Module 1: Defining the Philosophy - From PKM to PKE
Deliverables:
First Rev of the MANIFESTO.md File
The MANIFESTO.md file will serve as the landing page for a new mdBook project found at https://markbruns.github.io/PKE/ ... as such, this file will serve as strategic, living document charter for the entire system and we should expect that it will be updated along the way. In a nutshell, the Manifesto describes the reason for the 100-module program which is entirely about attempting to build upon the best Resource Management Methodologies In Personal Knowledge Engineering(PKE), which in turn are basically implementations of improvements in Note Capturing Systems In Personal Knowledge Management(PKM). In other words, the Manifesto describes the approach we will use to improve upon the best practices of PKE by adding AI-assistance, in some cases going back to the best, simplest fundmental note-capturing methods of PKM.
Tasks
The initial step is to establish the basis of the guiding philosophy that will ground the work of all 100 modules ... the purpose of the deliverable MANIFESTO.md file is to lay out the roadmap, even though we know that the roadmap will need to change as we work through the 100 modules.
At first, understanding something about personal knowledge management involves learning about why learning as an adult is so hard or why the way that you were taught to learn in school is now obsolete because there is SO MUCH more new information to learn, so much more knowledge to assimilate every day just to stay even. When we start to understand something about learning to learn ... what learning to learn actually means ... the five core dimensions of learning ... how to diagnose which one or two of these dimension is your biggest learning rate limiter ... and how to start improving on the rate limiting areas immediately, so that we can begin to uncover a new rate limiter ... when it comes to learning, we need to think in terms of learning processes and SYSTEMS ... holistically -- proactively manage factors, barriers, surprises ... prioritizing repeatability -- avoid depending on willpower and motivation ... avoid the temporary quick fix; remove all existing band-aid solutions, ie change habits [which will involve the discomfort of transformation].
After we BEGIN TO understand the systems behind how we learn and how we don't learn ... because all individuals are slightly different and the effectiveness of different processes changes over time, with skill, age, etc ... only THEN we can start to think about why learning now HAS TO include technologies that help us manage time, squeeze more from the time we have and how to not only use but develop or dogfood our new technologies, like various different forms of AI, as aids to synthesize large bodies of seminal texts and collected "wisdom" of crowds.
Given an understanding of why continual learning is so demanding and requires knowledge management technologies, we want to critically analyze the distinction between methodologies focused on resource management for project-based knowledge work, such as Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain (BASB); Forte teaches these methods using the CirclePlus community learning platform to help subscribers excel at organizing information for project-based work, and different, perhaps what seems to be superficially simpler or more personal approach found in notetaking methodologies focused on idea generation, like Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten Method (ZKM) for the hypertextual features of learning now, which is a notetaking system for working directly with ideas themselves.
It is worth spending some time on these different methodologies for resource mgmt and notetaking understanding key patterns, especially something about the key evolutionary patterns in methodologies focused on resource management for project-based knowledge work as well as the the universal patterns of knowledgework that we see in all notetaking methodologies focused on idea generation.
The BASB approach is explicitly a project-oriented system, speaking the "language of action," while the ZKM is project-agnostic, speaking the "language of knowledge" and delves into the details of makeing notes look good ... this is why instead of getting lost in pretty notes with ZKM, we will uses something akin to the BASB systems ... because the BASB method systematically manages information differently than just notetaking apps ... PROJECTS, have goals, reqmts and deadlines ... AREAS are about roles/responsibilities or obligations or capabilities that need to be earnestly developed/upgraded continually ... RESOURCES, mostly finished AREAS for references, but also curated material on ongoing interests, assets, future inspiration or bucket lists, may req continual maintenance and refactoring but, for now, are backburnerable, but usable ... ARCHIVES, inactive matl from P A R that is still relevant [maybe as an example of a bad/rejected idea] but material that shouldn't be used, except for informational purposes.
Understanding the key patterns and their evolution over time helps us understand WHY the technologies that enable, support, sustain these methodologies were almost necessarily extended or dogfooded by people who could not afford to be satisfied with the proprietary technologies that had been built for previous generations of knowledge work.
Modern knowledge work is now necessarily even more competitive and even more aggressively fast-paced than it has been in the old days, ie before 2025. One has to use, develop and extend technology to have a command of deeper and broader realms of knowledge. There is simply no other substitute for continuously developing and dogfooding even better technologies and more efficient, more effective applications of AI-assistance that can be brought to bear on the tasks of knowledge engineering resource management and idea generation.