- Episode AI notes
- Starting a company should be a last resort after attempting to solve a problem or make an impact.
- Bringing in a new leader can inject fresh expertise and perspective.
- Obsidian balances customer revenue and financing through consulting projects.
- Obsidian offers more advanced features than Apple Notes with a freemium model.
- Piracy is not an effective method for gaining users; offering a free version of an app can attract users and convert them.
- Obsidian is like creating a personal Wikipedia for organizing thoughts and breaking down problems into smaller chunks.
- Obsidian allows for the creation of personal memes and enhances thinking and organization.
- Writing down thoughts and experiences can free up mental space and provide capacity for more tasks.
- Pain can be seen as information and an opportunity for personal growth.
- Memes serve as references to complex ideas; they encapsulate sub-items and allow for deep thoughts.
- Evergreen notes can be granular and composed into bigger fragments for idea building.
- Plain text files are valued for long-term digital preservation as they are more durable and compatible across different eras.
- The focus should be on the work created, not the tools used.
- Computer tools revolutionize thinking by providing infinite depth and non-linear structures.
- Obsidian aims to be extensible while maintaining a balance between cohesion and user customization.
- New software features and interfaces have become widely adopted and accessible to non-designers.
- Canvas in Obsidian allows for the organization of ideas and easy embedding of various types of content.
Independent platforms like Obsidian open up broader possibilities for interoperability. TimeĀ 0:00:00
When starting a company should be your last resort After considering what to do after Lumia, starting another company seemed like the default option, but Obsidian appeared more exciting and impactful. Entrepreneurship should be a last resort, with a focus on problem-solving and making a difference. Many people seek entrepreneurship advice, but most of the time they are discouraged from starting a company. Itās important for them to truly care about their work and be prepared for the challenges they will face.
Steph Ango
And I do think itās a, at least in my mind, when I was thinking about whatās next after Lumia, my default would have been to start another company, but I couldnāt think of anything that I thought was more exciting than Obsidian and so that to me at least in my own head it says a lot I donāt know if it says a lot to other people but it does say a lot that I would rather kind of go And help build this thing which I think is such an amazing app and community than try to start another thing from scratch right now. Yeah that makes a lot of sense.
Adam Wiggins
And I think that entrepreneurship, you shouldnāt start with, I want to start a company. You should start with, I want to solve a problem or have an impact on the world or go to a place where I can contribute the most. Really starting a company should be your last resort. If thereās really no other way to accomplish what you want to do, then you say, well, damn it, I guess I have to start a company.
Steph Ango
Well, I have so many people come to me for entrepreneurship advice and my first advice is donāt do it. Most of the time Iām constantly trying to convince them not to start a company. And part of it is just me kind of probing to see how much they actually care about whatever theyāre doing that they can deal with that because thatās pretty much what youāre going to get From the world likeThe Benefits of Bringing in a New Leader and Funding Decisions āBringing in a new leader can inject fresh expertise, perspective, direction, and vision. It requires a different skill set and passion for scaling and managing a team. Erica and Sheida, known as Silver and Leakat, impressed me with their mature approach to building Obsidian. They opted not to seek venture capital funding. Iāve tried various funding methods in my businesses, including bootstrapping and appearing on Shark Tank. You should watch my co-founder Jesse on the show!ā
Adam Wiggins
To bring in a new leader, but it can also be an injection of new expertise, new perspective, new direction, new vision, especially because very often the kinds of people that like to Start something are not the same people or donāt have the same skill set or just passions to want to scale it up, to want to see it grow wider or address, be available to more people or just The natural kind of management responsibilities that go with managing a team, an existing product, a big base of customers who just seem to have an endless list of bugs and feature requests. It can take a different personality type. So when that can be done well, I think itās really great to bring in an experienced leader at the right moment.
Steph Ango
Yeah, and I was so impressed with Erica and Shida. People might know them as Silver and Leakout, which is their name online, but theyāre a little bit younger than I am and have such a mature point of view on how they want to build the business Obsidian. From the start, they made the decision not to go down the VC path. And Iāve, in my own businesses over the years, have literally tried every different method of funding any business. Iāve bootstrapped companies. Iāve gone the VC route. Did Shark Tank, did Kickstarter, did every different thing.
