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Building a website is very easy these days
but sorting out the the information that you want to put on your website, that is more difficult.
I'm going to use a method which is called 'the process of the academic thinking'.
It's a method which is useful to write a PhD, and I've written a PhD using that method.
But it's useful for anything else:
for constructing which information you're going to put on your site
and what information you're not going to put on your website.
So, it's one thing to use the technology of the internet,
and build a website, but it's another thing to use the ‘technology of the mind’, as I call it,
and to know what you want to put on your website.
These are two things and I will touch on both of them.
Building up a skeleton for your PhD thesis, as you can see here,
is the same as building up a skeleton of information for creating a website.
This method which is called ‘the process of the academic thinking’,
was developed by Dr. Amikam Marbach...
Indexing (of websites) is created through words, not through images.
Google does not understand images. This technology is based on words.
You have to define the correct words that define your website - you have to put the right wording.
I'm going to show you a very interesting method, a very quick system,
developed by Dr. Amikam, which I have used both for my PhD as well as on my website.
You start with a topic.
Usually, the topic will be the name of your business or what you're selling.
In my case, for my PhD, my topic was 'Creativity in Art'.
Because that is something that interests me, that is something that I wanted to do a PhD about.
I chose only three words. You don't choose more than that.
If you start to describe it in too many words, you're not focused.
So the first step when you want to construct the information for your thesis,
for articles that you write, or for your website, is to decide on your topic,
what are you going to do, and you have to choose three words, no more.
Then you have to define it. After you decided on a topic, you have to define it,
using one sentence only.
The reason we define the topic is because
by defining something, we can observe it.
We can look at ourselves and know what we have said to begin with.
My definition of creativity in art, (my own definition),
is: ‘the process of inspiration, conception and application in art-making.’
This definition comes from me; I didn't read books about it,
The whole idea is to listen to yourself; because it's what you want to express.
You will read a book, and use backup and references later on.
But first you decide on your topic and then you define it.
What is creativity in art? It's a huge topic. In my case and what interests me,
is the process where someone is inspired; the process of inspiration,
the process of conception, and the process of application, the making.
So it's very abstract, in my case, because I'm interested in inspiration (which no one can prove),
but I'm also interested in the conception, how the artist understands inspiration,
and the application, the actual making of artworks.
And all these ideas are represented in one line.
That was actually my PhD. I dealt with inspiration but I also did a lot of artworks -
the application of inspiration.
You have your topic, you have your definition.
Next, you need to choose your categories.
Here, we say that the categories will make the chapters of your PhD or your MA thesis;
they will actually make the chapters’ titles of your thesis.
They are very useful because when you build your website, you have your navigation bar at the top.
So the categories that we're using for a PhD
can also make the categories for your navigation bar,
for your website. You need to decide on it; it will not come to you.
So I decide on three categories.
The process of inspiration, conception and application in art-making (in my case) had three categories:
One: Stimulaton - I say that artists are ‘stimulated’ to feel something;
Two: Internalization - once they're stimulated to feel something they process it inside themselves;
they internalize it. And: Application - then they apply it. They create artworks.
Once again, these are my three categories,
which is based on what I think and what interests me, no on else.
So once you have your three categories, you define each one once again.
Stimulation; what is stimulation?
Three words (in my case): sensing, feeling and reflecting.
In the same way you define ‘internalization’, and ‘application’.
You have these lovely subcategories, which could make the navigation bar for your website;
it's already there. It all comes from you, you don't have to go to the library.
We've been to the library this morning, but, you don't have to start there.
Because the idea is to listen to yourself; see what you know, and what you want to do in this life.
Because when you listen to yourself, you can then listen to other people.
Only then you can go and read books.
When you respect yourself only then you can respect other authors and other sources,
and get references from them.
When you continue yuor PhD, you go into the sub subcategories,
then you draw conclusions and an overall conclusion. That is good for an MA thesis or a PhD.
For a website, you stop here.
For constructing information for your website this is where you stop - in your subcategories.
It is useful to write conclusions and overall conclusion, just for yourself,
so you know what you want to achieve, but you don't need more than your subcategories.
You then ignore your three categories, and you use only your nine subcategories.
They could be very useful words for your navigation bar.
Now, we're always using... the navigation bar here...
We're always deciding on three categories. It can never be one category,
it can never be two categories, because then one can say ‘yes’ and the other can say ‘no’.
It's like a ping-pong game, it's like a duel; so you always must have three categories.
But when you build your website,
and you realize that you have four categories, maybe here, that is fine, you don't have to fixed on three.
This presentation is an introduction only, focusing on how to categorize content for your websites. Delivered by Dr. Gil Dekel, 26 Oct 2010, University of Winchester. The method was developed by Dr. Amikam Marbach.