The Triumph of Unorganization

There is always tension between organization and the lack of it. We techies tend to force our users into the neat organization we devise for them. And yet, the most successful systems are fairly unorganized. Just look at the web.

Today Jon Udell's interview intrigues me that this is why XML fails as a human readable means to data. The first time I looked at XML Schema 1.0 definition (and how thick the pile of paper it is printed on is), I said: "Oh, boy! I don't want to get near that thing." Why the quick success of wiki? Because it support a very loose organization. This is what I found in my daily use of Confluence. I use it as a workflow tool. If I have a process that I want to repeat later, I just create page with all the steps in it, put check boxes in front of every step and save it as a template. No need to build, buy, learn or use any fancy workflow tool.

We need to bear this in mind and provide the greatest flexibility in Concourse to allow people to get their work done easily.