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The Art of Situational Note-taking (Introduction and Index)

Oliver Ding
Curativity Center
Published in
37 min readNov 26, 2023

A list of situational notes, themes, concepts, and evolving concept systems

From June 15, 2023, to June 21, 2023, I engaged in a thematic conversation with a friend via email discussions, exploring various topics around the theme of Note-taking and Knowledge Engagement.

The conversation inspired me to make a diagram about note-taking and draft-making. See the diagram below.

I also wrote a long article about it:

Situational Note-taking: Capture Significant Insights Outside the Room

A case study

medium.com

This article inspired me to start the “Situational Note-taking” project. I realized that I didn’t write something about “Note-taking”.

Some readers know I was the chief information architect of BagTheWeb which was an early web content curation. We launched the site in 2010.

In fact, we added a note-taking feature to the product in its 2.0 version.

While Bagged web content is bagged from the Web, original notes are bagged from the Mind. In order to build a model for describing the BagTheWeb project and the curating activity in general, I selected six elements: Actor, World, Mind, Web, Theme, and Bag.

In 2018, I reflected on the BagTheWeb project and developed a theory about general curation practice. From Sept 2018 to March 2019, I wrote a 615-page document titled Curativity: The Ecological Approach to Curatorial Practice.

In 2020, I worked on the Knowledge Curation project. From 2020 to Oct 2023, I wrote 23 books (drafts) (1, 2, 3).

However, I didn’t write something about Note-taking!

Really?

On June 15, I wrote a short post titled Knowledge Engagement: The “Dot and Circle” meta-diagram.

See the screenshot of the part of the article.

I didn’t add a hyperlink to “Curating Notes” because I didn’t publicly write any articles about Note-taking in English.

After publishing the post, I told myself, “This is ridiculous!”

This is why I started the “Situational Note-taking” project.

This article aims to close the project.

Part 1 discusses three purposes behind note-taking: 1) Recording Life Experiences, 2) Improving Work Performance, and 3) Supporting Self-awareness and personal development.

Part 2 briefly reviews my practice of Situational Note-taking. I also collected a list of my public situational notes for this project.

My primary interests are 1) Knowledge Engagement such as Knowledge Innovation, and 2) Product Engagement such as Product Innovation. Both Knowledge Innovation and Product Innovation could be represented as the Development of a Creative Concept System.

Part 3 introduces a theoretical framework for turning situational themes into a concept system. By using the framework as the frame of reference, I will focus on the relationship between Situational Note-taking and the Evolving Concept System.

Contents

Part 1: Purposes

1.1 Life, Work, and Self
1.2 Life: Experience, Story, and Themes
1.3 Work: The Rise of Platform Curativity
1.4 Self: The Challenge of Life Discovery

Part 2: Practice

2.1 A short post about Situational Note-taking
2.2 What’s my pattern of taking situational notes?
2.3 A List of Situational Notes

Part 3: Theory

3.1 Themes, Concepts, and Situational Note-taking
3.2 Situational Note-taking for EARLY DISCOVERY
3.3 Situational Note-taking for Conceptual Elaboration
3.4 Situational Note-taking for Continuous Objectification
3.5 Four Types of Knowledge for Developing A Concept System

Part 1: Background

1.1 Life, Work, and Self

In general, there are three purposes of Situational Note-taking:

From the perspective of Activity Theory, there is a hierarchical structure of human activity.

The hierarchical structure of activity was originally conceptualized by A. N. Leontiev (1978). We have to notice that the goal of Leontiev was developing a psychological theory at the individual level with the concept of Activity. Thus, we will see three levels of activity correspond to three levels of psychological notions.

Let’s see a diagram first. I found the following diagram from Victor Kaptelinin and Bonnie A. Nardi’s book Acting with Technology (2006, p.64). The three levels of activity are activity, actions, and operations. The three levels of psychological notions are motive, goals, and conditions.

According to Leontiev, “Separate concrete types of activity may differ among themselves according to various characteristics: according to their form, according to the methods of carrying them out, according to their emotional intensity, according to their time and space requirements, according to their physiological mechanisms, etc. The main thing that distinguishes one activity from another, however, is the difference of their objects. It is exactly the object of an activity that gives it a determined direction.” (1978, p.98)

So, what’s the object of activity?

The answer from Leontiev is the motive of activity. Leontiev claimed, “According to the terminology I have proposed, the object of an activity is its true motive. It is understood that the motive may be either material or ideal, either present in perception or exclusively in the imagination or in thought. The main thing is that behind activity there should always be a need, that it should always answer one need or another.” He also added a note about the term motive, “Such restricted understanding of motive as that object (material or ideal) that evokes and directs activity toward itself differs from the generally accepted understanding”.(1978, p.98)

After defining the “activity — motive” level, Leontiev moved to its sub-level: the “action — purpose” level. He said, “We call a process an action if it is subordinated to the representation of the result that must be attained, that is, if it is subordinated to a conscious purpose. Similarly, just as the concept of motive is related to the concept of activity, the concept of purpose is related to the concept of action.” (1978, p.99)

Leontiev also used “goal-directed processes” and “actions” interchangeably. For example, he said, “We call a process an action if it is subordinated to the representation of the result that must be attained, that is, if it is subordinated to a conscious purpose. Similarly, just as the concept of motive is related to the concept of activity, the concept of purpose is related to the concept of action.”(1978, p.99)

The third level refers to “operation — condition”. According to Leontiev, “Every purpose, even one like the ‘reaching of point N,’ is objective-ly accomplished in a certain objective situation. Of course, for the consciousness of the subject, the goal may appear in the abstraction of this situation, but his action cannot be abstracted from it. For this reason, in spite of its intentional aspect (what must be achieved), the action also has its operational aspect (how, by what means this can be achieved), which is determined not by the goal in itself but by the objective-object conditions of its achievement. In other words, the action being carried out is adequate to the task; the task then is a goal assigned in specific circumstances. For this reason the action has a specific quality that ‘formulates’ it specifically, and particularly methods by which it is accomplished. I call the methods for accomplishing actions, operations.”(1978, p.102)

Situational Note-taking is a specific type of Operation which is located at the “Operation — Condition” level.

