Everything Is Miscellaneous - Book Review

Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder   

by David Weinberger

Although this book was written over 4 years ago (copyright 2007), a relatively significant amount of time in the digital age, I found Everything is Miscellaneous to be both pertinent and informative. Weinberger has an easy writing style and provides intriguing and thought-provoking examples, making this an enjoyable and informative book for everyone. I found myself at times chuckling, at other times having “ah-ha” moments and quite often writing down interesting concepts for future reference.

The book includes discussions about philosophers through the ages, the history of information, and various examples of the first, second and third order of information. Weinberger uses the analogy of a tree throughout the book to bring home his points about the evolution of knowledge transfer.  In the first and second order, knowledge is categorized and linear. Because information is printed, it is finite in nature and limited by the physical; experts provide and organize information; it is categorized into “branches” with “leaves” representing pieces of specific knowledge.  As knowledge organized in the first and second order becomes larger, it also becomes more difficult to use. 

In the digital world, third order information is not limited by the physical and organization is not a requirement. In fact, organization of information in the third order may turn out to be a hindrance for optimal utilization. In the third order, more information is beneficial, increased size means increased possibilities; knowledge is not linear and information can be found in more than one place at the same time. Examples of existing third order tools are numerous and Weinberger discusses many of them in this book: iTunes, Wikipedia, Google, Flickr, Dabble.com, Reddit.com to name a few. These tools and others are used to help us find our “leaves” when more information has less organization.

Characteristics of first and second order “traditional” knowledge: 1. There is one reality, one knowledge, the same for all 2. Neither reality nor knowledge are ambiguous 3. We need experts, human filters, to help us understand 4. Experts earn their place in our society 5. Knowledge is explicit

Characteristics of third order knowledge: 1. Everything is metadata 2. Information should be in as many “places” as possible 3. Information is not organized, filter on the way out not the way in 4. Loss of control – the information owner does not have control over the use of that information 5. Knowledge is implicit

 Web 2.0 Tool:

I chose the tool ScoopIt! as the Web 2.0 representation for this book. The nature of this site exemplifies the concepts that David Weinberger discusses in his book. Based upon the keywords and sources entered for a topic, ScoopIt! searches the web for the “leaves” that appear to pertain to the topic. This Web 2.0 tool is helpful for the information-curator because the leaves are not found on branches, but in a “slush pile” where there is no true categorization of information.  Because the “leaves” presented have been “scooped” out of this virtual pile of information using keywords (a rudimentary controlled vocabulary), some of the scoops are pertinent to the topic at hand and some of them are “compost”.  The curator of the site has the opportunity to individually review each suggestion and decide whether to ScoopIt! or discard it.  The curator also has the ability to be the “expert” and create their own posts for the site.

Here is a link:
http://www.scoop.it/t/the-third-order-of-information