Flow Charts LO30337

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@postino.up.ac.za)
Date: 07/09/03


Replying to LO30328 --

Dear Organlearners,

Andrew Steele <andrew@cnet.org> wrote:

>I've been finding that use of Mind Mapping approaches leaves
>me with a more flexible, less apparently rigid picture. A Mind
>Map could be transformed into a more conventional flow chart
>in due course but my own experience is that the Mind Map
>leaves a deal more freedom in the creation.

Greetings dear Andrew,

I like the way in which this topic is developing by your own contribution.

I am of a similar opinion that flow charts employ some formalism which
makes it difficult to produce them. I have used them extensively to keep
track of progarmming a complex computer application. Tony Buzan's Mind
Mapping has much less formalism because it focus only on the basic pattern
-- "becoming-being". It concerns liveness, one of the 7Es (seven
essentialities of creativity).

Connecting "beings" and "becomings" together result in what i have called
"diagrams" for the lack of a better name for them. I have done it for many
different subjects ranging from chemistry to philosophy. After having
produced many such diagrams, i became aware that some patterns are common
to these diagrams. But i hesistate to dicuss these patterns, although they
are very interesting, since it may lead to formalism just as in the case
of flow charts.

This made me sensitive to a curious problem -- how to let the mind act
creatively without having formalism standing in the way! I think that Alan
Cotterell provided some of the solution:

> I find the best way to write procedures is to first take
> notes on the process, then derive a flowchart.

The key to produce any "becoming-being" diagram is meticulous observation.
Observe, observe and observe! Then adapt the diagram procedures to reflect
what is observed rather than the other way around.

With care and best wishes

-- 

At de Lange <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa

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