# (Brainfart coming) - going BIG (chess board coordinates for SYS) - as intranet frontpage **URL:** \ **Category:** Workbook/Workshop\ **Created:** [July 18, 2024, 11:31pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/brainfart-coming-going-big-chess-board-coordinates-for-sys-as-intranet-frontpage/1656 "2024-07-18T23:31:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![fender](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@fender](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/fender)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2024, 11:31pm UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/brainfart-coming-going-big-chess-board-coordinates-for-sys-as-intranet-frontpage/1656/1 "2024-07-18T23:31:12Z")
- First some intro / rambling about - and WARNING - this might be kinda fringe - and maybe a little bit to bounce off: - **Alright, so where am I going with this?** - Let’s pretend that someone was starting a company. - The company grows, and has the potential to become big. - A lot of people get involved. - Decisions need to be made, and the dynamics are such that things can no longer stay on the hands of a few people. - You get the randomsness of people, ideas, chemistry, chaos, coincidence, human nature and all the other good stuff that comes with the territory. - If **I was to run this company** , I would INSIST | DEMAND | FORCE the idea of keeping information structures as basic as possible. ## What would it look like? - **Enter the chessboard - and the JD system.** ![Uglychessboard](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/uploads/default/original/1X/efcdf8b8d093c70e408fabd1e84e77efdce57af6.png) - Sure - one would need to find a way to make it more visually compact and appealing. - But for many people, all their workstuff/spaces would reside/exist in system **e7** - or **h1** - and most people might stay in their system/realm. - But ALL of the information - on a top level - is available. And easy to reference. - This way of presenting would be the top level and the “ **homepage** ” of the company intranet. - **In your face** , every time you open it. - **Always the same**. - No company (however big) should ever need 64 “squares” = JD systems. - Say 00-09 was reserved for “system” - along with all of the \*0, leaving 9 \* 9 \* 99 \* 64 = 513 216? - So of course it is possible to scale it a bit down (less “squares”) - **It would be consistent.** - It would be easy to **make and maintain** a simple .html page - where each area was a **link** to where the information actually is. - It would **probably survive** , even with web and information technology changing. ---
**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 1:01am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/brainfart-coming-going-big-chess-board-coordinates-for-sys-as-intranet-frontpage/1656/2 "2024-07-19T01:01:06Z")
🤯 Whooaaaaa… keep going. I like this. Too busy to give this much thought now but I’ll 100% be back here next week. ---
**Author:** ![hans](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/hans/32/719_2.png) [@hans](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/hans)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 6:14am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/brainfart-coming-going-big-chess-board-coordinates-for-sys-as-intranet-frontpage/1656/3 "2024-07-19T06:14:17Z")
I really like this. I am a strong believer in the primacy of visual/spatial thinking. It might be my geography background. But at the same time, I think you are right to point out that keeping the visual interface to the minimum avoids wasting energy that should go into the work itself. A simple graphical layout like this is sufficient to trigger all our spatial recognition brain routines. I for one get lost in text-only, markdown-in-the-terminal; when I’m composing a larger text, I need to put it into something that looks more like a page in the real world; even just a live html preview window does it for me. But a little is all you need. Of course, you can also use the grid as you zoom in, i.e. you can create a grid of your single system’s areas and IDs. I just thought I’d share what I was up to last week, since it’s on the same theme: I made a ‘map’ of my areas which is loosely based on the actual topology of my house, garden, shop, etc, then modified the shapes a bit to make a memorable map. The idea is that this could be a main ‘frontpage’ interface to the system, on some kind of zoomable map interface (either a real slippy map, or just a graphic that you can click through. Categories and IDs would be polygons or points distributed inside the areas). ![bitmap](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/uploads/default/original/1X/e1c74bdc912bdceb3a709841f84968ce5bfd2323.png) > [@fender](#): > > Anyone know of literature / some good reads about past heroic feats of organizing people and information? I don’t, sorry (would love to read that), but I’ve noticed a hint of past organisation systems. Technical manuals like [Haynes Repair and Workshop Manuals](https://haynes.com/en-gb/) and [Zinn & the Art of Road Bike Maintenance](https://zinncycles.com/new-zinn-the-art-of-road-bike-maintenance-4th-edition/) don’t use chapters and page numbers, but _section_ numbers for cross-referencing. It’s super annoying at first, but where there’s a pattern there’s a purpose and I’ve always wondered if this is a relic of a much more extensive set of ‘best practises’ for organising technical documentation in the paper age. ---
