John Norris [John Norris' Hipster PDA Templates]

On the heels of Douglas’s wonderful DIY templates for the Hipster PDA, I’m now directed to these amazing templates from John Norris.

John’s got some very creative ideas at play here, including miniature versions of games like chess; a small world map with time zones; music staffs; semaphore code (semaphore code!); and a variety of other lightly-structured templates.

The most fascinating addition to the standard card is what he calls the “Meta Line Organizer” (how-to image)—a series of icons, fields, and fill-bubbles that run the vertical length of the card. They afford a fast, lightweight method for organizing and prioritizing your cards and then quickly identifying their purpose on the run. Really terrific stuff.

It’s funny—I was telling a reporter yesterday how the whole Hipster PDA phenomenon has been such an unlikely instance of “Stone Soup“—what started as this jokey reaction to excessive personal technology keeps evolving into something smarter and more creative that I ever imagined. People are making thoughtful, deliberate decisions about how they capture data on the go, and having a framework—even one as admittedly dopey as the HPDA— apparently has enabled some very creative, clever ideas.

Nice work, everybody, and especially: nice work, John!

[Link: Matt Peck]