paragraphs had a few rewrites.

Getting something that worked for the two largely unwritten InfoClouds, Global and External seemed easier at first.Those started to become rabbit holes explaining uses and how to work with them (when they are often secondary and far periphery sources). I realized those, for now, are just good to have and exchanged general framings. The deeper dives can come later (I’ve done some really fun work with clients around them that unlock understanding for large steps forward, but it is very contextual).

As I thought I was done a couple of days ago, or close to it, I started to review what I wrote and some was still quite rough. Last night when I opened it in iA Writer for a focussed edit, I was looking for a commenting tool I had in another markdown editor that is now gone. I would often place self-edits in draft comments. But, in reality I needed complete rewrites for the first two paragraphs and also deleted another, then added a couple of sentences to fill in the removed information. But, today with another read-through and a shorter edit it was ready to post.

Posting in WordPress for Personal InfoCloud

Getting ready this afternoon to post into WordPress my workflows for writing and posting on vanderwal.net are honed. There I have a few scripts to run for markdown clean-up for things I use in drafts, but I needed removing them before posting in WordPress so went through it by hand. Adding an image is a different (yet easier) process than I’ve been using. The categories are different on the Personal InfoCloud site as well. The workflow was a little smoother than the last workflow for the Personal InfoCloud. With a few more to post in the not-too-distant future I think I may have a few small bumps to sort through to make it a bit smoother.

Personal InfoCloud Posting Pattern and Here

Many years back I would post to Personal InfoCloud and the same or similar to here. Then I would just post on Personal InfoCloud by itself. Then I started posting a manually syndicated version in Medium as well as LinkedIn. The Personal InfoCloud site gets more targeted readers, but readership is much thinner these days as I haven’t been posting there all that much. I think for a while I’ll likely post a summary post here and maybe backstory, and use this site to point to there.

Modernized Page Structure for the Model of Attraction Draft from March 2002

I’ve been looking at filling in the gaps around the Personal InfoCloud and setting the foundation for it in the four InfoClouds in an Overview of the InfoClouds, but pointing back to a quick framing of the Model of Attraction, mostly leans to the original draft (and only a first draft) of the Model of Attraction - First Draft :: vanderwal.net that I wrote on a flight back home from Austin when the idea hit.

Looking at that page, the page was still in a 2002 or 2003 layout and design, which is quite similar to what it is today, but the text was much smaller and the page much narrower.

Update of the Layout Structure

I updated the layout structure of the page and the HTML framework of the page and used the current CSS that does much of the layout work (then and now). I also fixed a few typos and corrected the date at the top, which was a year off as stated elsewhere, as March 2002 is the correct date.

I Haven’t Read Through This In a Long While

As I was resetting the scaffolding of the page I realized it has been a long time since I have read this in full, and I need to set aside time to do that. There are quite a few things I wrote out fully in the rough draft and in the outlined sections at the end, which set the foundations for much that was to follow. But, it goes much farther in a broad sense pulling things in and building bridges to uses of the model within different domains that people work in. The initial piece also calls out the initial rough use of info cloud in my quote:

“Users have a rough cloud of information following them that has a magnetic attraction toward them and their interests.”

I had forgotten about that. It had been captured by someone I was talking with as the idea was gelling and I used it a couple of times and realized it had gravity. This became the hook for InfoCloud.

Working on Folksonomy and Related Videos

I keep a master deck of prior presentation slides, which isn’t complete, yet it contains a lot of slides and history. I go through and bring many of the slides into slide styles I now use. Keynote slides are one of the tools I think in.

Evergreen Folksonomy Presentation Video

In the last year or so and increasingly get requests to discuss folksonomy and where it fits with LLMs and generative AI (Gen AI), but many of those asking don’t have a good understanding of folksonomy so I run through the folksonomy slides (there is a short, middle, and longer version) depending on what the interest and breadth of the question, which for walking through the explanation related to LLM and/or GenAI.

In going through the explanation and slides I realize I really should turn this into a video. I’ve done these in the past for clients for their internal use and when working for companies creating them for the same purpose. There are some updates I’ve made over the years and some additions I know I need to make based on the last year or so.

I have quite a few presentation decks on Slideshare, but I find those only help a little bit, and having the animation and explanation over the animation helps clarity of understanding quite a bit.

More to Come…

I also have been running through Model of Attraction, with the InfoClouds, and many social interaction at scale lenses. These could also likely be turned into videos as well.