Adam Wiggins
You can imagine loans like- Wait, if I type your name into YouTube with Shark Tank right now, will I get a clip?
Steph Ango
Youāre going to find my co-founder, Jessie. I was not brave enough to go on there myself, but sheās great. You should watch that episode.How to Be a Prosumer Companies like Obsidian strike a balance between financing through consulting projects and customer revenue. Prosumer, not to be confused with freemium, refers to users who are hobbyists or aspiring professionals willing to invest in gear and software. This bridges the gap between B2B and B2C models, allowing for potential profitability.
Adam Wiggins
Then the middle ground there often ends up that companies like this basically finance it through just doing a bunch of consulting projects in the early days. I think maybe like, yeah, the 37 Signals folks is one example. Iāve done that with multiple businesses to the point youāre willing to reveal how does Obsidian strike that balance? Have you been successful enough that youāre just able to finance on customer revenue or that early upfront investment feels like itās got to come from somewhere.
Steph Ango
And when you say prosumer, I think in my head, at least, I think of prosumer as a market, as a user type. But from a business model standpoint, I would say freemium is more the term that Iāve come to. Is that what you mean? When you say prosumer, do you mean freemium?
Adam Wiggins
No, because you can have a freemium B2B and you can have freemium B2C. So music is one of the main areas. Like, yeah, podcasters and DJs and whatever. This is actually, youāve got people who are often hobbyists or aspiring professionals, though realistically, maybe many of them are never going to make a living from it. But they are willing to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on gear, on software, etc. Sure. So classically, B2C, you canāt get anyone to pay for anything. You just monetize with ads or whatever. And then B2B, you know, you get those big sort of company contracts where theyāre paying thousands or tens of thousands a month. And so I think of Prosumer as being that kind of in-between state of like, Dropbox is a classic example. Like pay $10 aComparing Obsidian with Apple Notes and One Note: Features and Accessibility Obsidian is a freemium note-taking app that offers more advanced features than Apple notes. They aim to democratize access to these tools, with no features locked behind a paywall. Instead, they offer commercial licenses for businesses.
Steph Ango
I donāt, but Iām trying to kind of come around to your way of thinking of it. Like in that world, definitely, you know, Apple Notes and OneNote or some of these kind of apps that come shipped with the OS would probably be the consumer one. Like everyone just has it by default and itās free, itās bundled in. Obsidian has a freemium model, so you can totally use Obsidian for free and for personal use, but it is a little more advanced. It has more complexity to it than an Apple Notes. Itās trying to give you a little bit more power user type of features, I suppose. And maybe thatās where the prosumer angle comes in. I think for us in terms of what the broader goals of what weāre trying to do are, weāre really trying to democratize these tools. Weāre trying to make it easily accessible for people to think using these tools. And so we donāt feature anything behind a price. So itās not like thereās a pro version that you pay $10 a month for. The capabilities are behind a license type. So if you are using Obsidian for your business, then you need to buy a commercial license. So thatās a little bit of a unique point of view and it has to do with kind of the values that we have around really trying to democratize access to these tools.The Role of Freemium in Software Usage Piracy and the freemium model are discussed, highlighting the benefits of offering a free version of an app to gain users and convert them into paying customers.
Steph Ango
You use. And if it says you need to pay 50 bucks a user per year, we donāt get into that much friction, to be honest, when it comes to that. And the only friction that would come up would be everyone whoās in between who are like small, you know, couple people, startups, who from an honor system standpoint, theyāre just Probably using Obsidian for free and itās not a big deal. Yeah.
Adam Wiggins
Well, and classically, itās been said that freemium is almost an update of the old system, which was you use piracy as your sort of free version. So you pirated Photoshop when youāre a university student that canāt afford anything. And then later you have a real job at a real company and they want to be legit. So they buy you a license. Exactly. Yeah.
Steph Ango
I mean, that was me. If I didnāt pirate Photoshop when I was 14 years old, I probably wouldnāt be doing the job that Iām doing now. But now today in 2023, I think itās probably a betterā¦ From a top of the funnel standpoint, piracy is not a great method of trying to gain users. You might as well just give your app for free and then try to convince the people who can pay to come and join that tier.How to Create a Personal Wiki Obsidian is like creating your own Wikipedia. Itās a tool that is not organized in a linear way like most file systems, but rather as a web of interconnected links. This personal wiki allows you to click through and explore related information, making it a user-friendly and non-jargon alternative to traditional hierarchical or chronological systems.