What’s your Activity behind the Situational Note-taking?

1.2 Life: Experience, Story, and Themes

Situational Note-taking for recording life experiences is a typical action of note-taking.

It’s also the foundation of professional practices such as Creative Life Curation and Qualitative Research in general.

In this section, I will introduce the “Flow — Story — Model” model and my practice of Creative Life Curation.

In Thematic Space: Flow, Film, and Floor Plan, I developed a model to understand the context of tacit knowledge. We can use it for the present discussion.

The model uses three metaphors to represent three levels of knowing in everyday life.

  • Experience > Flow > Life as a continuous flow
  • Story > Film > Project as a film with a prominent theme
  • Model > Floor Plan > Thematic space as a floor plan

I use “continuous flow” as a metaphor to describe Life and Experience. This metaphor is inspired by William James’ metaphor “Stream of Thought”.

James used the stream metaphor to reject the British empiricists’ view of consciousness which refers to the chain or train metaphor. According to James:

“Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as “chain” or “train” do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A “river” or a “stream” are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness or of subjective life. (vol. 1, p.239)

What James emphasized is the Subjective Life. I follow this metaphor and directly use Life as a continuous flow to describe a person’s subjective experience of his own life. You can’t use a knife to cut a stream, you only can use a container to contain it.

The Story layer refers to the level of social communicative context. At this level, a person could tell his journey of developing tacit knowledge with others.

The Story layer is also inspired by my experience of writing my learning autobiographies and working on learning narrative-related projects. I often write reflection notes for each project. I also share my journey with others.

At the Model layer, I used the Floor Plan metaphor. A model is not a reality, but by modeling reality, we have a special way of knowing. By using models, a person could explore the knowing of Analysis. For example, I used the canvas of Thematic Space to review my “Activity” thematic space. The process, the result, and the value are totally different from the Story layer.

However, we should remember the model is not our destination. The model is a mediating instrument for producing our outcome of tacit knowing activities. We need to return to the Story layer from the Model layer. We need to transform insights from Analysis into actionable guides by Synthesis.

Finally, the actionable guides should be transformed into real actions in ecological situations and returned to the Experience layer.

The “Flow — Story — Model” metaphor is also inspired by James G. March (1928–2018) who was an American political scientist, sociologist, and a pioneer of organizational decision-making. He mentioned that there are three types of wisdom in his 2010 book The Ambiguities of Experience.

What are the three types of wisdom?

  • Models: a model is an abstract cognitive representation.
  • Stories: a story is a model too, but it is easy to understand.
  • Actions: you just do it, then you get it.

We can use this metaphor as a model to understand our tacit knowledge for life development.

Let’s see an example of using the model to curate life experiences.

From June 24 to July 3, I had a wonderful 10-day road trip with my wife and two little sons.

During the busy trip, I couldn’t write notes with details. In order to record exciting moments and engaging experiences, I used short meaningful keywords to capture some insights while taking pictures.

These short meaningful keywords are Situational Themes of my life.

After returning to Houston, I listed 21 situational themes and conducted a “Creative Life Curation” project.

The above picture is the overview of the project.

  • Project (Actions) → Stories (Notes) → Model → Creative Work

The 10-day road trip was a project that included a series of actions. After the project was completed, it became my life Experience.

If I do nothing with my subjective experiences of the 10-day road trip. It is only my memory. If I want to share it with others, I have to write notes, take pictures, record the trip, etc. In this way, I made Stories of the trip for the social communicative context.

Though I didn’t write notes with details, I made 21 situational themes of the trip. These themes are Personal Signs which refer to my Subjective Meanings of the trip. These themes can be seen as micro-stories.

However, the “Creative Life Curation” project went beyond normal storytelling and social media sharing. It moved from the Story level to the Model level. I adopted the ECHO Way model as a tool to analyze the deep structure of these themes. In this way, I ran the “Creative Life Curation” project and turned pieces of life experiences into meaningful Creative Work. I also used The ECHO Trip to name a possible book about the project.

As a “Creative Life Curation” project, The ECHO Trip used thematic analysis and thematic mapping to represent a thematic dialogue between Individual Situational Themes and Individual Life Themes.

You can find more details in The ECHO Trip: A 10-day Road Trip and Creative Life Curation.

1.3 Work: The Rise of Platform Curativity

There is a trend of moving work from physical spaces into digital spaces. In this way, work-related notes are moving from personal spaces into collaborative spaces.

In 2020, I used the diagram below to build a framework for discussing information architecture and personal development. This project was inspired by a discussion about note-taking, content curation, information overload, and personal development.

The framework was inspired by British anthropologist Mary Douglas’s Gird-Group cultural theory. The term “Curativity” was adopted from my 2019 book Curativity which focuses on turning pieces into a meaningful whole.

