what we find changes who we become

Who would have thought a librarian could offer some of the most interesting insights into the development of ubiquitous computing. The book 'ambient findability looks at how we find things changes their importance.
This goes someway to explaining the dominance of Google, and how fundamental its role is in the next generation of computer use ( and also why Bill Gates is so scared of an internet search engine). In a time when the focus is away from the PC and on to the internet, then the 'the network is the computer' . Google provides a supposedly efficient way of doing what most people want to do on the net: search. Thus the control of the net is dominated by people not offering information, but means of searching and categorizing information. ( see Observer Business, p. 39, 14.05.06).

So we either need better librarians (ie someone to do it for us) or better filters( ways of managing information ourselves).

for filters the following from Ton Zijlstra's Blog has some interesting ideas:
Filtering: pattern search through social context and feedback
For pattern searching two things are key. First, information can no longer be viewed as objective, but need to be seen as always embedded in subjective social contexts, and second that feedback loops are needed to make patterns emerge from the information abundance.

So for me to be effective in my own information use I need to have a very good social network that forms my filter. This means having a balanced set of relationships with a myriad of people (not: sources) who are willing to share their subjective views with me. They show me what matters to them on a daily basis, and what may warrant a response from me.

So for me to be effective in my own information use I need to share my information. Share traces (my bookmarks, my pictures), share information (blogpostings, e-mails, articles, bookmarks), share relationships (go talk to her, go meet him). Because through this sharing networks of meaning become visible: patterns emerge because what I share becomes part of the inputs of my social filter. It helps my relationships know better what to share with me (helps them become better filters), it helps my relationships to want to share with me, and in turn see me as part of their filter to make sense of the world.

I share therefore I am