8:21 AM 5/7/2007

I'm an ambivalent writer at best. There are occasions when I think words are the best way to express a thought, and on those occasions I usually can't stop writing. But the drama of the possessed writer furiously putting down a complex idea takes attention away from how I usually operate: I sit around thinking. And, although I have a tendency to work my thoughts into an interior monologue that might make a good speech or essay, I get the impression that most people wouldn't have the patience for it. So a lot of those ideas just don't get written. In this format - the Blog - I feel more comfortable pushing ideas at you, because it's easy for you to skip around. And it's precisely the hypertextual nature of the Web that supports what I'm about to say next:

I prefer Diagrams. Equations. Charts. Illustrations. Tables. I never once thought the best way to visualize a complex idea was with a bunch of words. For better or worse, we seem caught up in a transition from the word to the image. Part of this is the way language - words - hamper the global interchange. You'll notice a lot more little pictures - icons - and more attempts to elevate a word into a token. Icons communicate faster, but with less precision. They are good stand-ins for an idea the reader already has, but they are a poor way to inform - they rarely snap right into a mind full of concepts the way they are intended. I love the humor of intentionally misreading an icon.

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