Comments on: Real Money: $X Cost Savings Realized by Implementing A Document Management Solution http://robinsontechnology.com/blog/2008/09/16/real-money-x-cost-savings-realized-by-implementing-a-document-management-solution/ Mostly Software, Sometimes Business, Always Technology Fri, 10 Sep 2010 09:43:03 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 By: Ben Tremblay http://robinsontechnology.com/blog/2008/09/16/real-money-x-cost-savings-realized-by-implementing-a-document-management-solution/comment-page-1/#comment-17999 Ben Tremblay Tue, 24 Mar 2009 05:34:19 +0000 http://robinsontechnology.com/blog/2008/09/16/real-money-x-cost-savings-realized-by-implementing-a-document-management-solution/#comment-17999 Something came up in WordPress "hackers" mail list that reminded me of the document control system I contrived in the late 80s. (Oh my, if only I had been in touch with TimBL!) The problem, which remains virulent: software version control just plain doesn't work on documents. (And no, I'm not going to do a second year of psycho-linguistics to explicate just now, noooo way!) What I realized (perhaps because of the 15years I'd already been working towards "participatory deliberation") is that documentation is verbose. Which is to say that it's a thin soup of rhetoric with the occasional lump (not always greasy) of salient data. I called them "factoids" ... a significant datum can be tracked while the surrounding rhetoric can be treated like packaging. And if a change "matters", well then whatever that change touched should be tracked as though a configuration item. I wish I cared enough to implement this. Alas, Spaceship Earth commands my entire attention. Except for the berimbau ... which is an entirely different kettle of fish. heh Something came up in WordPress “hackers” mail list that reminded me of the document control system I contrived in the late 80s. (Oh my, if only I had been in touch with TimBL!)
The problem, which remains virulent: software version control just plain doesn’t work on documents. (And no, I’m not going to do a second year of psycho-linguistics to explicate just now, noooo way!)

What I realized (perhaps because of the 15years I’d already been working towards “participatory deliberation”) is that documentation is verbose. Which is to say that it’s a thin soup of rhetoric with the occasional lump (not always greasy) of salient data.
I called them “factoids” … a significant datum can be tracked while the surrounding rhetoric can be treated like packaging.
And if a change “matters”, well then whatever that change touched should be tracked as though a configuration item.

I wish I cared enough to implement this.
Alas, Spaceship Earth commands my entire attention.
Except for the berimbau … which is an entirely different kettle of fish.
heh

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