Organize (verb.)

Definition: To arrange into a structured whole.

Also referenced as: Organized (adjective) Organizing (verb) Organization (noun) Organizational (adjective) Organizes (verb)

Related to: Choice, Classification, Context, Order, Sort, Taxonomy

Chapter 1: Identify the Mess | Page 11

Messes are made of information and people.

A mess is any situation where something is confusing or full of difficulty. We all encounter messes.

Here are some of the many messes we deal with in our everyday lives:

  • The structure of teams and organizations
  • The processes we undertake in working together
  • The ways products and services are represented, sold, and delivered to us
  • The ways we communicate with each other

Chapter 1: Identify the Mess | Page 23

Information is architected to serve different needs.

If you rip out the content from your favorite book and throw the words on the floor, the resulting pile is not your favorite book.

If you define each word from your favorite book and organize the definitions alphabetically, you would have a dictionary, not your favorite book.

If you arrange each word from your favorite book by gathering similarly defined words, you have a thesaurus, not your favorite book.

Neither the dictionary nor the thesaurus is anything like your favorite book, because both the architecture and the content determine how you interpret and use the resulting information.

For example, “8 of 10 Doctors Do Not Recommend” and “Doctor Recommended” are both true statements, but each serves a different intent.

Chapter 3: Face Reality | Page 57

Objects let us have deeper conversations about reality.

When you discuss a specific subject, you subconsciously reference part of a large internal map of what you know.

Other people can’t see this map. It only exists in your head, and it’s called your mental model.

When faced with a problem, you reference your mental model and try to organize the aspects and complexities of what you see into recognizable patterns. Your ongoing experience changes your mental model. This book is changing it right now.

We create objects like maps, diagrams, prototypes, and lists to share what we understand and perceive. Objects allow us to compare our mental models with each other.

These objects represent our ideas, actions, and insights. When we reference objects during a conversation, we can go deeper and be more specific than verbalizing alone.

As an example, it’s much easier to teach someone about the inner-workings of a car engine with a picture, animation, diagram, or working model.

Chapter 3: Face Reality | Page 76

Try diagramming.

  1. Make a block diagram that shows how the pieces of a concept interrelate.
  2. Demystify a process by making a flow diagram.
  3. Break your latest project down into its individual tasks and make a Gantt chart.
  4. Compare a group of restaurants in your neighborhood in a quadrant diagram.
  5. Explore what happens when concepts or objects overlap using a Venn diagram.
  6. Break any multi-user process into a list of tasks per user with a swim lane diagram.
  7. Depict the content and organization of your favorite website in a hierarchy diagram.
  8. Unload all of the cool ideas in your mind right now in a mind map.
  9. Explain how to make your favorite food with a simple schematic. Bonus point for exploding it!
  10. Make a journey map of a day in your life.

Chapter 4: Choose a Direction | Page 90

Understand ontology.

If we were to write a dictionary, we’d be practicing lexicography, or collecting many meanings into a list. When we decide that a word or concept holds a specific meaning in a specific context, we are practicing ontology.

Here are some examples of ontological decisions:

  • Social networks redefining “like” and “friends” for their purposes
  • The “folders” on a computer’s “desktop” you use to organize “files”
  • The ability to order at a fast food chain by saying a number

To refine your ontology, all you need is a pile of sticky notes, a pen, and some patience.

  1. Find a flat or upright surface to work on.
  2. Write a term or concept that relates to your work on each sticky note.
  3. Put the sticky notes onto the surface as they relate to each other. Start to create structures and relationships based on their location.

Chapter 4: Choose a Direction | Page 93

Create a list of words you say.

A controlled vocabulary is an organized list of terms, phrases, and concepts intended to help someone navigate a specific context.

Documenting language standards can reduce linguistic insecurity.

A good controlled vocabulary considers:

  • Variant spellings (e.g., American or British)
  • Tone (e.g., Submit or Send)
  • Scientific and popular terms (e.g., cockroaches or Periplaneta Americana)
  • Insider and outsider terms (e.g., what we say at work; what we say in public)
  • Acceptable synonyms (e.g., automobile, car, auto, or vehicle)
  • Acceptable acronyms (e.g., General Electric, GE, or G.E.)

Chapter 6: Play with Structure | Page 126

Taxonomy is how we arrange things.

When you set out to arrange something, how do you decide where the pieces go? Is it based on what looks right to you, what you believe goes together, or what someone told you to do? Or maybe you let gravity or the alphabet determine the order?

To effectively arrange anything, we have to choose methods for organizing and classifying content in ways that convey the intended information to our intended users.

Structural methods for organization and classification are called taxonomy.

