Knowledge Management Evaluation

Knowledge Management Evaluation:

Golden Section Notes

Organizational tools for Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) include calendars, address books, notefunctions or journals, and more. While I consider myself to be a pretty organized person, all of my personal information tools are paper-based. This is mostly a matter of necessity – I do not own a PDA, cell phone, or laptop computer. I do have a computer at home, but keeping my date book and notes on it is not very practical considering I often need these tools at work and school. I plan to purchase a laptop after graduation, so I decided to check out a note-taking system. Since I had a relatively short amount of time to try the application, I was particularly interested in finding a system that was fairly intuitive, or at least one that built on systems I was already comfortable with. I came across the Golden Section Notes (GS Notes) program in my first search, and after a little more investigation, decided to give it a try.

Knowledge Management Applications

The GS Notes application meets two of the seven criteria defined by Steve Barth in the article Personal Toolkit: A Framework for Personal Knowledge Management Tools. This framework represents a taxonomy for seven knowledge principles by defining four characteristics: processes, values, skills, and tools. According to Barth, the “cycle of knowledge work begins with a question at the heart of a problem to be solved. Answering that question is a process of research and learning.”[1] GS Notes supports two of the processes identified for personal knowledge management: accessing and organizing information.

Accessing Information in GS Notes

“Accessing information is about locating, identifying, retrieving, and viewing documents and data to discover the knowledge contained with in.”[2] GS Notes makes files accessible through the Documents Tree on the left side of the page. The window to the right displays the contents of notes, or lists folders depending on the user’s preference. The toolbar contains basic text editing and table-creation functions, very similar to the layout of Word Pad. Two views are available with the program: Office XP style which resembles Explorer, and WinOrganizer, which looks like a notebook. The search function included with GS Notes has several different options, including the ability to search folders, notes, and comments.

Organizing Information in GS Notes

Organization is the real strength of the GS Notes program. The tree format allows folders and notes to be hierarchically organized. Since this structure mirrors Windows Explorer, it was very easy to understand the organizational scheme.

“Organizing … is often a personal process, and we have personal tools we may prefer to use: some write in journals or diaries or dictate to a voice recorder. Increasingly, those notes can be digitized and indexed to be clustered and displayed with other captured data and information.”[3]

The program includes several options to aid organization, including a time/date stamp, and the ability to hyperlink to URLs and other files on the computer. While GS Notes seems simpler than the PKM tools mentioned in the article, the organizational aspect of the program is very straight forward.

Description

“GoldenSection Notes is a compact and easy-to-use notebook designed for storing various textual and graphical information in a serviceable and clear tree-structured form.”[4] The drag and drop, word processing and table functions were very similar to MS Office and WordPad tools.

GS Notes – Key Features[5]

Document protection
Flexible customizing
Flexible tree structure
HTML Printing with customized templates
Import and export features (.rtf, .csv, .txt, .html)
Links between documents and external links
Minimization to system tray

Multi-language interface with a support for twenty-five languages
Powerful search capability (with regular expressions)
Simultaneous editing of several records
Simultaneous work on several files
Two document types: Notes, Folders
User-friendly interface

Screen Shots – Golden Section Notes

The notebook view of GS Notes. Please note this screen shot is from a prior version.[6]

The explorer view of GS Notes. This shot is from the current version, 2.2.[7]

Golden Section Notes “is best used for a series for a series of interconnected notes, like a personal help file or storage of resource texts, [or] for storing related emails and simple papers that would clutter Windows folders with many small documents.”[8] Notes can be added directly into the right-side panels of either the notebook or explorer views, or inserted through a dialogue box like the one below. The import feature includes a wizard to make the process of adding and organizing existing documents simple.

