A reply to a previous discussion

[Dave Christensen <dave -at- UPL -dot- COM>]

I am posting this for someone else. Please feel free to Email any
response to me for relaying to the other party.
A comment on the recent David A. Lowe-Don M. Chaffee exchange.

>Info Mapping is largely horsefeathers, so be critical. Common sense in
high fashion.
I think Don is correct when he says Info Mapping is mostly horsefeathers
-- but not all. Let me rewrite what I believe Don is trying to say:

The structure of the Information Maping "system" is horsefeathers.
Don't dismiss it outright, however. Information Mapping was an attempt
at rewriting old, common sense presentation formats for sciences --
flowcharting, spacial relationships, recipes, procedures, etc. In trying
to turn IM into a science, IM authors gave it big time bog down.

I didn't catch onto the seriousness of the bog down until I tried to
teach IM to our department writers. I wanted to rewrite the lessons
after the first "map" -- but that would have been developing a whole
book!

Maybe IM is a theory; theories don't usually make sense until simplified
by their pupils. The best way to use the good old theories behind IM
then, is to sublimate the theory -- know it -- then, apply it through
simpler and simpler methods.

Janice Vincent
Technical Writer
OEC Medical Systems, Inc.
(186 min left), (H)elp, More? Salt Lake City, Utah
---- Not in the net yet, but soon.
Make any replies readable by all
and they will get to me. - JV