There are three types of Curativity in the context of information architecture and personal development: Platform Curativity, Institution Curativity, and Individual Curativity. There are different agencies, motivations, and goals behind this Curativity and sometimes they contradict each other.

In order to understand the mechanism of contradiction and coordination of multi-curativity, I adopted Mary Douglas’s Gird-Group model and expanded it to the Double Gird-Group Framework.

Douglas’s original model considered two dimensions: Group (the boundary of a community) and Gird (the structure of regulation). The Group dimension measures how much of people’s lives are controlled by the group they live in. The Gird dimension describes how different people are in the group and how they take on different roles.

There is an important distinction between offline environments and online environments. So, I doubled Douglas’ Gird-Group model, and the Traditional type of Group and Grid is considered to be distinguished from the Digital type of Group and Grid.

The final Double Gird-group framework uses four special signs: tGroup, dGroup, tGird, and dGird. The “t” stands for “traditional” and the “d” stands for “digital”.

For example, Institution Curativity is a traditional Group (tGroup) and Platform Curativity is a digital Group (dGroup). Following this logic, Individual Curativity within the Institution is traditional Gird (tGird), and the individual Curavitiy within the Platform is digital Grid (dGrid).

Later, I expanded this model to discuss digital transformation. You can find more details here.

Let’s see a real example of Platform Curativity. In the field of product discovery, note-taking is a typical action for sense-making and discussion. The diagram below is a tool titled Product Field which is a specific canfas for product discovery.

Product Field was developed by Klaus-Peter Frahm, Michael Schieben, and Wolfgang Wopperer-Beholz. According to the authors of the framework, “The visual form of the Product Field is a Mandala. According to the Grove’s Groups Graphics Keyboard, a mandala helps you and your team to perceive wholeness and see gaps and unities under a diversity of perceptions.” Also, the Product Field canvas is designed as a coordinate system that is defined by two dimensions: 1) Creation/Realization: a product follows a Purpose (for stakeholders) — to — Implementation (for customers) trajectory, 2) Introduction: a product follows an Inside (an organization) — to — Outside (market) trajectory.

The team also developed an online version of Product Field. See the screenshot below.

Source: a screenshot of Field.so

Field is a web-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) application. According to the developers, “Field grew out of Product Field. Product Field is the world’s first framework for product-centric innovation and organizational development and was developed by the founders of Field.”

A basic unit of interaction of Field is adding notes as cues to the Product Field canvas in a digital space. This interaction turns physical note-taking processes into human-computer interactions. The rest of the app is all about sorting digital notes, running specific product discovery activities (such as Flows and Sessions ), browsing notes in order to explore insights, and presenting product development proposals, etc.

There are more and more SaaS apps that are adding communication and note-taking features to their platform.

The Rise of Platform Curativity will change the landscape of Individual Curativity.

1.4 Self: The Challenge of Life Discovery

The third purpose is about note-taking for personal development.

Personal Development is an umbrella term for describing various activities about developing a person’s capabilities and potential, improving quality of life, etc.

For the present discussion, I’d like to move some contents of Personal Development to the first purpose (Life Curation) and the second purpose (Work Performance). For example, some tasks of self-reflection can be found in a Creative Life Curation project. Some lifelong learning activities are related to work performance.

However, there is a unique activity called Life Discovery Activity.

What’s Life Discovery?

From Jan 2023 to June 2023, I worked on developing the Life-as-Project approach and applied it to Life Discovery Activity. The outcome was a series of tools such as a toolkit, a canvas, and several models and frameworks.

To be honest, I didn’t give a definition to the term “Life Discovery” in the beginning. I just used it as a name for a toolkit, a canvas, a concept for a framework, and a program.

Eventually, I used three metaphors to describe the Life Discovery Activity.

Biography, Journey, and Program

The “Biography” metaphor refers to the “Text — Life” mapping. We can consider social life (life) as a book (text), and then we can use Hermeneutics to understand social life. You can find more details about this idea in The Hermeneutics of Creative Life.

The “Journey” metaphor refers to the “Source-Path-Goal” schema. In the 2000 book Where Mathematics Comes From, George Lakoff and Rafael E. Nunez use the Source-Path-Goal schema as an example of the cognitive science of the embodied mind. See the picture below:

Source: Where Mathematics Comes From (2000, p.38)

The Source-Path-Goal schema points out that there is an unrealized trajectory between the location of the trajector at a given time (present) and the goal (future). The diagram clearly shows the Temporal Difference between Present and Future is the Spatial Difference between the present location and future goal.

What’s the goal of your life?

This question is a primary challenge of the Life Discovery Activity.

The Life-as-Project approach uses the “Life Discovery Orientation” framework and the “Being by Doing” principle to answer this question.

I use three dimensions of the concept of “Life” to develop the above model. There are at least three ways to understand the concept of “Life”.

  • Life as Organism: this is the perspective of biological theories.
  • Life as Practice: this is the perspective of social theories.
  • Life as Ideal Type: this is the perspective of humanities.

These three perspectives can be called Biological Life, Sociocultural Life, and Spiritual Life. I also defined three types of Freedom.

Why did I choose “Freedom” as a core concept for this idea? On Jan 1, 2022, I designed the Strategist’s Mandala and used “Degrees of Freedom” as its primary theme. I learned the term from the Japanese strategy consultant Kenichi Ohmae’s writings.

However, “Degrees of Freedom” is a traditional term for strategic thinking in the context of business competitions. For life development, I don’t consider competition as the first thing.

