LeonardCohenSearch

Strategic Choices For Leonard Cohen Search

Given that the future is, as noted above, potentially problematic, I’ve been working on ongoing strategies for LeonardCohenSearch.

I constructed this site as a means of efficiently finding accurate and useful information about topics related to Leonard Cohen. While previous occupational experiences have caused me to develop a serious antipathy toward the term so ingrained that it may quality as an intellectual autoimmune disorder, I admit that the preceding sentence approximates a mission statement,¹ and as such, it has implications for the management of this venture.

I’ve labeled this post “Leonard Cohen Search and The Goldilocks Conundrum” because one quickly realizes that the primary issue for LeonardCohenSearch.com is avoiding the Scylla and Charybdis of doing too much, which would make the site cumbersome, and doing too little, which would make it impossible to find some information that is available. The goal is, in fact, to create a process that is “just right.”

This was, of course, the tactic at the heart of the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story - an account which becomes much easier to comprehend once one grasps that Goldilocks was obviously a consultant and the bears were her clients.

A Few Answers and Many More Questions

The questions are easier to derive. I’ve listed the two most acute issues as examples:

1. How many categories of interest should be listed at Index: Selected References? A few categories are of such wide interest (e.g., the discography) that they are no-brainers. There is, however, the potential for literally hundreds of such areas of interest. Listing too many, an especially tempting risk for me, could make reviewing the links cumbersome and inefficient. It could, in fact, overwhelm visitors, discouraging them from even trying.
2. Should there be any other material other than the custom search engine and the essential categories at Index: Selected References, and, if so, what? My concern is that any material that is not in the reference mode could be distracting or confusing to users. Currently, for example, I have links in the sidebars to accounts of Leonard Cohen’s Induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and his 2008 Tour schedule, information that can be found easily enough on several sites. On the other hand, Leonard Cohen’s impending tour and his recent entry into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame would be of interest to many who have only recently discovered Leonard Cohen and might not know where to find such information. This site even has one page of original content, Leonard Cohen, AKA - The Nicknames, which I’ve rationalized as a potentially useful list not found, as far as I know, elsewhere. It would, however, be a simple matter to move it to the Leonard Cohen section of my own blog while maintaining a link here.

I do have, I think, a few answers that have evolved into tentative principles for LeonardCohenSearch.com. For example,

1. The custom search engine requires ongoing tweaking based on user experience. Web sites dealing with Leonard Cohen, like all other sites, come and go, evolve in different ways, deteriorate, improve, … . The only response can be ongoing monitoring and adjustments, followed by more monitoring and further adjustments, ad infinitum. At this stage, my own interpretations and assessments may be sufficient. If this site demonstrates any long term utility however, a more systematic and objective methodology will be necessary. Search technology is also progressing, another process that requires monitoring in order to take advantage of new capabilities. Currently, technology is available to customize the custom search engine according to various parameters. Users who are introducing themselves to Cohen’s work may be better served by a subsection of sites offering fundamental information while other users who have accumulated a personal database about Cohen’s life and music may wish to focus on sites offering more esoteric or more subjective information. The “Anjani” focus link is the first of these refinements.
2. References at Index: Selected References (and References In FAQ Format, which consists of the same content in a different format) will be adhere to the principle of Occam’s Linkage:² A given category will be linked to as few references as possible to provide all necessary or useful information, eliminating links to other sites that add nothing. If, for example, all of the title and information pertinent to Leonard Cohen’s discography is accessible at one site, only a link to that site will be provided.

Well, that’s what I’ve been thinking about. I don’t have the answers to all the questions,³ but I thought it could be useful to let the site users know what’s going on.

Stay tuned.

Footnotes

1. I did learn much from the many Mission Development meetings I attended. I offer this example as a bonus to today’s post: If your articulated Mission makes as much sense read from beginning to end (e.g., “Excellence Through Quality”) as it does when read from end to beginning (”Quality Through Excellence”), then you have got yourself a dandy Mission Statement but, my friend, you certainly do not have a mission - if you know what I mean. [↩]
2. Occam’s Razor is defined at Wikipedia as The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae (”law of parsimony” or “law of succinctness”): “entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem”, or “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.” This is often paraphrased as “All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.” In other words, when multiple competing theories are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities. It is in this sense that Occam’s razor is usually understood. [↩]
3. This is why they call it a “conundrum. [↩]