Subtle Broadcasting via Obsessive-compulsive Tagging (OCT)

This post was prompted by my comment to the anonymous bird known as Tru. It is intended as injunction and affirmation of depth and span. I'll simply call it subtle broadcasting.

There are a lot of  ways we can do subtle broadcasting on cyberspace and meatspace. But for the purpose of laser-like focus, I will expound on the practice of tagging.

You see, tagging should not be looked at as optional. It is imperative that we tag all the stuff that we can -- blog posts, photos, discussion threads, boards, pods, other blogs, articles, news, etc... Why?! For our personal sanity but especially, for our collective inquiry.

Tagging is a compassionate way to share our insights, discoveries, our philosophy, our context, WITHOUT pushing it down at someone else's throat. We simply tag them, let them go, let them hover in the background, so we and others can find them through desperate inquiry or serendipity.

I'm beginning to believe that "found is the new search." Search engines include tag sites on their index. But search engines are not (yet) perfect. They're dumb when it comes to context. That's where tagging comes in. Let me illustrate this by examples.

from personal: I'm a big fan of Scott Adams's The Dilbert blog. So whenever he blog something I'm interested with I tag it with "scottadams."

http://ma.gnolia.com/people/coolmel/tags/scottadams

to social: Scott Adams has a rare form of disease called "spasmodic dysphonia." So I tag his blog post accordingly.

http://ma.gnolia.com/people/coolmel/tags/spasmodic+dysphonia

Then I let it go. No attachment to the tags and blogs. But then what I did was I just planted a "seed" by consciously tagging it with the name of the disease.

to serendipity: Notice that the URL below does not have my personal ID in it. It's a GLOBAL tag.

http://ma.gnolia.com/tags/spasmodic+dysphonia

People who are using Ma.gnolia to find that rare disease will be re-directed to Scott's insightful post. What started as a personal intent (being a fan of Scott) quickly evolved into a social intent (to share what i found), which then resulted in enriching a serendipitous collection of insightful nuggets, just waiting there, free to be discovered by anyone who's searching for it. That's what I mean when I say obsessive-compulsive tagging is healthy. It's subtle broadcasting. It's not pushing. It's not pulling. It's more like serendipitous dancing.

Another form of tagging is called meta tagging. Simply put, it's tagging "tags." I use this to extend my memory and tag those tags that I value as relevant. Meta-tags are also dynamic. They are like mini-tag clouds on their own. Below are some examples:

tagging Zaadz tags via Ma.gnolia:

http://ma.gnolia.com/people/coolmel/tags/zpod:kb101

tagging Flickr tags via Ma.gnolia:

http://ma.gnolia.com/people/coolmel/tags/reticulum+rex

tagging meta-tags with a meta-tag:

http://ma.gnolia.com/people/coolmel/tags/cool+meta+tags

So for all of you who are reading this right now, if you still haven't done so, please tag everything with context and critical thinking. If you have questions on how to do this, check out the HOWTOs and FAQs. Let's all build a passionate and compassionate fluffy tag cloud where everyone of us can collectively breathe and grow.

There. I hope I got my point across clear. Tagging is one of the best ways to do subtle broadcasting with compassion.

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ADDENDUM:  For a more professional analysis of tagging check out the following: Cognitive Analysis of Tagging, and Social Analysis of Tagging. Go forth and tag your hearts out.