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Features |
Wednesday, 9 August 2006
New Personal Information Manager in the Making
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Modernized information organizers litter the market, but according to MitchKapor, none are optimized for handling clutter. "I'm an inveterate note taker -- I scribble all these things down on pieces of paper," Kapor said. "I wanted to create some way of organizing all of them" ... |
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Modernized information organizers litter the market, but according to Mitch Kapor, none are optimized for handling clutter. "I'm an inveterate note taker -- I scribble all these things down on pieces of paper," Kapor said. "I wanted to create some way of organizing all of them", he continued.
Mitch Kapor and his group of open source developers are working on a new application called Chandler a successor of Lotus Agenda, tentatively set for release early next year, which will have the utility of Agenda without the hassles.
"The core idea in Agenda was being able to capture information freely and adding structure and classification as you go," Kapor said. "That's foundational. But there's a big learning curve for Agenda, which is one of the reasons it was more a critical success than a commercial success."
"Today," Kapor observes, "the PIMs are web-influenced, they have connectivity features, but they're stuck in the old mindset. They're focused on managing contacts and calendars. Agenda was all about managing ideas. Maybe that means Agenda isn't really a PIM. But then again, Connell Ryan, Agenda’s marketing manager, invented the term ‘PIM’ at the time of the product's first release. He invented that category name, but in retrospect the category didn't describe what Agenda was."
Kapor funded initial work in Chandler with USD 5 million earmarked for a group called the Open Source Applications Foundation. The idea was to create the digital equivalent of a personal assistant, helping people filter out the noise and adapt efficiently to constantly changing information. Eventually, the tool is expected to integrate calendar, contact management, e-mail, note taking, task management and instant messaging functions, says Kapor, all with Agenda's free-form functionality.
In today's world, a PIM can be used to look for information sent by e-mailA file manager can be used to locate information contained in a document stored as a file, while you may have to use other tools to find other types of information. Chandler can show views of attachments organized by date, subject, or other attributes. You can see all of the items relating to a particular subject or project, including the emails, meetings, contact information, and documents. Another key feature in Chandler is that an item of information can be stored in more than one place. You're not forced to file it in one folder or another. It can be in both with no additional effort. It solves the problem of "I know that email is here somewhere, but which folder did I put it in?" . Unlike conventional email clients, whose capability to permit user-defined attributes is limited to a fixed choice of labels or list of categories, Chandler allows an unlimited elaboration of user-originated ways of classification.
Chandler also permits the sharing of any item or set of items in simple way, forming the basis of any-time collaboration. In short, it's intended to be a tool for managing personal information and collaborating with others.
With demand fierce for tools to organize information-overloaded professional and personal lives, Chandler is entering a crowded field, with competitors including Microsoft Outlook, Backpack, Entourage, Zoot and Ecco Pro. Will Kapor be able to pull it off? The fact remains, there are still people out there using Agenda, a crusty old DOS-based character-mode program that testifies to the continuing relevance of the Agenda vision.
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