Steph Ango
I mean, I think that what most people are familiar with when I try to explain Obsidian to someone whoās never really thought about using a tool like this, I go back to Wikipedia as the touchstone Because I think everyoneās been on Wikipedia. People understand that most file systems, most structural systems are hierarchical or chronological. And so theyāre linear in one of those ways, but they understand even if itās just sort of intuitively or emotionally that Wikipedia is not organized like that. I mean, there are some hierarchies in there, but itās a web of links that you can click through and everything is related to something else. And I think that is really what, I mean, even the term when you say personal wiki, itās a jargon. But if you say itās like Wikipedia, then it becomes not Jarkin anymore. And itās like creating your own Wikipedia is oftentimes what I use as a description for Obsidian to non-nerds,The Power of Obsidian: Creating Your Own Wikipedia for Organizing Thoughts Obsidian is like creating your own Wikipedia, allowing you to link ideas together and organize thoughts easily. Itās a powerful tool for breaking down problems into smaller chunks and remixing them. While some geniuses can do this mentally, Obsidian provides a structured concept that enhances the way we think and organize information.
Steph Ango
But if you say itās like Wikipedia, then it becomes not Jarkin anymore. And itās like creating your own Wikipedia is oftentimes what I use as a description for Obsidian to non-nerds, basically. And I think thatās a powerful analogy that somehow hasnāt permeated into tools like Apple Notes, though I heard recently theyāre making a new journaling app, but weāll be curious to See what they come up with there. But it is one extra level of friction that maybe those really basic tools are not looking to do. And once you start to link ideas together, what can you do with that? What new structural concepts does it open up? And it sounds so simple, but at least for me and my thinking, it totally changes the way that I organize my thoughts. Thereās some people out there who are geniuses who can do this purely in their mind, but I donāt know. I just donāt have the like ram in my brain to be able to maintain lots of different ideas at the same time. And so having this tool where I can kind of break down a problem into smaller chunks and then remix those little chunks however I want inside of a note is a really powerful and very basic Concept. And then everything is layered up on top of that.Turning Ideas into Memorable Chunks of Text The speaker discusses the concept of turning ideas into memorable chunks of text, like memes, and how they can be useful in composing ideas and manipulating them. The purpose of their blog post was to explain the benefits of externalizing and creating personal memes within oneās system.
Steph Ango
Yeah, Evergreen. I think that Andyās notes about that, that heās published, are really great. And what I like about my definition is just turning an idea into a memorable chunk of text. But memorable to you, like a meme that is a meme inside of your own thinking. How can you take an idea that you had or read and turn it into a memorable chunk? Like sometimes I think what we love about good quotes from like famous people or from books is that they are in a way an every green note because they take a feeling or a concept and turn It into this memorable little chunk of text. And at least in the way that I write for my own personal thinking, having that little chunk of text, like you said, everything is a remix. Thatās an evergreen note in my system. And I can use that in the context of a sentence that might start with, because everything is a remix, you know, this thing that I found is interesting for that reason. And I use everything as a remix as a link in that sentence. And it becomes a very natural way to compose ideas together. But I want to try to make it kind of more relatable to people who havenāt thought this way in the past. And that was the purpose of that blog post was try to explain that if you can externalize ideas and you can create your own little memes inside of your system, then you can touch those ideas. You can rotate them. You can manipulate them in a way that personally I find that my brain doesnāt work that way.The Power of Pain Writing down thoughts is like automating tasks - it frees up mental space and allows for more capacity. This concept is similar to the idea of automating tasks in programming. By writing things down, we can do more as computer users. An example is given from a book by Murakami about running marathons and writing, where he says pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. The author relates this to a painful time in their life and writes an evergreen note that pain is information, which children learn early on.
Mark McGrennigan
Idea of being able to build up more complex thoughts because youāve written them down, it reminds me of this idea of automation and programming, where sometimes it feels like you donāt Really need to automate it because itās basically going fine when you do it manually, which again is true as far as it goes. But really what happens is you have some capacity to do stuff manually. So if you automate it, you can add your manual stuff on top of that. So you basically open up the ceiling to be able to do more stuff as a computer user. It kind of has the same feeling to me as this idea of writing stuff down to free up more mental space.