  • Material Freedom: Independence of both Sociocultural Life and Biological Life.
  • Mental Freedom: Independence of both Spiritual Life and Biological Life.
  • Cultural Freedom: Independence of Sociocultural Life and Spiritual Life.

This model leads to a challenge: What’s Freedom? My rough answer is the following diagram. I use a simple formula to define “Freedom”. The pair of concepts of “Supply — Demand” is inspired by economics. Also, I was inspired by the developmental psychologist Robert Kegan’s 1994 book In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life.

In Over Our Heads focuses on the fit or lack of fit between what the culture demands of our minds and our mental capacity to meet these demands. According to Robert Kegan, “The psychological phenomenon is the evolution of consciousness, the personal unfolding of ways of organizing experience that are not simply replaced as we grow but subsumed into more complex systems of mind…The cultural phenomenon is the ‘hidden curriculum,’ the idea that to the list of artifacts and arrangements a culture creates and the social sciences study we should add the claims or demands the culture makes on the minds of its constituents.” (1994, p.9)

Kegan’s “psychological—cultural” dialogue approach is the seed of my ideas about the above three types of freedoms. I expanded it to a dialogue between Humanistic Psychology and Activity Theory.

  • Activity Theory: Doing means delivering “Value” as Offers for others.
  • Humanistic Psychology: Being means maintaining “Equilibrium” as Order for self.

If a person wants to offer values to satisfy others’ demands, he or she should keep a good order for internal equilibrium in order to maintain the supply system.

You can find more details in the “Being by Doing” principle.

The “Program” metaphor refers to the Approach — Application Knowledge Curation. This type of knowledge curation is about turning personal tacit knowledge into real-life work. It means Life Discovery Activity is not only about Thinking and Learning, but also Saying and Doing.

Eventually, I developed the Life Discovery Canvas for Life Discovery Activity. See the diagram below. You can find more details in How to Develop a Theory of Your Life.

The Life Discovery Canvas was developed for self-reflection, collaborative discussions, and Situational note-taking.

Part 2: Practice

Part 1 briefly reviews my practice of Situational Note-taking. I also collected a list of links to my public situational notes for this project.

2.1 A short post about Situational Note-taking

On Sept 10, 2023, I wrote a short post titled [Knowledge Engagement] Situational Note-taking on Linkedin and used it to launch the “Situational Note-taking” project.

I often took notes outside my house. On July 29, I wrote a long article titled Situational Note-taking: Capture Significant Insights Outside the Room.

Now it’s time to collect more articles around this theme:

2.2 What’s my pattern of taking situational notes?

#1. I took pictures in order to record original events.

#2. I often used the “Multiple Thematic Reflection” method to reflect on life events and discovered Situational Themes.

#3. I often worked on developing Concept Systems by using diagrams and writing some keywords (themes or concepts).

#4. I wrote short notes and published them on social media platforms such as Medium and Linkedin.

#5. Then, I expanded the short note into a long article.

#6. I also like to use Twitter Thread to play card sorting. Each Twitter Card can share one diagram. A Twitter thread is a tiny project of Diagram Blending.

#7. Finally, some long articles were curated into a book.

Here is an example of #4 and #5:

Sept 1, 2023: [Knowledge Engagement] The Concept of “Mindset” @ Linkedin. This is a short note.

Oliver Ding on LinkedIn: [Knowledge Engagement] The Concept of "Mindset" This diagram uses the...

Knowledge Engagement] The Concept of "Mindset" This diagram uses the "Universal Reference" diagram and the "Kinds of…

www.linkedin.com

Sept 9, 2023: Knowledge Engagement: The Concept of Mindset and Theoretical Integration @ Medium. This is a long article (48 min read).

Knowledge Engagement: The Concept of Mindset and Theoretical Integration

The above diagram uses the “Universal Reference” diagram, the “Kinds of Actors” framework, and a sub-framework of…

medium.com

You can also see an article about my Journey of Engaging with the Theme of “Themes” (2017–2023):

August 27, 2023: a short note on Linkedin:

Oliver Ding on LinkedIn: [TALE] A Journey of Engaging with the Theme of "Themes" (2017-2023)…

TALE] A Journey of Engaging with the Theme of "Themes" (2017-2023) TALE stands for Thematic Analysis Learning…

www.linkedin.com

August 27, 2023: a long version on Medium:

TALE: A Journey of Engaging with the Theme of “Themes” (2017–2023)

From “Themes of Practice” to “Thematic Engagement”

medium.com

To be honest, I also wrote private notes for particular projects and daily reflections in general.

Also, I often sent emails to my friends. These emails are invaluable resources for my note-taking.

2.3 A List of Situational Notes

Here is a list of my situational notes.

Part 3: Theory

My primary interests are 1) Knowledge Engagement such as Knowledge Innovation, and 2) Product Engagement such as Product Innovation. Both Knowledge Innovation and Product Innovation could be represented as the development of a Creative Concept System.

Part 3 introduces a theoretical framework for turning situational themes into a concept system. By using the framework as the frame of reference, I will focus on the relationship between Situational Note-taking and the Evolving Concept System.

3.1 Themes, Concepts, and Situational Note-taking

My Approach to Evolving Concept System started with the following diagram:

Theme (Concept) is an application of the notion of Container (Containee) which is the core idea of the Ecological Practice approach.