Common examples of taxonomies include:

  • The scientific classification for plants, animals, minerals, and other organisms
  • The Dewey Decimal system for libraries
  • Navigational tabs on a website
  • Organizational charts showing management and team structures

Chapter 6: Play with Structure | Page 130

Ambiguity costs clarity; exactitude costs flexibility.

The more ambiguous you are, the more likely it is that people will have trouble using your taxonomy to find and classify things.

For every ambiguous rule of classification you use or label you hide behind, you’ll have to communicate your intent that much more clearly.

For example, what if I had organized the lexicon in the back of this book by chapter, instead of alphabetically? This might be an interesting way of arranging things, but it would need to be explained, so you could find a term.

The more exact your taxonomy becomes, the less flexible it is. This isn’t always bad, but it can be. If you introduce something that doesn’t fit into a category things can get confusing.

Because there are many words for the same thing, exact classifications can slow us down. For example, I recently tried to buy some zucchini at a grocery store. But it wasn’t until the clerk in training found the code for “Squash, Green” that she could ring me up.

Chapter 6: Play with Structure | Page 131

Ambiguity hides in simplicity.

Imagine that on your first day working at a record store, your manager says, “Our records are organized alphabetically.” Under this direction, you file your first batch of vinyl with ease.

Later, you overhear a coworker saying, “Sorry, it looks like we’re sold out of Michael Jackson right now.”

Your manager looks under “J” and checks the inventory, which says the store should have a single copy of Thriller.

You remember that it was part of the shipment of records you just filed. Where else could you have put that record, if not under “J”? Maybe under “M”?

The ambiguity that’s wrapped up in something as simple as “alphabetize these” is truly amazing.

We give and receive instructions all day long. Ambiguous instructions can weaken our structures and their trustworthiness. It’s only so long after that first album is misfiled that chaos ensues.

Chapter 6: Play with Structure | Page 132

Facets are the lenses we use to classify.

A facet is a discrete piece of knowledge you can use to classify something. The more facets something has, the more ways it can be organized.

Using the record store as an example, the following facets are available for each record:

  • Record Name
  • Artist Name
  • Record Label
  • Length
  • Release Date
  • Price

If a particular facet is interesting but the data to support it doesn’t exist or is hard to gather, it might not be the best plan to use that facet.

For example, finding out which instrument models were used on each album may be interesting, but it is also likely to be quite time-consuming to collect.

Chapter 6: Play with Structure | Page 133

Identify facets.

What are five other facets of a vinyl record?

  1. _______________________
  2. _______________________
  3. _______________________
  4. _______________________
  5. _______________________

Consider:

Now search Google for “John Cusack organizes records autobiographically” and think about the facets that Cusack’s character would need to sort his collection that way.

Chapter 6: Play with Structure | Page 135

The way you organize things says a lot about you.

Classifying a tomato as a vegetable says something about what you know about your customers and your grocery store. You would classify things differently if you were working on a textbook for horticulture students, right?

How you choose to classify and organize things reflects your intent, but it can also reflect your worldview, culture, experience, or privilege.

Those same choices affect how people using your taxonomy understand what you share with them.

Taxonomies serve as a set of instructions for people interacting with our work.

Taxonomy is one of the strongest tools of rhetoric we have. The key to strong rhetoric is using language, rules and structures that your audience can easily understand and use.

Chapter 6: Play with Structure | Page 142

Most things need a mix of taxonomic approaches.

The world is organized in seemingly endless ways, but in reality, every form can be broken down into some taxonomic patterns.

Hierarchy, heterarchy, sequence, and hypertext are just a few common patterns. Most forms involve more than one of these.

A typical website has a hierarchical navigation system, a sequence for signing up or interacting with content, and hypertext links to related content.

A typical grocery store has a hierarchical aisle system, a heterarchical database for the clerk to retrieve product information by scanning a barcode, and sequences for checking out and other basic customer service tasks. I was even in a grocery store recently where each cart had a list of the aisle locations of the 25 most common products. A great use of hypertext.

A typical book has a sequence-based narrative, a hierarchical table of contents, and a set of facets allowing it to be retrieved with either the Dewey Decimal system at a library, or within a genre-based hierarchical system used in bookstores and websites like Amazon.com.

Chapter 6: Play with Structure | Page 143

Meet Joan

Joan is the social media coordinator for an airline that recently merged with another airline. Overnight, her team became responsible for twice as much work as before. She’s also now responsible for managing twice as many people.

As the details of the merger iron out, duplicative channels have to be dealt with. For example, they now have two Twitter accounts and two help directories on two different websites. To tie everything together, Joan: