Search is highly overrated.
I have a serious problem. As I build presentations I get a clear vision of an idea or concept I want to discuss and I immediately want to visualize it. For better or worse, I gain and make meaning with visuals. To that end I’ve continued to create slides that I reuse and share with others. Fortunately others have shared my passion and created a nice set that others are free to use.
Today’s vision was around filtering. Not that kind of filtering but the kind I’ve discussed here. On more than one occasion, I’ve quoted Clay Shirky’s quote about filter failure. It has been begging to be visualized, at least for me. So I head over to flickr and realize that my vision lacked easily searchable terms. I had envisioned a larger quantity of some item with one item standing out. I tried several search terms and phrases but didn’t find what I wanted.
I turned to twitter.
After this initial request:
Over the next 30 minutes I recieved 20 various image suggestions and 4 other ideas of how to create one. Here they are:
@robletcher offered these two:
@triareanews suggested these three:
http://images.inmagine.com/img/imagesource/ie236/ie236003.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3533/3931819587_48fdec1fd9.jpg
http://artforprofits.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/stand-out.jpg
Here’s four from @tuchodi
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15202064@N03/2435295029/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hollyclark/450509297/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/unlearn_art/3143041781/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnkay/3924381425/
@bookminder responded to my "needle in the haystack" concept
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/140/335350003_9ca033ba68_m.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisanorwood/1046416640/
I nearly went with this one from @dlsio4 who apparently thought of something he had and took the picture on the spot
http://img96.yfrog.com/i/dyu.jpg/
@njtechteacher offered to take a photo of a pile of legos but did suggest this one
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/1804080776/
In the end, Sean Nash gave me six to choose from:
It was that last one that I chose. I could have picked any of the ones offered me and I’m sure you might have chosen differently. The point is that sometimes search doesn’t get it done. Google only goes so far. I needed people to help me sort out my ideas and provide inspiration to reach a satisfying conclusion. I feel badly for folks who don’t have this resource.
Oh by the way, here’s the final product.
This makes for a wonderful example of the power of twitter. It would be interesting to hear what search terms the people who responded to your request used. I looked for “odd man out”.
.-= Lesley Edwards´s last blog ..ESL Resources from Twitter =-.
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I should have tweeted for help as my mind searched for an appropriate term to describe Dean’s very conventional solution to an information problem. I only have 57 followers and most of those apparently want to sell me something. Dean has 5,946 this morning. Tapping collective wisdom and resources is what societies are all about. Search engines cannot match the mind and Dean’s network shared a familiarity with this visual metaphor. How would you tag such an image so that a person might access it? Dean’s followers tagged it nonverbally.
Searching will never be a one-stop shopping exercise. Powerful search engines make content accessible to us with short phrases. Images are accessible to us with a single word and if you know approximately what you are looking for – ‘autumn leaves’, ‘field of grass’ – then you can often find your metaphor. Asking someone for directions or knowledge is time honored. Tweeting improves on email and texting. I won’t elaborate. Dean introduced me to the metaphor of information as an open hydrant. Twitter is growing exponentially at the moment and at some point I wonder how unwieldy it will become. Dean is followed by thousands, but he only follows 500 or so. If each of those people were as prolific tweeters as Dean then he would have a filtering problem of his own. Never-the-less this is a happy illustration of the accessibility Twitter offers us all. Telepathy has fascinated us for decades, personal mobility devices make it happen; mind meeting mind.
It’s a great story and example of the power of networks, but I hardly see your experience as one of “search being overrated”– in fact, I would say that “search is highly taken for granted” — that as the previous Alan noted, the subject of your quest (the metaphorical images) is not easily quantified by discreet keywords that index images.
On the other hand, the ability to even try searching such a vast pool of free to use images did not exist a few years back. You are lucky to have such an overrated resource, even if it does produce the prize right away.
But again, a great example of tapping into your net.
And nice image, too.
.-= Alan Levine´s last blog ..Bailey is Sailing Again =-.
Alan of Arizona,
Overrated was obviously not the best word. Perhaps even better than suggesting we take it for granted, would be to state it is limited.
I agree, it’s evolving an perhaps one day it will be able to produce those results without the support I elicited. The semantic web I believe it’s called. Which makes one wonder how it will evolve. For now, I value my backup plan.