Steph Ango
Maybe I should give an example so that people who are listening can understand what Iām talking about. I was reading this book by Murakami. I think itās called what I talk about when I talk about running or something like that. And he likes to run marathons and write books. And so he, you know, kind of compares the two. And he has this phrase that is a very memorable phrase in the book, which is pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. And he says, basically, when you sign up for a marathon, youāre basically signing up for pain, but itās your choice to decide whether you want to suffer that pain or not. I was going through a very painful time at the time. And so it kind of resonated with me. And then an evergreen note that I wrote in Obsidian was pain is information. And my thought about pain is information was, I think children learn this at an early age,The Power of Pain: Understanding Its Informational Value The author reflects on a book by Murakami about running marathons and writing books. They highlight a memorable phrase: pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. The author relates this to their own painful experiences and the idea that pain can be informative. They ponder whether gaining knowledge through pain can lead to power.
Steph Ango
I should give an example so that people who are listening can understand what Iām talking about. I was reading this book by Murakami. I think itās called what I talk about when I talk about running or something like that. And he likes to run marathons and write books. And so he, you know, kind of compares the two. And he has this phrase that is a very memorable phrase in the book, which is pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. And he says, basically, when you sign up for a marathon, youāre basically signing up for pain, but itās your choice to decide whether you want to suffer that pain or not. I was going through a very painful time at the time. And so it kind of resonated with me. And then an evergreen note that I wrote in Obsidian was pain is information. And my thought about pain is information was, I think children learn this at an early age, if you touch a hot stove, you know, thatās information that donāt touch hot things, youāll burn Yourself. But in general, pain is a signal from your body. It could be a physical pain. It could be emotional pain that gives you information. And then thereās this phrase like knowledge is power. So if you gain enough information through pain, can you build knowledge off of that? By the transit of property, is pain power? That was a question that I was asking. If you are able to understand pain and synthesize pain, is it a path to power? It has a lot of connotations, but can you become more powerful by having more painful experiences? SoAn effective use of evergreen notes is to surface areas of agreement and tension between them. Individual evergreen notes are bound to disagree with each other ā the power of synthesis is to turn an idea around automatically, exposing contradictions and convergences that a single note cannot.The Power of Memes in Knowledge Acquisition Memes serve as references to complex ideas, much like scientific citations. They can be used to explore and build upon ideas. They encapsulate a lot of sub-items in one and allow for deep thoughts. If you already know the meme, it serves as a shortcut to the referenced content. Otherwise, you can go down the rabbit trail of exploration. Memes are similar to Wikipedia linked knowledge and scientific papers as citations.
Adam Wiggins
Self memes, including accessing maybe books youāve read, quotations, everything is a remix, the running book. I think of ones that I referenced with some frequency like the man in the arena quote. These serve not only to, if we do think of ideas as these little notes, which are essentially objects that we can break apart and then use to do almost like arithmetic or something like That and explore in ways that are more complex and interesting than the ideas would be on their own, but also can build up that pyramid and then encapsulate actually a lot of kind of sub Items under one. So everything is remix or across the chasm or something like that actually contains a lot to it. And you could read a whole book in many cases or write a whole section or think many deep thoughts on that. But eventually, if you bubble it up into that meme, it almost reminds me of like a scientific citation where if Iām writing a paper about a complex topic and I need to reference another Complex topic, I donāt need to go and restate that whole complex topic. I just reference the paper. And for a very small number of tokens, I get essentially all of that brought in. If you already know the paper or you know the meme or you know the quote, that basically can just serve as a reference to all that. If you donāt know that well, then you can go and explore, go down the rabbit trail there, which again, I guess does bring us back to that kind of Wikipedia linked knowledge, knowledge Graphs, scientific papers as citations. These are things that existA personal meme base allows referencing a single idea as a shorthand. If an intermediate process has already synthesized what that idea means ā including its contrasts and tensions with other ideas ā then mentioning it does not just save tokens; the mention itself imports the synthesized meaning.Preference for Granular Evergreen Notes I personally prefer the granular style for evergreen notes, using small fragments that can be composed into bigger fragments. I donāt have huge evergreen notes, but rather journal entries or stream of consciousness thoughts. In my system, evergreen notes are not time stamped and are meant to have longevity.
