Time of Sense

When I was younger, the Christmas holidays lasted forever and I had day after day of play time and lassitude. Now, though--I just finished a frenetic semester at home, we got Charlotte's (our two year-old) birthday, Christmas, New Years, and a couple of colds out of the way, and now the Spring semester's about to explode onto the scene. Ahh, the holiday season.

But I've been spending all my spare time (practically none, but there have been some moments washing dishes) thinking about writing, writing practice, and possible dissertation topics. I started off my phd program thinking I wanted to write on the effect computers have on writing. No, not spell check and IM lingo and that kind of thing. What I mean is that writing is inherently technological, and therefore every writing situation demands a choice in technology. So how does computer technology, and the choices we have to make regarding that technology when we choose to write, affect our writing. That better? Maybe.

But now I'm thinking that the real contributions that technical communication researchers can make is in the field of information architecture. I've begun to wonder if it's possible to design a graphical system for understanding types and amounts of information. The medieval mystics believed you could improve your memory by visualizing a house (mansion, castle, etc.) wherein certain memories, or types of information, belonged exclusively to certain rooms. Then you would simply visualize going into that house and choosing which room you needed, then locating the information you needed. So far, so good. But my question is can we come up with visual metaphors whereby we can conceptualize great chunks of, say, business, historical, or philosophical data? Something to work on, no doubt. For some reason, "phlogiston" comes to mind.