Adding and editing notes[9]

Record insert and edit view (version 2.2)

Reviews

“Golden Section Notes is a handy way to organize your thoughts, your pictures, or just about anything…It’s not an innovative piece of software, but its clean interface and ease of use make it a good program.”[10]

“Golden Section Notes allows you to create a tree of topics with sub-topices and within subtopics you can place text and pictures. The searching isn’t great, but good use of topics makes this rather redundant anyway. Trim, fast and simple!”[11]

“I was a GS notes user, until I discovered Keynotes. Keynotes is loaded with great features.”[12]

“My personal preference for a treeview note taker was Golden Section Notes. It is now KeyNote, although the features of the full, pay for, version InfoStore may well be worth the price of admission. InfoStore and Keynote are clearly the Rolls Royce models of the group. NoteKeeper and Golden Section notes are Spartan offerings that have a pleasant, no frills functionality…Golden Section Notes was once my note taker of choice. It also includes a convenient little calendar display. Unfortunately when Golden Section Notes was deployed while online, my browser would hang or I would loose keyboard function in other apps and have to reboot.”[13]

“The question is…which is best between Keynote and Golden Section Notes – and the answer is Keynote has more features but Golden Section Notes is simpler and arguably has a better presentational impact. However, GSN gets big very quickly.”[14]

Personal Evaluation

In my trial, the program imported all the text files from “My Documents” very quickly. Unfortunately, it also created notes for other types of files and folders without importing any of the content. Other than this problem, I had little difficulty in adding files and notes to the system. The “Record Insert” is a little awkward, it seems like a function that should be available in the right-click menu. One feature I would prefer is for the title of the file to auto-populate between the document tree and the note. Also, I would appreciate the option to set the time/date stamp as an automatic insert, rather than just a manual one. Overall, I appreciate the simplicity of GS Notes, but think I would want a program with more functionality for everyday use.

References

Barth, Steve. “Personal Toolkit: A Framework for Personal Knowledge Management Tools.” KM World. January 2003, Pages 20 - 21.

Commentary on Tree Structure Writing Tools. Online. Available: treewrite.html. Last Accessed: March 31, 2003.

Conrad, Kevin. Notekeeping, formerly ‘dipping’. Odonata. Online. Available: odonata-1/2002-December/004488.html. Posted December 10, 2002. Last Accessed: March 31, 2003.

The Golden Section Labs. GS Notes. Online. Available: Last Accessed: March 31, 2003.

Higdon, Craig. Free File: Golden Section Notes. TechTV. Posted October 15, 2002.

Night2000. Re: GoldenSection Notes –Opinions? Alt.comp.freeware. (Newsgroup). Online. Available: Posted November 10, 2002. Last Accessed: March 31, 2003.

Tek Fo. InfoStore Download – All User Opinions. ZDNet. Online. Available: Posted June 27, 2002. Last Accessed: March 31, 2003.

WindowsPC.Com. Golden Section Notes – Screen Shots. Online. Available: GoldenSelection_ Notes.htm. Last Accessed: March 31, 2003.

[1] Barth, Steve. “Personal Toolkit: A Framework for Personal Knowledge Management Tools.” KM World. January 2003, Page 20.

[2] Barth, Steve. “Personal Toolkit: A Framework for Personal Knowledge Management Tools.” KM World. January 2003, Page 20.

[3] Barth, Steve. “Personal Toolkit: A Framework for Personal Knowledge Management Tools.” KM World. January 2003, Page 20.

[4] The Golden Section Labs. GS Notes.

[5] The Golden Section Labs. GS Notes – Features.

[6] WindowsPC.Com. Golden Section Notes – Screen Shots. GoldenSelection_Notes.htm.

7 The Golden Section Labs. Screenshots.

[8]Commentary on Tree Structure Writing Tools. writing/treewrite.html.

[9] The Golden Section Labs. Screenshots.

[10] Higdon, Craig. Free File: Golden Section Notes. TechTV. Posted October 15, 2002.

[11] Conrad, Kevin. Notekeeping, formerly ‘dipping’. Odonata. odonata-1/2002-December/004488.html. Posted December 10, 2002.

[12] Night2000. Re: GoldenSection Notes –Opinions? Alt.comp.freeware. (Newsgroup). Posted November 10, 2002.

[13] Tek Fo. InfoStore Download – All User Opinions. ZDNet. Posted June 27, 2002.

[14]Commentary on Tree Structure Writing Tools. writing/treewrite.html.