Mark McGrennigan
Evergreen note examples that weāve been talking about have been very granular, aphorisms of a few words. Do you also have evergreen notes that are huge sprawling pages in which youāre accreting stuff over time or do you really prefer the granular style?
Steph Ango
I like really granular. I mean, this is just me personally. Iām not dogmatic about this. People can do whatever they want. I tend to have small fragments that I can compose into bigger fragments. So yeah, I canāt really think of really huge evergreen notes that I have. What those turn into is journal entries or stream of consciousness type of things where itās like playing with Lego blocks. Itās like Iāve got these Lego blocks, which are my evergreen notes. Then I have a session where Iām going to think about these like 10 different evergreen notes and combine them together. But that thing is not an evergreen note. Itās just a stream of consciousness, a thought process. In my system, it lives as a date stamp with a name and itās just like on this day i had these thoughts about these evergreen notes but the evergreen notes are not time stamped they hopefully
Adam Wiggins
Have longevity now longevity i also feel like is an interestingA canvas can include nodes that represent postprocessed thoughts. These can stand in place of references to that idea in the future. The canvas then needs an updating representation of an evergreen idea ā a living node rather than a static one.The importance of plain text files for long-term digital preservation Obsidian values plain text files as they are more durable and lasting compared to software apps. While apps may not survive the passage of time due to changing operating systems and user preferences, plain text files have the potential to stand the test of time. Obsidian believes that if computers still exist in a thousand years, plain text will still be functional. They prioritize the longevity and significance of the files created in their app over the app itself. Obsidian aims to create a tool that can endure through generations, just like the enduring nature of hieroglyphics inscribed on ancient artifacts. By writing to plain text files, Obsidian ensures compatibility with computers from different eras, making it possible to open an Obsidian file on a computer from the 60s or even 200 years from now.
Steph Ango
Time. And can we use that as a proxy for, you know, hopefully something that will last a long time. And my gut feeling is that if computers are still around in a thousand years, plain text will probably still work. You know, maybe some other dramatic thing will happen where computers are not still around. But weāre trying to make decisions within the context that we know about right now. And so thatās also why sometimes I say files are much more important than apps. We care about the file that you create in Obsidian much more so than the app. The app is ephemeral. The app is not going to last forever. I think itās a fallacy to think that youāre going to design a tool thatās going to last forever. Maybe a chisel can last forever or something like that, but a software app is probably not. Operating systems change, users change, things are changing so quickly. I donāt really care what kind of chisel someone used to inscribe hieroglyphics on a pyramid or something like that, but they were able to communicate some information that has stood The test of time. Have for digital information is the you could open an obsidian file on a computer from the 60s which means that hopefully it will also work for a computer from you know 200 years from now. YeahThe Importance of User Perspective in Tool Creation As a user, what matters most is the work we create, not the tools we use. Sometimes software creators have an ego-centric view, thinking the tool is more important. But from the user perspective, it is the opposite. The term ātools for thoughtā can be misleading because it prioritizes the tool over the actual thought. This raises the question of what we are doing on a civilizational level.
Adam Wiggins
I love that and it touches on a few things of very much of interest to me I mean one is I think that from a user perspective putting aside how long of a duration you expect or want or would be Desirable in your data, your work, the things youāve created. Ultimately, I think, especially here talking about creators, people using tools or productivity software to make things, you really care about your work, not the tool. And obviously people can get excited about the hot new tool and they do, and thatās a lot of fun. But ultimately I care about when iām using a piece of video editing software to edit a video or iām using a word processor to write my phd dissertation i care about what iām creating yeah Way way more than the tool itself but as software creators as tool makers itās very easy to have a certain kind of egocentrism which is the tool is the important part or maybe this even Just comes from programmers where we think well the program is the complicated, interesting, important part and all those bits we write to disk on behalf of the user, thatās kind of A secondary thing. But I think the user perspective is really the inverse of that.
Steph Ango
Yeah, and I think thatās why the term tools for thought kind of rubs me the wrong way sometimes because itās putting the tool at a higher level of importance than the thought in a weird Way. And I think that the question that Iām wondering about is like, what are we doing on a civilizationalThe Importance of Tools for Thought and the Civilizational Impact The term ātools for thoughtā bothers me because it overvalues the tool over the thought. However, thereās something exciting happening right now in the realm of creating and using these tools. Weāre inventing interesting new tools and making important societal decisions. Through these tools, weāre unlocking the potential for people to have new thoughts and achieve creative outputs they wouldnāt have otherwise.
