They’re all hammers — most of them will drive a nail into a piece of wood. But what type of wood? What size nail? What if you wanted to hammer a piece of meat for schnitzel? Oh I want a mallet? Isn’t that big wooden one a mallet?
It’s about knowing how to choose the right tool for the job. I wouldn’t use the same tool to tenderise my steak as I would to drive a tent stake into the ground or do tap a nail into a picture frame (okay, I would, but I’m a bit lazy).
There are a wealth of options in online tools - blogs, wikis, RSS readers, virtual worlds, social networking sites — and within those categories we are as spoiled for choice as the owner of the hammers in the flickr photo in this blog post.
However, the owner of these hammers probably knows which one to use for tent stakes vs. picture frames — he did so by trial and error or consultation or research.
So too we need to explore a range of options within a category of tools.
When I started blogging, I didn’t get Bloglines, thought Blogger was a bit too exposed for me, and MySpace felt too unfocused for what I wanted. I tried my own instance of WordPress on my own server and likedit for a number of reasons.
However, I know people who LOVE those other tools and wouldn’t dream of switching.
If I’d stopped after Bloglines and Blogger and decided that blogging wasn’t useful I would have missed out on years of useful and fruitful conversations.
Thanks to fciron for the hammer image - click on it to go to the Flickr page for the photo.
8 Comments
It is ‘dumb as a box of hammers’? - everyone chooses their own weapon of choice as you say. If you do pick up the hammer though, at times you want to swing it at people who ask ‘whats the hammer for’? . . . love ya work cowgirl.
So many references to hammers and nails! This is like John Travers video. I can’t find it right now but included an actual hammer I think.
@DeanGroom - Thanks Deano!
@Concetta Not sure what video you’re talking about — but isn’t it funny when you see a metaphor used in one spot it crops up in several others? : )
Hammers are a tool. Sometime people are tools too but most of the time they are not they are wonderful people with amazing skills and can turn things like hammers and nails into amazing creations. I know that each day whether it is a new tool, a thought, a laugh, a sook, a friend comes along I am richer for it.
Consider me a fan !
Lauren
@Laren O’Grady Thanks Lauren! : )
“A category of tools”. I like that one.
But what if we were librarians, trying to categorize the “content(s)” produced by the tools? I suppose we could call them a “taxonomy of folksomonies” (like Nick does) if we were trying to classify a community, its preferred tools and the contents produced by them.
So does that mean we should be using domains as a place to aggregate a range of tools for a particular community, a la sitepoint.com. Or should we be classifying the domains, like books in a library, so we can find the contents and we want, and then tools which produced them?
I’m stuck in the middle. http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001700.html
Hi Simonfj!
It’s a challenge to categorise tools by benefits and end products when people end up using technologies in ways that the creators hadn’t thought up yet, isn’t it?
My major concern is that people don’t damn a whole range of options because they’ve tried one and it didn’t work. For instance, I’m opposed to violent and misogynistic role playing games — but that doesn’t mean I am against ALL role playing games.
My favourite way of finding tools and sites of interest to me is to start with my networks, then move out to sites like del.icio.us and edna to find resources that real people have looked at. I rarely if ever go to directories - unless they are forums that I’ve discovered in previous searches and find to be of value.
It’s the need for prior knowledge to make sense of taxonomies and controlled vocabularies that can make it frustrating for those new to a community to find what they need. What’s the answer? Do we just shrug our shoulders and exclude those not in the know — or can and should there be ways to give them a rosetta stone?
Cheers
KerryJ
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