The Ecological Practice approach is inspired by Ecological Psychology, Activity Theory, and social practice theories. It considers Experiences, Actions, and Social Context. You can find more details in A Possible Theme called “Theme (Concept)”.

I have been working on the theme of “Themes” for many years. On August 27, 2023, I reflected on the journey from 2017 to 2023.

What’s the relationship between Themes, Concepts, and Note-taking?

On Oct 17, 2023, I wrote a post on Linkedin. See the content below.

[Knowledge Curation] The Private-Public Attachance and Note-taking

Many people asked me a question about knowledge curation and note-taking.

Hey, Oliver!

How do you take notes and curate them into articles and books?

Wow, this is a tough question.

To be honest, I don’t have a perfect Note-taking System or “second brain”.

Many years ago, I was the Chief Information Architect of an early web curation tool called BagTheWeb.

The early version of BagTheWeb only allowed users to curate web links into their bags. However, we quickly added a note-like feature to the platform.

While Bagged web content is bagged from the Web, original notes are bagged from the Mind. In order to build a model for describing the BagTheWeb project and the curating activity in general, I selected six elements: Actor, World, Mind, Web, Theme, and Bag.

The above diagram was modified from the above Activity System model diagram. The original six elements were replaced with Bag-related elements. I wrote an email to my co-workers who are team members of the BagTheWeb project. The sentences below are quoted from my original email:

First, I add “theme” as the “mediated artifact” between “subject” and “object”.

Second, I add “web” as the “mediated artifact” between “world” and “theme”.

Third, I add “bag” as the “mediated artifact” between “actor” and “theme”.

Fourth, I add “mind” as the middle element between “actor” and “world”. The mind is not a mediated artifact, but a channel for an actor to understand the world.

In this way, I built my own version of the Activity System diagram for BagTheWeb. This diagram uses the same visual format as the third-generation Activity Theory diagram which was developed by Yrjö Engeström in 1987, but my version’s content is different from Engestrom’s version.

What’s the most invaluable lesson I learned from the BagTheWeb project?

It’s the theme-centered paradigm of note-taking and developing tacit knowledge in general.

If you want to develop your tacit knowledge, you should focus on your themes.

Not the links.

Not the notes.

Not the tools.

The BagTheWeb project was launched in 2010. In the past ten years, I moved to the field of Knowledge Curation and Theoretical Curation.

Eventually, I developed Attachance Theory.

Now I don’t have a perfect tool for my note-taking activity. I just use Gmail, Medium, Coda, Miro, Linkedin, and Twitter to share my ideas.

I take the “Private-Public” Attachance to develop my tacit knowledge. I often write rough ideas on Linkedin, Medium, and Twitter. Later, I used these drafts as materials to write long articles and curate books (drafts).

Why do I take this Public-first approach?

Because I use the Slow Cognition approach to do my research on Creative Life Theory. I need to build public data for my research projects. I need to show people the historical developmental process of a concept or a theory.

What’s your primary knowledge theme?

(10/17/2023)

3.2 Situational Note-taking for EARLY DISCOVERY

My situational notes are all about EARLY DISCOVERY. It’s part of developing a concept system.

In June 2023, I edited a book (draft) titled Thematic Exploration: The Early Discovery of Knowledge Engagement (v1).

The possible book is about thematic creativity and thematic curativity.

I introduced a model of EARLY DISCOVERY of the journey of knowledge engagement.

Strategic Thematic Exploration and Conceptual Elaboration are two phases of EARLY DISCOVERY of the journey of knowledge Engagement. See the diagram below. The further phase is Continuous Objectification which aims to turn a concept system into real things.

I use “Strategic Thematic Exploration” to frame a creative space for exploring the strategic intent with the thematic analysis methods, especially for knowledge engagement.

I consider “From Theme to Framework” as a significant early phase for the journey of knowledge engagement. There are six stages in the phase.

  • A Possible Theme without Clue
  • A Possible Theme with Clue
  • A Primary Theme without related themes
  • A Primary Theme with its network
  • A Knowledge Concept with a working definition
  • A Knowledge Framework with a set of concepts

Since a knowledge framework is formed by a set of concepts, I also use Spontaneous Concept System to refer to the early version of a knowledge framework.

You can find more details in Thematic Exploration: The Early Discovery of Knowledge Engagement (book, v1).

3.3 Situational Note-taking for Conceptual Elaboration

On August 21, 2023, I made a possible theme called “The Territory of Concepts” which refers to the phase of Conceptual Elaboration.

In order to manage the “Territory of Concepts” project, I created a doc on Coda. See the screenshot.

I wrote private notes about the project and put them in this doc. For example, I wrote a Twitter thread about the theme of “Concepts” on August 29, 2023.

Source: Twitter

I also wrote a private note on Coda.

On August 29, Jeroen Coelen recommended a book titled The Big Book of Concepts within the tiny Twitter conversation.

I read the book and made some notes. See the diagram note below.

You can also find more details in this long article: Themes of Practice: Concept, Activity, and Cognition.

What did I read The Big Book of Concepts and made the above note?

In the phase of Conceptual Elaboration, there are three critical challenges.

  • Internal Integration: curate our pieces of ideas into a meaningful conceptual framework or concept system, understand the Part — Whole relationship
  • External Alignment: compare our ideas with other ideas, understand the Collaboration — Competition relationship
  • Cultural Projection: match our ideas with cultural needs, understand the Means-End relationship

My approach to “Concepts” and “Cognition” was inspired by Ecological Psychology, Activity Theory, and Lui’s Theoretical Sociology. The “Territory of Concepts” project started with the creative dialogue between three approaches. This refers to the Internal Integration challenge of my project on Themes and Concepts.

