Are You Stream, Digest or Something Else?

Wednesday July 30th • Comparison, Opinion, Philosophy Category

domain-chart I had a lot of trouble coming up with a short, catchy title for this article, and I’m still not sure if I got it just right.  But the idea, which dawned on me a few days ago and is starting to nag at me, is not hard to grasp:

I do my best writing when I’m not in the middle of information overload.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I love information overload.  I have mild ADD so diving in to a vast cyclone of links, comments, entries and pictures is like taking a hot bath.  It is amazing and wonderful.


Me the Writer

However, while I am there, my short term memory shuts down and my mid-term memory is impaired.  I know this about myself.  It happens whenever there are a lot of bright, shiny distracting things in my environment.  Now, if I was a stockbroker, this wouldn’t be a problem.  But as a writer, it is pretty devastating to my ability to write anything cohesive.

I’ve been reflecting on my post quality from the point where I started my blog, 4 or so months ago.  At first, quality went up, as I got more comfortable with my writing and I came up with new ideas and new subject matter.  More recently my posts have become less frequent and sometimes lacking critical information, like references to similar posts, even sometimes key observations.

For me, There is definitely a strong inverse correlation between participation on FriendFeed and post quality.  I have to internalize the information I gather and make sense of it.  When I feel it is time, it isn’t hard for me to write a great article.  But if I try too hard, or try to write an article when I am distracted by a thousand other things, my article suffers.

And then, correspondingly, I also feel depressed because the work I have done seems wasted.

Stream or Digest… or Both?

They say there are two types of people in the world, those who organize things into groups, and those who don’t.  With that advice in mind, I am proposing that there are two broad groups of people divided by their ability to process information:

  • Stream: Stream folks live in the now, the breathe in the information, they put things together as they happen, they can make use of the information right away.
  • Digest: Digest people love to accumulate information, ruminate on what they have learned, and then when they are ready, can push out some quality analysis and insight.

Of course, nothing is that simple.  I’m going to turn this scalar into a vector by adding a different axis: critical thinking.  I believe people’s ability to think critically is also affected by what mode they are in when they receive information.  For example, I personally am not critical when I hear new information.  It is only when I have had a chance to mull what I have learned later that the critical thinking kicks in.

Speaking of modality by the way, I do believe we all have the ability to operate in either mode, or both simultaneously if we are lucky.  But I think we all prefer one mode over another most of the time.

To further illustrate my point, I have tried my hand at one of those popular domain graphs.  See it below.

domain-chart

Thus, I would consider myself a digest personality, at least when I want to write and contribute what know or have learned back to the larger community.  I definitely like playing in the stream mode though, but I’m definitely no editor.  I’m better at being the historian, and occasionally make a decent pundit.

Other People

Everyone is going to see themselves in the chart above differently.  However, I can gamely make a stab at a few standout folks on FriendFeed and in Social Media at large:

  • Robert Scoble: Robert is always critically evaluating anything he absorbs.  I would say he’s usually an editor, and switches to pundit to write his blog posts.
  • Louis Gray: I think Louis a strong archivist in the stream, and switches to historian or pundit when writing.. though, of all the folks on FriendFeed, Louis can move into direct critical thinking at times.
  • Corvida: One of the few folks I really follow outside of FriendFeed, Corvida stays a lot in stream mode and uses her archivist talent to write about new stuff, or pundit when voicing an opinion.
  • Mike Fruchter: Michael seems to be in stream mode most of the time, occasionally moving up to editor as needed and writes mostly from a historian persepective.
  • Duncan Riley: Duncan stays directly in the pundit zone almost all the time.
  • Cyndy Aleo-Carreira: Cyndy is almost always in editor mode, trending toward pundit when she writes.
  • Steve Hodson: Steven definitely spends most of his time either as a pundit or an archivist.
  • Franklin Pettit: Franklin can be very quiet (at least on FriendFeed) but I know he’s gathering info so I would say he stays in digest a lot, moving up to historian for his blog posts.
  • Edythe (Polly): Edythe loves a very broad variety of things on FriendFeed, making her most comfortable in stream.  She will occasionally jump to editor.
  • Mitchell Tsai: Mitchell is probably the most pure archivist I’ve seen on FriendFeed.
  • Shey Smith: Shey is heavy stream and editor mostly, moving to historian for his blog posts.
  • Sarah Perez: Sarah is finely tuned to write in editor mode, sometimes switching to historian, but usually not dwelling in pundit too much.
  • Hutch Carpenter (BHC3): Hutch seems to spend a lot of time in stream and will dive into pundit as necessary.
  • Allen Stern: Allen splits his time between archivist and editor, and jumps often to pundit for posting or video.
  • (Jeff)isageek: Jeff loves the stream, and either hangs out there or archivist.
  • Mark Dykeman: Mark comments a lot on things he likes, making him an editor in the stream, and a pundit when writing.

Thanks

I wanted to thank NiceFishFilms (Michael Sean Wright) for writing about different perspectives on FriendFeed and giving me the seed for this blog post.   It’s great to see new faces and new blogs, and I’m definitely going to follow him!

If I didn’t list you above, I’m sorry!  I am really interested on knowing how you rate yourself (whether you are listed or not).  Keep your eye out, I am going to re-post this with the graph so you can rate yourself on FriendFeed.  Thank you!

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