Order from chaos from order

Towards the end of last year, I wrote a series of blog entries expanding on 20 terms of art, mostly for fun, partly for education, and partly as an exercise in creative thinking ... and today I'm doing it again.

As a recap, here are the original 20:

Today, I'm nose-to-the-grindstone, writing my book on information risk management, doing my best to 'tell a good story'. I'm trying to make sense of the jumble of concepts and thoughts in my head, hopefully expressing things clearly enough for readers to understand and be inspired to think and do things differently. It's hard work!

Just because the book is non-fiction doesn't stop it being creative, so I've returned to the listing technique I used last year, elaborating on it a little. The revised process is:

Think of an intriguing focus area relating to the topic.
Think of some words and phrases associated with the topic.
Write them down in the order they occur to me.
Keep going until the rate plummets.
Re-sequence the list in a more logical order - alphabetical for instance.
Look again at the list, reconsidering words and phrases now in juxtaposition, sparking new thoughts and more entries to add to the end of the list.
Resequence and cycle back again until bored.
Decide whether to keep, revise or drop near duplicate entries.
Resequence and recycle again, this time using a different order - such as the length of the words and phrases (the approach I used before) - to change the juxtapositions and spark new ideas.
Take a break. Let the thoughts quietly fester. Make tea. Update this blog (!).
Come back for another go.
Resequence yet again, grouping related words and phrases together on a hand-drawn roughly scribbled mindmap.
Decide whether to invest the time preparing a more presentable electronic version of the mindmap, or simply use it as a writing prompt.
Get back to writing!

So at step 10 I had the following list of more than 60 words and phrases concerning various kinds of 'link', the topic that set me off on this path earlier today:

Network and point-to-point data links - wired copper, fibre-optic, wireless, encrypted ...
Personal/individual links plus family, group, national and cultural relationships
Links between threats, exposed vulnerabilities, incidents and consequences
Links binding industry, special interest and peer groups together
Statistical relationships linking potentially related factors
Penalties linked to noncompliance/nonconformity
Temporary/fleeting vs permanent/persistent links
Primary vs secondary and fallback links
Conceptual linkages and associations
Novel vs conventional vs established
Authorised vs unauthorised links
Shared interests and concerns
Hyperlinks of various kinds
Links between threat agents
Causal (cause-effect) links
Cyclical vs one-off/linear
Commercial relationships
Links to organised crime
Application system links
Fixed vs dynamic links
Database internal links
Valuable vs immaterial
Inappropriate linkages
Personal relationships
Covert vs overt links
Weak vs strong links
Mature vs immature
Organisational links
Departmental links
Loose associations
Stable vs unstable
Social media links
Unexplained links
Unwelcome links
Rigid vs flexible
Redundant links
Historical links
Informal links
Valuable links
Political links
Affiliate links
Relationships
Genetic links
Missing links
Curious links
Star network
Unwise links
Critical links
Formal links
Broken links
Connections
Sequencing
Friendships
Chain links
Illicit links
Mindmaps
Synonyms
Antonyms
Backlinks
Hook-ups
Bindings
Threads
Ad hoc
Glue
Ties

From that little lot, I've sketched out this rough (real rough! Scrappy even) mind map:

Contemplating the mind map led me to add a few links between topic areas (links about links!) and a few more terms.

So now I'm at step 14: must press on ...