Adam Wiggins
Inverse of that.
Steph Ango
Yeah, and I think thatās why the term tools for thought kind of rubs me the wrong way sometimes because itās putting the tool at a higher level of importance than the thought in a weird Way. And I think that the question that Iām wondering about is like, what are we doing on a civilizational level? When I say we, like everyone whoās involved in making and using tools for thought right now, whatās happening right now? Because it does feel like thereās something brewing. Thereās like something thatās happening right now in this area that hasnāt, for some reason, it wasnāt happening 10 years ago or 20 years ago. It seems to be happening right now. And I do think weāre inventing some interesting new tools and weāre making some interesting decisions about society or humanity in some way. And I feel like the things that weāve been kind of talking about in this conversation are the things that weāre doing. Weāre trying to unlock a way that people can have thoughts that they havenāt had before. Like maybe some of these tools can open up ideas and allow people to think more complex thoughts or accelerate their progress towards some sort of creative output that they wouldnāt Have otherwise been able to get to without these tools. So that seems kind of coolThe Power of Nonlinear Thinking in Digital Systems Computers revolutionize thinking by removing the limitations of physical objects. Instead of linear systems like books, digital tools offer infinite depth and non-linear structures. Canvas and graphs provide a playground for creating an output, such as an epiphany, which is the ultimate goal in thinking.
Steph Ango
Yeah, and I think whatās new about computers in this respect is that every paper-based, physical-based system for thinking was kind of bound by the limitations of physics and physical Objects, making it more linear. Like a book, you know, is linear in nature. Iām always amazed when people get into the Zettelkasten, like slip box concept that this guy literally did what Iām talking about with evergreen notes, but just have these little pieces Of paper that were cross-referencing itself. Itās a nightmare. Itās so cool that someone tried to do that, but literally one person did that because it was that complicated. And so we have the opportunity now to do things like canvas or graphs or things that have infinite levels of depth and nonlinear, non-hierarchical structures, because weāre not bound By the three-dimensional space when weāre, you know, working with these digital files. And so thatās a really cool thing. How does the output of whatever you came up with, like itās a means to an end still. Like the canvas view, for example, in Obsidian or Muse, like to me, itās in service of creating something at the other side of that that is probably not a canvas in itself. Like the canvas is not the output. The canvas is the kind of playground to arrive at an output.
Adam Wiggins
Yeah, and that has been, I think, a challenge in just marketing a product to a wider audience that is fundamentally for thinking, which is the output is the epiphany. TheMaking Obsidian Extensible: The Challenge of Core Functionality vs. User Customization Obsidian aims to be extensible, allowing users to build on top of it and go in different directions. While the developer initially preferred well-designed opinionated tools, obsidian challenged them to consider what is core and what is optional. AI has also been a popular topic, with multiple plug-ins available, but obsidian has not integrated AI as a first-party feature due to privacy and value conflicts.
Steph Ango
What weāre going to do is just make it really, really extensible so that people can build those things on top of Obsidian and take them in all the different directions that they want. And assume that basically thereās going to be very little overlap between which specific plugins any given person is going to be using. I think that I personally have an inclination towards making, you know, these really well-designed opinionated tools that have like a way to use them. Like thatās what Iāve done a lot of my life. But Obsidian has challenged me to really think the opposite way and say like, what is core? What is something that everyone needs? And then what is everything else? And recently, like AI has also been this kind of big, interesting topic that I think a lot of us have been playing around with these different tools for ChatGPT and so on to kind of use them Inside of our tools. Like right now, thereās probably like 15 different AI plugins for Obsidian and they each have their own little different take. Whereas if you look at some of the other products in the Tools for Thought space, theyāre each implementing it kind of as a first-party thing into their app with an opinionated point Of view. And we donāt have an AI, like first-party AI integration right now, partially because it kind of conflicts with our privacy and values. But ifBalancing Cohesion and Freedom in Obsidian Plugin Development Building on top of Obsidian requires making decisions to maintain a cohesive user experience. Developers need good defaults that feel intuitive and cohesive, while still allowing freedom. The app should be accessible to new users and have infinite depth for advanced users. Finding this balance is challenging.