The Big Book of Concepts is about the perspective of Cognitive Psychology. So, my action of reading the book is related to the External Alignment challenge of my project on Themes and Concepts.

How about the Cultural Projection challenge?

From Sept 9, 2023, to Nov 20, 2023, I worked on a case study about the concept of “Mindset” in the field of psychological knowledge engagement. A by-product of the case study is the “Grasping the Concept” model. See the diagram below.

The above diagram highlights four types of thematic spaces which refer to four sociocultural areas.

  • Theoretical Psychologists — The THEORY thematic space
  • Empirical Psychologists — The END thematic space
  • Intervenors — The MEANS thematic space
  • Actors — The PRACTICE thematic space

This is an answer to the Cultural Projection challenge.

In a given field such as psychological knowledge engagement, there are four major sociocultural areas. Each area has its own logic of the Means-End relationship.

  • Theoretical Development -> Setting the Term
  • Empirical Research -> Bounding the Case
  • Intervention and Curation -> Capturing the Theme
  • Life Reflection -> Weaving the Mind

In general, all three challenges are related to a deep issue: the Mindset—Meaning relationship.

So, we need to pay attention to our notes about the following issues in the phase of Conceptual Elaboration

  • The Part — Whole relationship
  • The Collaboration — Competition relationship
  • The Means — End relationship
  • The Mindset — Meaning relationship

After Early Discovery, what should we do?

I roughly used “Continuous Objectification” to describe the stage after Early Discovery.

3.4 Situational Note-taking for Continuous Objectification

In the stage of Continuous Objectification, the primary object is a Concept System while the primary activity is called Developing A Concept System.

In the above diagram about “Territory of Concepts”, I mentioned three types of concept systems:

  • Spontaneous Concept System
  • Scientific Concept System
  • Defined Concept System

I use Spontaneous Concepts to refer to “Everyday Concepts”. Developmental psychologists use Spontaneous Concepts to discuss the development of a child’s cognitive structure and skills. In general, Spontaneous Concepts refer to “conceptions about the world that we form without any formal education”.

Jean Piaget made a distinction between two types of children’s tendency of concept formation: Spontaneous and non-spontaneous.

  • Spontaneous conception represents a child’s original reflections, which are decisively not influenced by adults.
  • Non-spontaneous conceptions are internalized from family, school, and conversation, that a child attends to.

Lev Vygotsky made a similar distinction with two terms: Spontaneous Concepts and Scientific Concepts. For example, “Archimedes’s Law” is a scientific concept while “Brother” is a spontaneous concept.

The child formulates Archimedes’s law better than he formulates his definition of what a brother is. This obviously reflects the different developmental paths that have led to the formation of these concepts. The child has learned the concept of “Archimedes law” differently than he has learned the concept of “brother.” The child knew what a brother was, and passed through many stages in the development of this knowledge, before he learned to define the word “brother” (if he ever had the occasion to learn this).

The development of the concept, “brother”, did not begin with a teacher’s explanation or with a scientific formulation. This concept is saturated with the child’s own rich personal experience. It had already passed through a significant part of its developmental course and had exhausted much of the purely empirical content it contains before the child encourntered it in definition. Of course, this was not the case with the concept that underlies Archimedes’ law (LSVCW, v.1:178, cited in Andy Blunden, 2012, p.254)

Inspired by the term “Design System”, I started using the term “Concept System”. For further usage, I made a distinction between Spontaneous Concept System and Defined Concept System in order to highlight the difference between Platform Users and Platform Owners, or Clients and Consultants. You can use “Designed Concept System” to call Defiend Concept System too.

  • Spontaneous Concept System
  • Defined Concept System

You can find more details in A Possible Theme called “Spontaneous Concept System”.

I pay attention to two fields: Knowledge Engagement and Product Engagement. Both two fields share the same pattern of developing a concept system. However, they have different complexities in the stage of Continuous Objectification.

For a theorist, the Objectification of Concepts is very simple. He/she only needs to write a book! However, for a startup founder, the Objectification of Concepts is quite complicated because he/she needs to build a team and make a real product or a service.

On March 2, 2023, I edited a book (draft) titled Perspectives on Product Engagement (v1.0).

So I will use the field of Product Engagement as the context of Continuous Objectification. Based on this setting, I made a model called “Evolving Concept System”. See the diagram below.

I used “Spontaneous Concept System/Defined Concept System/Scientific Concept System” to explain three parts of an Evolving Concept System.

  • Mental Platform: How do you think?
  • Behavioral Network: How do you do?
  • Material Container: What do you make?

It means the process of Developing A Concept System is not only about thinking, but also about doing, saying, and making.

Let’s start with “Mental Platform”:

  • Theory as Platform: an established academic theory is a Scientific Concept System. A founder learns some ideas from a Scientific Concept System, or from many theories. In this stage, an academic theory is perceived as a developmental platform that supports his/her lifelong learning and cognitive development.
  • Mental Platform: Finally, he/she curates ideas into a meaningful whole and develops his/her own Spontaneous Concept System about a particular possible product. Since his/her goal is to build a successful innovative product, the Spontaneous Concept System could be understood as a Mental Platform that supports his/her activities.

The founder may directly move to build a product that can be understood as a Material Container of a Concept System. In this stage, I adopted the Product Langue framework from the Product Engagement approach.