**Author:** ![fender](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@fender](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/fender)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 7:33am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/brainfart-coming-going-big-chess-board-coordinates-for-sys-as-intranet-frontpage/1656/4 "2024-07-19T07:33:53Z")
> [@johnnydecimal](#): > > keep going There might be a few brainfarts left actually. Finding a bunch of nerds 🙌 🙌 talking about organizing information on the internet has obviously stirred some things. Going travelling for a bit, I’ll let them stew. I believe next topics in the “brainfart series” might be **(standard choice) of colors for markup** (stolen/copied from someone else, much wiser than I am) - and perhaps one on simple yet practical tools for construction site administration. ---
**Author:** ![fender](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@fender](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/fender)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 7:45am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/brainfart-coming-going-big-chess-board-coordinates-for-sys-as-intranet-frontpage/1656/5 "2024-07-19T07:45:16Z")
> [@hans](#): > > strong believer in the primacy of visual/spatial thinking I am as well. I believe (and respect, try to adjust to the fact) that people navigate information differently - some are more inclined to certain ways than other - but visual/spatial is dominant for me in terms of recollection/memory. I like your map. I get it. I once did a feature request for a Kanban tool ([Kanboard](https://github.com/kanboard/kanboard/issues/1333)) hoping to gain possibility of adding visual /spacial layer to tracking tasks (mapped) out to objects, but I think I overcomplicated it. (Didn’t catch on with the community or the (solo) developer.) Illustration ( 🤪) ![2024-07-19_09-35-56](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/uploads/default/original/1X/d5e905290f2149960693f41e7749df99f3de435b.png) ---
**Author:** ![fender](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@fender](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/fender)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 7:49am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/brainfart-coming-going-big-chess-board-coordinates-for-sys-as-intranet-frontpage/1656/6 "2024-07-19T07:49:17Z")
> [@hans](#): > > Technical manuals like [Haynes Repair](https://haynes.com/en-gb/) I think I have some around somewhere (for old cars that are long dead)… I’ll check it out. Tnx. ---
**Author:** ![johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/johnnydecimal/32/1759_2.png) [@johnnydecimal](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/johnnydecimal)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2024, 8:02am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/brainfart-coming-going-big-chess-board-coordinates-for-sys-as-intranet-frontpage/1656/7 "2024-07-19T08:02:34Z")
The map stuff is interesting. One of the things we’ve done for the quick start pack we’re putting together is a two-page spread that shows the categories and subheaders just laid out. I wanted you to be able to just picture roughly where in your system a thing – say, pets – was. _Oh_, you’ll think, _it’s about half way up category 12_. And hopefully that’ll be easier to remember. I’m also the sort of person who needs the preview window to make a markdown document feel ‘real’. Curious. ---
**Author:** ![hans](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/user_avatar/forum.johnnydecimal.com/hans/32/719_2.png) [@hans](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/u/hans)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2024, 5:09am UTC](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/brainfart-coming-going-big-chess-board-coordinates-for-sys-as-intranet-frontpage/1656/8 "2024-07-21T05:09:47Z")
@fender what you describe in that feature request at Kanboard is _exactly_ what I envision for my system map, in combination with [task management tags](https://forum.johnnydecimal.com/t/22-00-0055-thoughts-on-tags/1493/8). I think a simple grid would work well, too. It might work well to be able to switch back and forth between a grid view, and a ‘custom map’ view, depending on the document format and the task at hand.