Bio-wise and otherwise

On post-it notes

This week and a bit o' the last one have been chock full of discussions on content, content and more content. One would expect that to happen when a bunch of tech writers get together under the Californian Sun.

Literally. 

My routine over the last  couple of weeks has been somewhat on these lines: Come morning, down that breakfast, up and run to the conference room, catch my breath to hear the boss speak, and fight that szzzzzleep that seems to take over. Cups of coffee and muffins to go. Catch a few chat sessions with new found friends and smile into the lens. Make notes, notes and more to go.

Amidst all this intellectual flurry, nobody thought about thanking the post-it note  , which seemed to be pasted on white boards in generous numbers, during our lively sessions. The finished boards had tiny yellow sails popping out of every square inch of space, creating remarkable patterns in third dimension.

This little sticky note in yellow has turned the world upside down to have those ideas come tumbling out of the deeper recesses of the human brain. Notes in psychology journals say that these notes have a strange touchy-feely-sticky appeal to the users. They have an attention gaining aspect and  render a personalized touch to any study or idea or a collaborative effort. Research has also gone to show that surveys papers with sticky notes attached elicited a better response than those without 'em, mostly due to all these attributes.

Sticky notes have been shown to have a variety of uses which could include:

The Post-up—Provides methods for getting information into chunks
The Swap Sort—Shows listing and organization methods
The Top-down Tree—Works when the nature of the problem is unknown
The Information Map—Maps messy problems and complex relationships
The Action Map—Plans actions or maps an existing process

And who'd have ever thought that sticky notes and spiders had something in common as well?

It's not surprising then, that for the past few days, I have been dreaming yellow post-it notes (no, thankfully they did not have spiders in them). A few stuck to my bag (notes, not spiders), a few on my forehead, a few on the mirror. I see post-it notes everywhere now.

So when a well-meaning colleague advised me to start a wiki page to record all my meetings, I just dipped into my handbag and brought out a wad of post-it notes. Slowly, painstakingly, laboriously, I began to write.

He gave up.

The swanky new Web 2.0 generation was not for me.

I swear by my post-it notes.

Posted at 12:20PM Jun 21, 2007 by Manju in Sun  |  Comments[2]