Steph Ango
Those are just two different opinions that these two different valid and viable and large platforms are choosing. So if youāre a plugin developer, which one do you use? Thereās all these basic decisions you wouldnāt think about, but they make the app feel less cohesive overall when youāre using it, if people are capitalizing their buttons in different Ways. And so thereās an effort that we need to make, which is to kind of help developers have really good defaults when theyāre kind of building on top of Obsidian and guide them towards things That are going to feel intuitive and cohesive to Obsidian users while not limiting their freedom. Similarly, we have to also make sure that if youāre a brand new Obsidian user and youāve never used it before, that the kind of top level, it feels accessible, that you can understand How this app works. Even with no plugins, it makes sense to you. But then it has infinite depth and you can go as deep and crazy as you want. But that that surface level is intuitive and inviting and accessible to most people. And thatās a really, really hard thing to balance. Yeah,The Evolution of User Interfaces and Societyās Adoption of New Software Features People who are not designers can now interact with interfaces and easily navigate files. Basic features like holding down the space bar to move around have become second nature. Similar to pinch-to-zoom on smartphones, these gestures have become widely adopted. Even young children are able to grasp and use these software features. The contrast between messiness and a polished final product is worth exploring.
Steph Ango
It all kind of came together at this point where people who are not designers could interact with this type of interface and get some value out of it, being able to pan around and kind of Understand this new way of working with files. Even basic things like, I think pretty much every canvas tool now has like hold space bar to move around, you know, and that just is something that none of these tools even bother to try To teach you anymore. But like when you go into it, if you donāt know how to do that, you donāt even know how to get around. But now itās becoming part of the muscle memory as a society that this exists in the same way that like pinch to zoom or something was this gesture that no one was ever doing, you know, before The iPhone came out and now everybodyās like pinch to zooming things all the time. Yeah.
Adam Wiggins
Or all the text editor affordances, right?
Steph Ango
Oh yeah. That weāve all been copying and pasted and yeah, moving the cursor around, like all of these things, somehow they make their way into like the knowledge. And with kids, a lot of my friends are having like little babies playing around with these phones. Like Itās such a fascinating thing to see how, what an early age kids can start to adopt these software features. Itās crazy. And so I think thereās something about coming back to that idea of messiness versus polished kind of finished product. WeExtending Canvas with various types of content Canvas allows you to drag and drop YouTube links for easy embedding, creating a virtual workspace for organizing ideas and references.
Steph Ango
We started from the point of view that you had these notes already that had links within them. And theyāre text documents that sometimes can be very long and have many references and many things that theyāre pointing out to. And what can you do with that? And how can you extend that with other types of content? Like one of the features that we added early on to Canvas was you can drag and drop a YouTube link in there and it will do a nice embed for you. Itās not just going to give you the YouTube webpage, itās going to give you a video version of it that you can more easily set side by side with a note that you have so that you can write in There. So that Canvas now becomes not just a place to describe relationships visually, but also to like create a little desk for yourself inside of like a virtual space where you can make things Smaller, big, and left or right or up or down around what youāre trying to create in the same way that when youāre working on a problem on your physical desk, you might lay out different Pieces of paper or, you know, pin them on a pin board or draw them on a whiteboard. And having that ability to go in different directions kind of on the X, Y axis gives you a lot of freedom to maintain multiple ideas at the same time. WhatThe Limits of Interoperability Interoperability, often seen as a geeky term, has been limited by the expectation of being locked into one tool. However, independent platforms like obsidian allow users to edit the same file simultaneously in different tools, opening up broader possibilities.
Steph Ango
I think interoperability is something that is such a geeky term and I think that the geekiness of the term has in a way limited its potential as something that we should strive for. And itās in opposition. This is where something like us being independent and not VC backed allows us to make this like strong decision about interoperability. But itās almost aspirational because I think that the average person is so used to the lock-in factor. You just expect every tool to lock you in, which is so sad when you think about it, that you go into any other piece of software and expect that you cannot open that same file in another tool. But a lot of Obsidian users like to use Obsidian alongside with a completely different tool to edit the same file. You can have Obsidian open and IA Writer open at the same time and edit the same file and see the same updates at the same time in both places. And I think when it comes to something like Canvas, the possibilities are so much broader