The Product Langue framework offers a Linguistic Perspective on Product Engagement. I use the following working definition for the framework.

  • Product Langue: an abstract thing that describes what a product is.
  • Product Speech: what people actually say about a product in various concrete situations.

The above diagram is the basic model of “Product Langue”. The “Langue” is a representation of a “Product”s core which describes its uniqueness. In different concrete situations, the “Langue” is represented by different things which are focuses of product speech.

Based on the above model, I identify 14 types of thematic spaces and 5 types of product speech. See the diagram below.

Each thematic space has its own rules for its thematic conversation and speech in general. These rules can be found in real-life social practices. For example, “Consumer Research” and “Initial Public Offering (IPO)” are two different social practices of business development.

There is a connection between the “Evolving Concept System” model and the Product Langue framework.

  • Product Langue = A Defined Concept System, made by the Founder
  • Product Speech = The Continuous Objectification of the Defined Concept System, made by the Founder. It is also perceived by Users as a Spontaneous Concept System

In this stage, we have to pay attention to the “Founder — User” relationship which is a specific type of “Self — Other” relationship. In this situation, the term “Defined Concept System” is used to describe the Founder’s perspective, and the term “Spontaneous Concept System” is used to describe the Users’ perspectives.

If a product is complicated, the founder needs to build a team. In this situation, we see the third part of the model: Behavioral Network.

  • Beliefs and Values
  • Culture

I use the term “Behavioral Network” to refer to a set of actions of a group of people. In order to turn pieces of actions into a meaningful whole, we need the alignment of beliefs and values. Furthermore, we need to see the alignment between commitment and actual behavior. I use “Culture” to refer to “Team Culture” which is the Objectification of Beliefs and Values.

  • Beliefs and Values: Defined Concept System, designed by the founder and team members
  • Culture (Team Culture): Spontaneous Concept System, acting by each team member

A founder’s “Mental Platform” is about his/her personal knowledge, beliefs, and values. It can be seen as a combination of several concept systems. In order to simplify the discussion, we can only use two concept systems, one is related to “Material Container” and the other one is related to “Behavioral Network”.

The Evolving Concept System is a process of Continuous Objectification, a dynamic Supportive Collaborative Project.

In Jan 2021, I wrote a book (draft) titled Project-oriented Activity Theory to introduce Andy Blunden’s approach to “An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity”.

In order to develop the notion of “Project as a unit of Activity” as a theoretical foundation of the new interdisciplinary theory of Activity, Blunden adopts Hegel’s logic and Vygotsky’s theory about “Unit of Analysis” and “Concept” as theoretical resources. The process is documented in four books:

  • An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity (2010)
  • Concepts: A Critical Approach (2012)
  • Collaborative Projects: An Interdisciplinary Study (2014)
  • Hegel for Social Movements (2019)

Blunden also gives an archetypal unit of a project in his 2010 book An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity:

“Two people working together on a common project”

Source: An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity (2010, p.315)

He says, “The rich context of the notion of collaboration also brings to light more complex relationships. The notions of hierarchy, command, division of labor, cooperation, exchange, service, attribution, exploitation, dependence, solidarity, and more can all be studied in the context of just two individuals working together on a common project. And yet almost all the mysteries of social science as well as a good part of psychology are contained in this archetypal unit: two people working together in a common project.” (2010, p.315)

The development of “Behavioral Network” is a collaborative project between the Founder and team members.

The development of “Material Container” is a collaborative project between the Founder/Team and Users.

Moreover, the development of “Mental Platform” is related to the development of “Material Container” and “Behavioral Network”.

How do we take notes about the Evolving Concept System?

3.5 Four Types of Knowledge for Developing A Concept System

As mentioned above, Developing A Concept System is an Activity.

In the stage of Continuous Objectification, the primary object is a Concept System while the primary activity is called Developing A Concept System.

Now, we can claim that Developing A Concept System is a Self-referential Activity.

Self-referential Activity refers to a special type of activity that can support self-reference development. Traditional Activity Theory only considers three components — Subject, Mediating, and Object — as its basic model. I added the fourth component “Transforming” to indicate the Self-referential connection.

You can find more details in Self-referential Activity.

Based on the model of Self-referential Activity, I made a new model called Self-referential Strategy to Developing Mental Platform. See the diagram below.

The above diagram defines four types of personal knowledge. If you care about note-taking, you can pay attention to the connection between this typology and concept systems.

  • S-knowledge
  • O-knowledge
  • M-knowledge
  • T-knowledge

S-knowledge refers to knowledge for self-awareness, self-improvement, self-regulation, life discovery, life strategy, etc. For the present discussion, it refers to Manage a Knowledge Project of Developing A Concept System.

For example, the D.I.V.E. framework for managing knowledge projects in general. We can use it for S-knowledge.

O-knowledge refers to knowledge about the work’s object. For example, if the work is building a house, the O-knowledge is about how to build the house. For the present discussion, O-knowledge refers to understanding a Concept System.

Several days ago, I published an article about Robert Kegan’s knowledge enterprise. In 1994, Robert Kegan introduced the “Five Orders of Consciousness” framework in a book titled In Over Our Heads. See the diagram below.

My understanding of the “Five Orders of Consciousness” framework is my O-knowledge.

Kegan’s Self—Object relationship can be seen as the Part — Whole relationship. If you see the row of Underlying Structure, you will find a pattern behind the five orders of consciousness.

