EP 481: Preservation in the Post-Information Age with Sari Azout

What Works

Stop me if you've heard this before: we're overloaded and overwhelmed by information. There's more content than you could ever hope to consume. More scientific theories, philosophical concepts, and art forms than you could ever hope to engage with.

Enter personal knowledge management (PKM). It's a modern term for an ancient practice—how one collects, preserves, and utilizes knowledge worth remembering. In this episode, I speak with Sari Azout, the founder of Sublime, an app for personal knowledge management (but that description truly doesn't do it justice). We talk about the philosophy behind the product and how that plays out in the product's design.

Plus, I dive into how Sari's PKM philosophy is part of a long lineage of practices people have used to remember what's worth preserving.

Footnotes:

• Check out Sublime or get started right away with an invite!
• Too Much to Know by Ann Blair
• More about Sarah Mackenzie & Read-Aloud Revival
• "The Glassbox and the Commonplace" by Steven Johnson
• More on John Locke's commonplace book index system
• What do you want to preserve?
• More on Corita Kent at the Corita Art Center

Every new episode is published in essay form at WhatWorks.FYI!

• (00:00) - How I keep track of ideas and information
• (02:56) - Meet Sari Azout, founder of Sublime
• (04:30) - Information age versus post-information age
• (06:55) - Information overload is an ancient problem
• (08:05) - Commonplace books
• (11:20) - Commonplace books contain a central tension
• (12:12) - We shape our tools and then they shape us
• (16:24) - Where the cool stuff is really happening
• (17:40) - John Locke's commonplace system
• (19:52) - A tool for creativity rather than productivity
• (23:33) - Single-player mode versus multiplayer mode
• (27:05) - The promise of preservation

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