Building a Better World with Our Information

Part 1 in “The Future of” series covers the fundamentals of personal information management (PIM) and then explores the seismic shift, already well underway, toward a world where our information is always at hand (thanks to our devices) and “forever” on the web. Part 2, “Transforming Technologies to Manage Our Information,” provides a more focused look at technologies for managing information. The opening chapter discusses “natural interface” technologies of input/output to free us from keyboard, screen, and mouse. Successive chapters then explore technologies to save, search, and structure our information. A concluding chapter introduces the possibility that we may see dramatic reductions in the “clerical tax” we pay as we work with our information. Focus in this concluding Part 3 to the series shifts to the practical and to the near future. What can we do, now or soon, to manage our information better? And, as we do so, how might we build a better world? Part 3 is in three chapters: Chapter 10. Group Information Management and the Social Fabric in PIM. How do we preserve and promote our PIM practices as we interact with others at home, at school, at work, at play and in wider, even global, communities? Chapter 11. PIM by Design. What principles guide us? How can developers build better tools for PIM? How can the rest of us make better use of the tools we already have? Chapter 12. To Each of Us, Our Own concludes with an exploration of the ways each of us, individually, can develop better practices for the management of our information in service of the lives we wish to live and toward a better world we all must share.