Re: A reply to a previous discussion

[Don M Chaffee <dchaffee -at- WORLD -dot- STD -dot- COM>]

Dave Christensen <dave -at- upl -dot- com> writes:

>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

Janice: Thanks for the additional input. I took a little heat from some
of my neighbors here in Wellesley who work for IM, which is just a few
miles up Rt.128.

Don