[Hidden-tech] To keep records or not to keep... | CLARIFICATION |

[Chris Hoogendyk]

DAVID F. FARKAS wrote:
> Thanx for all the ideas for HOW to keep records electronically rather 
> than on paper. Some of the ideas on work flow and storage were great! 
> I think I need to move to cloud computing for my CRM and apps so I can 
> streamline a lot of my report / record keeping process.
>
> BUT... my real dilemma is whether to keep most of the notes at all. I 
> ask clients for some photos and I use GoogleEarth pix for maps. But, 
> other than contact info and a summary of findings before and after the 
> work, I'm not sure why I need to keep all the scribbles from the 
> process. They would need to be scanned to be included in electronic 
> records.

for when it comes time to write that book?

> UNLESS... there are legal, marketing or other reasons I'm not 
> considering?
>
> Since my work is unusual, it is to my advantage to have not records. 
> Then nobody can challenge the process... which is esoteric and 
> confusing to most people. As a child of the McCarthy era and of our 
> litigious era, I'm wondering what advantage / disadvantages there are 
> in keeping fewer notes. I can't claim clinician, fiduciary, or legal 
> confidentiality either.

encrypt the details and don't tell anyone you even have them. If anyone 
asks, give them the summary.

> Healers in indigenous cultures have clinics where they go from patient 
> to patient doing their work and take no notes at all. They are not in 
> the western world running a business... so I'm looking for a balance.

they have the most amazing crm of all. They just remember. One book I 
read said that a Shaman in the Amazon told the Portuguese monks in the 
15th century that his people had walked through a land where the rain 
came down white and stayed on the ground. The monks could not have made 
it up, because they had no idea of the Bering Strait land bridge or the 
migration. The Shaman had passed it down from master to apprentice over 
perhaps 10,000 years. That's how they collected and passed on their 
knowledge of the herbal medicines (before we broke the chain).

I think the book is out of print. It was something like Shaman's 
Apprentice, and it was written by a botany professor at Harvard. It was 
loaned to me maybe 15 years ago. There are other books with titles like 
that, which makes it slightly confusing.

> If any of this makes sense and/or illuminates flashes of insight... 
> please pass them along. If it does not... well, you see the problem, eh?

-- 
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Chris Hoogendyk

-
   O__  ---- Systems Administrator
  c/ /'_ --- Biology & Geology Departments
 (*) \(*) -- 140 Morrill Science Center
~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst 

<hoogendyk at bio.umass.edu>

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Erdös 4