Elevator Stories

Elevator Stories about Sensemaking
When you need to explain sensemaking in a few words ...

Being creative and informed	Today's information tools are organized either for retrieving information or for using it. A sensemaker collects information using one or more tools, and then organizes it using others. A sensemaker must constantly change tools and contexts, specifying what to look for, converting formats, extracting information, organizing the information; looking for patterns, and then repeating the loop. This is like trying to concentrate on a chessboard while playing chess, but needing to run across the street every few moments in order to get the next piece. A sensemaking tool should automate repetitive work, simplify the information interface, and let the sensemaker maintain a train of thought. In this way, a sensemaker can focus on being creative and informed.
Reducing cost structure	Sensemakers strain to master complexity -- both in the large amount of information and in terms of organizational complexity. Sensemaking takes place over time and involves multiple phases in which the sensemaker gathers and organizes information. A sensemaker starts out lacking the necessary information and lacking readiness to reach a conclusion. The organized workspace of a sensemaker is both a guide for organizing thinking and a display of the information needed to reach a conclusion. At the end, the organized information leads easily to conclusions. One way to understand sensemaking is to see how each phase of sensemaking moves a sensemaker closer to conclusions. Given a sensemaker's cognitive resources and the increasingly complete and organized information, each iteration reduces the cost structure for making conclusions.
Thinking in the fast lane	World class sensemaking is like world class skiing or anything else. It demands practice and extreme focus and attention. A cool center in the midst of hot chaos. Sensemaking is a visceral journey through chaos. It begins with order, sometimes a crystalline order that has started to come apart. Information and competing arrangements and categories come into view, while the sensemaker absorbs and synthesizes. This is the psycho-physical equivalent of simulated annealing in optimization theory, which drives a system from order to chaos and back to order. Peak levels of sensemaking need high capacity for chaos. How much disorder or abundance of alternatives can a sensemaker stand before the urge to crystallize gets overwhelming? This is where a sensemaking tool gives lift --sparing the sensemaker from frittering away cognitive resources on things that don't require attention. The value proposition of good sensemaking tools is like the value proposition for good gear. Good gear makes anyone a little better, and enables a world class performer to do the extraordinary.

Discovery & Learning loops

It is a mistake to think of sensemaking as simply accumulating information. We do not usually begin a complex sensemaking task knowing exactly what we are looking for. Almost always there is a central theme of discovery. What we find influences our understanding of what we want. The effort to organize our findings reveals patterns, bringing clarity and guiding further search. There are fundamental learning loops in sensemaking which involve both the sensemaker, the constructed representations or "sense," and the information in the environment.

Multiple representations

All complex sensemaking activities center around external representations such as outlines, tables, or diagrams. This is because making sense of anything complex requires visualizing and manipulating more information than we can handle in our heads. The use of external representations is inherently perceptual and different representations are suitable for different tasks. Tables of features are often used for comparing proposals, outlines and graphs are used for developing coherent stories, and so on. In collaborative sensemaking, the representations both facilitate the perception of patterns and facilitate coordination of group activity. One of the big opportunities in technology for sensemaking is in providing multiple, interlinked representations that give sensemakers multiple lenses and affordances for the sense they are trying to make.

Documents move on-line

There is a qualitative difference between searching through digital documents and searching through paper ones. Even if the Net today contains little of what we want to know, it is cheap and fast to search the Net. Many people start their searches there -- first and routinely. You can search the Net in a few seconds, any time of day, without walking to the library or anywhere else. Documents not available on the network simply are not found as easily as ones that are digital and indexed. Over time, despite all the technical and social obstacles, there is a relentless pressure to move all important information on-line. We are coming to expect rapid on-line access for important information. As documents arrive on-line, the need for powerful sensemaking tools will spread through the population.

The center of gravity of documents ...

We are living in a transitional period when the dominant form of documents is shifting from hard copy, passive media to digital, interactive media. As more documents go digital, our expectation of what a document should be shifts. In a few years paper media will no longer be the mainstream of documents. Paper media will be unable to accommodate our re-normalized expectations of what should be easy to do with documents.

No "right organization" for information ...	With conventional file systems, how you look for information depends on how it is filed. Experience shows, however, that there is no one right way to file information. Even when file organizations are optimized to encourage particular patterns of finding information later, conditions always change. The "right" organization simply does not stand still. We will always do better if we have flexible ways of searching for information -- and if these ways can adapt as our needs change.
Tomorrow's leading sensemakers	The people today for whom sensemaking tools are most valuable are people with extreme sensemaking requirements -- either because the amount of information is massive or because the time in which sense must be made is so limited. Sensemakers are key knowledge workers and strategic thinkers in organizations. They prefer on-line information for efficiency and they work under time pressure due to demands of modern life. As more information comes on-line, the best tools of the sensemaker will have value for an increasing population of people.
Banning sensemakers ... a wild success	In the late 1980s, there was a small controversy in the middle schools about students using calculators. It was said that calculators would lead to a generation that could not do arithmetic. By the late 1990s, everything had changed. The middle schools routinely recommended particular models of calculators,offered discounts for students, and essentially required calculators for taking exams. Sensemaking may follow a similar course. Ahead there will be a small controversy about whether handheld networked sensemakers will impede a student's ability to find and use information. A little later schools will recommend particular models of sensemakers.