  • Single Point: The is a simple Whole which is the part. There is no distinction between the Whole and the Part.
  • Durable Category: The Single Point becomes a Part of a Whole which refers to a Category. There is a distinction between the Whole and the Part.
  • Cross-categorical/Trans-categorical: The Durable Category becomes a Part of a Whole which refers to two categories.
  • System/Complex: There are more than two categories within the Whole.
  • Trans-system/Trans-complex: There are two Systems within the Whole.

O-knowledge is about correctly understanding the content of a concept system such as an academic theory.

An academic/scientific theory is a high-level abstract knowledge system that contains a set of connected theoretical concepts and the complex relationship between these concepts. An established theory or theoretical tradition may have various applications at different levels of abstraction. A theory also has to establish its own identity by building its uniqueness that is different from other theories.

Thus, we have at least three ways to develop O-knowledge about a particular theory.

  • Depth: The concept dynamics of a theory
  • Width: The applicational practices of a theory
  • Height: The uniqueness of a theory

The Depth way focuses on understanding the internal structure and complexity of a network of concepts of a theory. You can trace the historical development of each theoretical concept and the relationship between a theoretical concept and other concepts. For example, Clay Spinuzzi’s 2019 paper “Trying to predict the future”: third-generation activity theory’s codesign orientation is a good example of the Depth way.

The Height way is about comparing one theory with other similar theories in order to discover the uniqueness of a theory by identifying differences and similarities. You can compare several theories around a particular theme or compare two theories in multiple aspects. For example, Reijo Miettinen often writes papers comparing Activity Theory with other theories. His 2016 paper Four theories of networks: from interconnectedness to object-oriented collaboration focuses on the theme of networks. Reijo Miettinen also wrote papers about the relationship between Deweyan pragmatism and Cultural-historical activity theory in order to respond to Jim Garrison who is a philosopher and Dewey scholar.

The Width way aims to review various applications of a theory or a particular theoretical concept and present a landscape view of a knowledge enterprise. For example, In an analysis of the use of activity theory in HCI research, Bonnie Nardi (2016) and her colleagues collected 109 HCI activity theory papers and found scholars use five strategies in their research work to make use of activity theory: 1) an object of analysis, 2) a conceptual tool for design, 3) a meta-tool for developing new analytical tools, 4) a tool for conceptual analysis, and 5) a tool for empirical analysis.

We can apply the above one way or more ways to one project together. We can also use this 3D approach to watch the development of our thematic space about a particular theory.

You can find more details in The Knowledge Curation Toolkit #1: Theme U for Single-theory Curation and The Knowledge Curation Toolkit #5: WIDENESS for Multi-theory Curation.

M-knowledge refers to knowledge about using tools and methods. For example, the skills of using some tools to build the house. For the present discussion, it means using a specific tool and a method to understand a concept system.

For example, I used the Knowledge Discovery Canvas to represent Kegan’s core ideas on a map. See the diagram below. My skills in using the canvas are my M-knowledge.

We can also use the Knowledge Discovery Canvas to guide the process of developing a concept system. The canvas below is an example.

In Feb, I wrote a series of articles about Product-centered Business Development within two weeks. Business is a large field of social practice, I only focus on Product-centered Business Development activity. I used the Theory-based Reflection approach to adopt two theoretical approaches in order to develop a new Perspective called “Product Engagement”.

You can find more details in How did I develop the “Product Engagement” Framework?

T-knowledge refers to knowledge about transforming O-knowledge to S-knowledge.

How to understand the T-knowledge?

Let’s see an example:

  • O-knowledge: I wrote an article about Robert Kegan’s Knowledge Enterprise. My understanding of it is my O-knowledge.
  • M-knowledge: I used the Knowledge Discovery Canvas to represent Kegan’s core ideas in a map. My skills in using the canvas are my M-knowledge.
  • T-knowledge: I used Kegan’s “Five Orders of Consciousness” framework to reflect on my two knowledge projects: the development of Project Engagement approach and the development of Possible Life Theory (Creative Life Theory). This strategy is my T-knowledge.
  • S-knowledge: Now I can use the “Five Orders of Consciousness” framework for my future projects.

On Nov 21, 2023, I realized that I could use the “Underlying Structure” to understand the evolving concept system.

How did I validate this idea?

I just did two case studies. The first case study was about the development of the Project Engagement Approach.

On Nov 22, 2023, I made the second case study which was about the development of Creative Life Theory (Possible Life Theory).

I found five movements in both two cases. These five movements match Kegan’s model.

This is fantastic!

Now I can use the “Five Orders of Consciousness” framework for my future projects.

The key to understanding T-knowledge is to switch Means and End.

Usually, we think about learning a theory as understanding its content. This is what O-knowledge is about. If I only write an article about Kegan’s framework, then the article is an End, my understanding of Kegan’s framework is an End too.

However, if we see a learned theory as a Means for our actions, then the O-knowledge becomes S-knowledge. I didn’t use other people’s frameworks to test Kegan’s framework. I used my own frameworks to test it. In this way, I gained a new insight into my own frameworks. I also claimed that Kegan’s framework is a useful model for future projects.

Kegan Robert’s model is not the only pattern of the evolution of concept systems. For example, I used the diagram below to represent the development of the “Anticipatory Activity System” framework. But, it is a new member of my S-knowledge.

Related books (Drafts)

Notes
Notetaking

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Oliver Ding
Curativity Center

Written by Oliver Ding

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Founder of CALL(Creative Action Learning Lab), information architect, knowledge curator.

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