January + February 2008
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ject. While Aristotle’s great chain of being provided a
top-down hierarchy that included gods, demons, and
humans, the bottom-up folk taxonomies proved most
useful in practice.
Indeed, we learn that the most effective classifications “feel right” for a reason: The concept of epigenetic rules that hold together biological networks can
be seen to influence humans and our tendency to
group and classify. It’s only natural. Networks, from
bacteria to bees, to human beings and our computers, are deeply rooted in biology. Networks are part
of what we are. Wright goes on to introduce the
nonbiologists among us to the concepts of epigenetic
rules (from biologist E.O. Wilson) and stigmergy.
Epigenetic rules combine genetic predispositions
with cultural tendencies to carry common ways of
classifying and coding across generations. Wilson
defines epigenetic rules as “hereditary regularities of
mental development” that “animate and channel the
acquisition of culture.” The notable coincidence of
similar taxonomic systems across different peoples
and times suggests an epigenetic rule that supports
such universal classification. Stigmergy, in turn,
“allows social groups to harness the physical world
as a memetic storehouse.” Think ultimately of documents, books, libraries, and the power arising from
the mere existence of such collections of information, regardless of content. Indeed, the concept of
stigmergy raises for me the gut-level power of Jared
Spool’s presentation on inukshuk, Inuit monuments
in desolate, lonely places that say to the traveler,
“Someone else was here; you are not alone.”
Ultimately, what emerges from a reading of Glut
is a reminder that everything we today take for
granted was once an innovation, which was once
controversial, violently opposed by those who felt
threatened by change, and came to be only by virtue
of time, location, circumstance, or the power of the
individual will, ego, and skills of persuasion. That
what resulted was not necessarily the best, but is the
survivor of an evolutionary process of natural selection. That what might seem obvious today was once
revolutionary, even threatening. And that there are
recurrent patterns in the emergence of networks and
in the use of hierarchies to organize our world.
In the final chapter, “Memories of the Future,”
Wright introduces some thinking about how the
history of information might apply to our current
experience. Among the insights is that books shared
knowledge over time and distance; now distance is
not the challenge. But temporal problems remain in
that knowledge shared on the Web is frighteningly
evanescent: There’s minimal archiving of the Web,
links rot, and Wikipedia entries morph. But from
another perspective, knowledge sharing over the
Internet has, in effect, reverted to humanity’s oral
traditions. The nature of today’s communication
reinforces the value of story and sharing of the common human experience. Which takes us right back to
the earliest ages of prehistory, when shared experiences pulled us together.
A defining characteristic of social and biological networks is the interactions among the network
membership, so there is much we can learn from
their study. In this issue of interactions, Wright further
explores the ideas introduced in the last chapter of
the book, positing the applicability of Walter J. Ong’s
theory of orality in contrast to literacy, to the present social interaction technologies. Readers may also
be interested in Wright’s recent talk at the Long Now
Foundation, archived at www.longnow.org, and in his
blog and links to articles at www.alexwright.org.
It is all too easy today to find otherwise valuable
books to be lacking in editorial guidance or missing
the touch of a good copy editor. I might fault Glut
in this way, but such flaws do not detract from the
remarkable intelligence of Wright’s style; they merely draw attention to the economics of publishing.
Rather than dwell on those issues, I prefer to thank
the author and publisher for making this valuable
and intriguing work available.
Glut offers the information architect in each of
us comfort, inspiration, and validation. Comfort
in knowing we are not alone, that many inventive and committed historical figures preceded us.
Inspiration, by providing context reference, even the
science that supports us. Validation by showing how
the efforts of the giants who have gone before us
result not only in where we are, but also where we
can go if we have the vision to do so.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Fred Sampson is a
staff information developer for the Content
Management and Discovery team at the IBM
Silicon Valley Lab, where he helps user-experience
designers creat e self-documenting user interfaces; he dreams of growing up to be an information architect. Fred is vice-president for finance of ACM SIGCHI, a
senior member of the Society for Technical Communication, and a
member of the Information Architecture Institute and the Usability
Professionals Association.