Alan of Moose Jaw,
The tagging thing gets tricky. While standardized tags may have value, if I post a picture of the Eiffel Tower, there may be several tags similar to others but I also might add tags such as “holiday” “tall” along with names of my family who may be in the photo. Dave Wienberger is about the best at explaining how we tag our world. “Everything is Miscellaneous”. While this is extremely messy, it can work and for the most part it does. The searches I did weren’t awful but I had a specific idea in mind that wasn’t easily tagged. As Lesley suggested, it would be interesting to see how people did the search.
One activity I’ve done with students is to have them search for a photo that portrays a specific emotion. Ask them to find a picture showing fear or joy. Then discuss various strategies for finding those terms. A great opportunity to discuss vocabulary among other things.
Always nice to have these comments.
so, in those first 30 minutes you averaged 1 response for about every 300 followers you have on Twitter. that’s great for you and for people who have an extensive online community. Alan above said he has about 60 followers. i think i have 70. it’s likely that we would post a similar request and receive zero responses. while i share your enthusiasm about being able to solve the dilemma you faced using Twitter, my concern as that it’s not a viable solution for the overwhelmingly majority of people.
.-= sean´s last blog ..students technology use at home =-.
Excellent point. So I guess the question is, Is this about quantity or quality? I would presume the answer is both. I’m sure that of my followers, only a small number pay attention to much of what I post. I wonder if your 70 are more in tune? I really don’t know.
On the other hand, if I only got 2 responses, those two may have served me well. To that end, I would likely have exchanged a few responses to tweak my request and hopefully come up with a usable product.
Thanks Sean for pushing my thinking.
A good question — or the purpose or the audience mentioned — also determines how many responses one receives on Twitter. A request to help students often gets many responses. A request to help that others have expertise and passion in results in many responses. But “many” isn’t as important as quality — one good response is just as helpful as many. People who “tweet” will follow many and obtain followers so that when they “tweet” that request, the possibilities for many and quality results increase. I’ve been so thankful to my fellow tweeps for helping with ideas, links, solutions — and I reciprocate; those connections create a collaborative and responsive network available 24/7 from real people, not an algorithm — that’s why one response may be the right one, even if you have few followers. Thanks for the discussion…I learned about it from Twitter 🙂
.-= Sheri Edwards´s last blog ..Blogging in Writing Class =-.
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We don’t typically tag in metaphor, do we?
However, one thing I find particularly productive (aside from being really “on point” at the time we are conjuring up search term combinations) is to toggle back and forth between the “tag” and “text” options within Compfight. (I’m in love with it right now for several reasons: http://compfight.com )
I find that even though most folks wouldn’t even try to tag with potential metaphors… many times they will engage in a bit more reflection on the image within the text or comments below. This is exactly what the “text” search looks for within Flickr when using Compfight. And really, if people DID try to tag in a “higher level” way… it would probably generate a ton of noise around any potential signal. Think about it. What screams one word/concept/thought to one person, certainly may not to someone else. Now suggesting tags as you find image gold is another thing altogether. That could be beneficial in this respect.
And really… for what it’s worth, I didn’t read read your “search is overrated” line so literally. Right or not, I simply read it as if you were saying it in jest along the lines of “my PLN can beat up your PLN.” 😉
This post certainly does show, in a nutshell, the power of many people strapped to a web portal and keyboard with a common goal and a consulting plea. It is an interesting Surowieckian commentary on the power of collective, decentralized knowledge.
Fun post.
.-= Sean Nash´s last blog ..The End of The Line =-.
If anyone has time on their hands or feels like contributing for the common good they can always do some image labelling which helps google search more effectively:
http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/
.-= Lesley Edwards´s last blog ..ESL Resources from Twitter =-.
I was recently shown the relevance of twitter in an academic setting and this is another great example of such. Twitter can be a very good way for us, as educators, to communicate, share ideas and help one another when needed. It’s simply amazing to me. As a group, young people are sometimes oblivious to the power of social networking used in this way and what it can really achieve. If formatted and used correctly, networking sites such as twitter could be used in a classroom setting to help students struggling at home to get help from their peers and teachers alike.
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
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