What is Infogineering?

Infogineering is the process of making the information you create and consume more valuable. It sets out generic rules for how you can take any information you work with - an e-mail, a report, a spreadsheet - and make it better.

Infogineering focusses on information that is designed to help you make better decisions. It is not designed to improve information that is designed to entertain - the definition of what makes one piece of music or art more valuable than another is really in the realms of psychology and philosophy.

See Infogineering: The Basics for more information

Why is it called "Infogineering"?

Infogineering is an amalgamation of two words - information and engineering.

Engineering is a systematic way of changing physical objects to make them better. For example, you take a few pieces of metal, cut them up, shape them, weld them together and you've got a bridge. The bridge is more valuable than the original pieces of metal on their own, so you've made it more valuable by putting it through these processes (e.g. "welding" is an engineering process).

Infogineering applies the same idea to Information. You take some information, run it through some processes, with the aim to make it more valuable.

How do you pronounce "infogineering"?

"info" (as in information) "gineering" (as in engineering).

What's a Blog?

Blog is short for Web log - it's an online dairy or journal. Many blogs are standalone websites, while others (such as the Infogineering Blog) are part of larger sites.

How often do you update your Blog?

If you check the dates of the recent posts, you should get a good idea. At least once a week, but no more than once a day. Visit the blog here.

Why can't I add comments on your Blog?

The vast majority of visitors to websites don't add comments. Most people are just looking for valuable information that they can trust. When they read an article that seems to make sense, but this is then followed by a series of comments that often seem to contradict the article and each other, it leaves people confused.

With the increase in blog spam (that's when other companies try to post adverts as comments) it takes a lot of time to moderate comments. This has to be weighed up against the potential gain of adding comments.

For many sites, the comment feature works well, but in the case of Infogineering, I decided against adding comments.

Is there an Infogineering Forum?

Not yet, but there are plans to introduce one as interest grows. Keep an eye out and make sure you are on the mailing list!

What's with the animals all over the site?

I had originally planned to put images of computers, books, cds, etc on the site to fit in with the "information age" theme. However, I realised this made the site look rather lifeless and boring. People make their minds up about sites in under a couple of seconds, so I didn't want to turn people off who felt this site was very technical.

There was originally just the mouse (e.g. like a computer mouse... but this one looks a little shocked if you plug him into the USB port) and you subconsciously followed his eyes across. It looked pretty good on the page, so more animals were added.

What are the animals' names?

Since the animals are all stock photos, and I've never met or eaten any of them, you can name them whatever you want. The duck looks like a Darren. The cat may be a Morag.

Can I use some of the Articles on my website?

All of the articles are covered by copyright, so you can't copy or redistribute them (either on the Web or in a paper format) unless they say so clearly at the bottom. You should never copy text from another website without the author's permission, or you could find your website is shut down by your hosting service. You could also find yourself in court.

At the bottom of each page, there is a box with tabs on it to either add it your social bookmarking site, or to link to it from your blog or website.

You can print out a copy of any page on the site for your own use, and you are welcome to e-mail the address of the page to anyone you think might be interested.

Why do you keep spelling "color" wrong?

Since I'm based in Scotland, I decided to stick with UK English across the site. That means that I spell words like colour and customise - which is different than in US English.

I've tried to avoid writing dates in the shorthand form, because it is standard in the UK to write dd/mm/yyyy while in the US, it's mm/dd/yyyy.