What domains might need dedicated material?

Sascha

Hi Zettelnauts,

now that a major leap forward (for me) is done with the second edition (the beta phase in German begins soon and after that I will attack the English translation), I am turning my eyes on more specialised applications.

The development of the second books so far was driven by beginning with Luhmann as the core idea and unfold it with the help of philosophy of science. So, I deem the foundation to be layed out.

The next two branches that start to grow (in my Zettelkasten first) are:

1. Specialised applications of the Zettelkasten
2. Thinking tools that work within the frame work of the Zettelkasten Method. Cognitive Mapping is an example. (Big shoutout to u/thomasteepe for the term Integrated Thinking Environment (originally Integrated Thought Development Environment))

The first aspect is now what I am preparing in my Zettelkasten. So, I want to ask you if I forgot an important user case. In my Zettelkasten, I have the following:

• Students
• Teachers (Mostly geared towards the German Schools System at the moment)
• Bloggers
• Visual Artists
• Fiction Writers
• Non-Fiction Writers
• Lawers and judges
• Theologicans (and studying the bible)
• Scientists
• Humanities
• Non-Scientists (~private use like dog training, cooking, hobbies, child upbringing etc.)

Anything missing?

Live long and prosper
Sascha

JoshA

Perhaps engineers (software/programmers, mechanical, mechatronic etc). Using ZKM to help build/study models useful to practical real world problem solving.

The question "can I use the ZK for a technical subject" comes up often. Computer science, physics etc.

A PhD candidate physicist on Reddit posted his online ZK ¹. It doesn't quite abide by ZK method principles but is very similar. He writes about using notes as a way to represent general/concrete concepts. Linking to another note "extends" the current concept. So if he is working on a particular/concrete problem, he will link to more general notes. This link "extends" the current one. He draws analogy to object-oriented programming class hierarchies as the mental model he derived it from. As a programmer, I found this interesting.

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1. https://publish.obsidian.md/myquantumwell/Knowledge+Management ;↩︎

MartinBB

@Sascha I used to be a gliding instructor, and quite a few of my colleagues were commercial or airline pilots. There can be a huge amount of technical information to absorb and connect in aviation, and now that you pose the question, it occurs to me that a ZK might help someone who was trying to learn or keep abreast of the flow of information. Updates to technical information are frequent and may be critical for safety. Keeping track of them using a network of links in a ZK might work. No doubt there are already sophisticated systems in place for this sort of thing in the world of airlines, but someone who was just starting out might find a use for a ZK. Just a thought.

PS: what about counsellors and psychotherapists? A ZK would be VERY useful to them, I would think.

GeoEng51

@Sascha Another group are historians of various types. My main interest is personal history, but of course there are many others. And then that area brings to mind news recorders/reporters.

And I hate to ask, but what about politicians and those that "serve" them?

ZettelDistraction

In the case of politicians and the staff of economic think tanks, the ability to erase history is paramount.

GeoEng51

@ZettelDistraction Isn't that the truth? Maybe we'd better not suggest to them any more powerful tools.

taurusnoises

This looks great! Looking forward to it.

Sascha

@JoshA

Software developers are quite active in the search for the Zettelkasten Method's spirit. But I am afraid, that I cannot produce much of use since it is a field that is very foreign to me. (I learned how to code in Pascal..)

@MartinBB

I am not sure about pilots (of course, they go on my list anyway), but the fact that I missed psychotherapists and counselors is pathetic since my own work is exactly that (for health and fitness though but still counseling). Thanks.

@GeoEng51

Ah, dang. They are already included in my original list but I overlooked them.

@ZettelDistraction

Politicians.. No single person on the internet suprised me as much as you do.

Perikles

You have the theologians, that's good, but what about the philosophers? And also eastern types like Taoists? Ah, but you have those in "humanities?" But then, why do bloggers have their own category? Maybe re-shuffle that a bit.

ZettelDistraction

@Sascha said:

@ZettelDistraction

Politicians.. No single person on the internet suprised me as much as you do.

I will take this as a compliment of so high an order of magnitude that I must recalibrate all prior compliments downward. Even though @GeoEng51 first mentioned politicians

Speaking of the Internet and of giving others ammunition, there are
1. The Keyboard Warriors;
2. The Twitterati (the online inhabitants of Bolgia Two in the Eighth Circle of Hell in Dante's iconography, among other Bolgia);
3. Journalists (who haven't been singled out, though some might be);
4. The Condescenti (specializing in condescension upwards);
5. The arch enemies of Academic Freedom;
6. Independent Scholars (some of them could use a break);
7. The Patreonizers on Patreon, who Patreonize "creatives" (there's a term of capitalist derogation--I can't locate the source--an interview--where this was pointed out).

Perhaps these categories are otiose. The classical demographic division of humanity is due to the eminent anthropologist Jonathan Swift, who first identified the Yahoos and Houyhnhnms. I've heard this is a symmetric difference: the Yahoos are trainable but ineducable, whereas the Houyhnhnms are educable but untrainable. Then of course there are the giants of Rabelais.

Sascha

@Perikles said:
You have the theologians, that's good, but what about the philosophers? And also eastern types like Taoists? Ah, but you have those in "humanities?" But then, why do bloggers have their own category? Maybe re-shuffle that a bit.

In Germany, the humanities are an umbrella term for all kind of things (philosophers, sociologists, literature etc.) So, philosophers are good to go.

Other religious studies will are sorted under theology.

Bloggers have their own category because I developed some material for them already.

@ZettelDistraction said:

@Sascha said:

@ZettelDistraction

Politicians.. No single person on the internet suprised me as much as you do.

I will take this as a compliment of so high an order of magnitude that I must recalibrate all prior compliments downward. Even though @GeoEng51 first mentioned politicians

Speaking of the Internet and of giving others ammunition, there are
1. The Keyboard Warriors;
2. The Twitterati (the online inhabitants of Bolgia Two in the Eighth Circle of Hell in Dante's iconography, among other Bolgia);
3. Journalists (who haven't been singled out, though some might be);
4. The Condescenti (specializing in condescension upwards);
5. The arch enemies of Academic Freedom;
6. Independent Scholars (some of them could use a break);
7. The Patreonizers on Patreon, who Patreonize "creatives" (there's a term of capitalist derogation--I can't locate the source--an interview--where this was pointed out).

Perhaps these categories are otiose. The classical demographic division of humanity is due to the eminent anthropologist Jonathan Swift, who first identified the Yahoos and Houyhnhnms. I've heard this is a symmetric difference: the Yahoos are trainable but ineducable, whereas the Houyhnhnms are educable but untrainable. Then of course there are the giants of Rabelais.

Dang. You are right. @GeoEng51 mentioned them already.

For 1, 2, 4: I have a small pamphlet that I wrote when I was 15 or 16 titled "The Class Clown -- Terrorism for Funny People". Perhaps, there might be some connection there.

JoshA

@Sascha said:
@JoshA

Software developers are quite active in the search for the Zettelkasten Method's spirit. But I am afraid, that I cannot produce much of use since it is a field that is very foreign to me. (I learned how to code in Pascal..)

A fairly common pattern I've seen amongst ZK techies on other forums that cause them to give up is that they do not know how to apply the ZKM method to technical notes. They take a note with a couple facts a, b, c about, for example, emacs, but do not know how to connect that to other notes. It's the isolated facts problem. Might be worth addressing in your book just a thought .

Here is a thread on this forum about this: https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/1829/anyone-use-zk-method-for-technology-related-information-they-read

Sascha

@JoshA

I have made a similar observation. I don't think it is specific to the tech people since the highly formalised nature of those fields uncovers issues on the layer of actual knowledge. In more fuzzy fields (like philosophy) you can get away with just making a connection and not the connection way more easily.

I can point that out in most of the domains and understand the underlying issue. With techie however, I don't.

But I think with @ctietze and a good process I will get there. It is just not something I can do on my own.

Nick

@MartinBB > @MartinBB said:

PS: what about counsellors and psychotherapists? A ZK would be VERY useful to them, I would think.

I'm a counseling/psychotherapy student and a ZK has been very helpful because people's experience ties in with the entire world. I have the whole world interconnected within my zettelkasten, which makes sense, because we live in a unified reality.

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@Sascha

Anecdotally the biggest use cases I see asked about over on the Obsidian forum are students, fiction writers, bible studiers, and people in the non social sciences (formal/natural sciences). All which you seem to have covered.

Maybe you have this covered elsewhere, but the first avenue of exploration that comes to my mind are the common ZK/mental processes that are shared across the various types of knowledge workers (e.g. copying, transforming, and combining knowledge).

probefahrer

I can thing of 3 ZK use cases that might be missing:

company knowledge management
although I cannot pin that on one specific user-persona. sometimes the founders / CEOs are responsible themselves, sometimes HR, in other cases first contact is IT (because a digital tool needs to be installed) and in other cases it's PR and Marketing
so:
Company Clients could be an umbrella term

musicians and composers
are a special group that might be interested (think of working with inspirations, musical ideas, lyrics, melodies, leitmotifs, cataloging compositions and the like. Mozart, Bach and Wagner are interesting examples I am researching myself at the moment)

sports coaches and athletes
using ZK for Notes about scientific studies, excercises, workout journals, strategies, strategy planning, analyzing opponents, analysing yourself, tracking and analysing progress and so on

Sascha

@probefahrer Thanks!

The last two are a nobrainer. I have a better grip with musicians since I played in a band for four years but my understanding is not good enough to make something happen out of the box. Coaches and Athletes are included in the counselor category

But for the company people: I kinda think that I know some tools but I think I am fooling myself at this moment in time. This might be a case for developing something in conjunction with actually counseling someone.