Several months ago I got the unsettling feeling that certain trends seem to be appearing in the various news/websites I monitor on a pretty constant basis. "But thinking isn't knowing" (King of Queens) so I decided to build a small, very basic database to keep track of the things I wanted to monitor.

This is a screen shot of the database input screen. It's hard to see but you can discern the basic structure. (All my databases are built with FileMaker Pro because it's cross platform, flexible, networkable, and can serve as portal to the Internet.) Consider each white rectangle as being a container into which you can put information.

The first line holds the date of this record. To save typing the date every time I create a new record, I made a little gray button which, when clicked, will automatically stuff the current date into the date bin.

The next line/bin/field (different names for the same thing) holds the name of the source from which I got the information—newspaper, website, online publication, whatever ... Source info is typed in.

When one clicks the cursor on Bin 3 (Category), a list appears:

Corporations

Police

Politics

Religion

Science

Society

Weapons

Edit

I would select a category for the information I'm saving by clicking on it. (Selecting "Edit" with the cursor allows me to call up the list of categories and add a new category on the fly). Then come input lines/bins for city and state for those instances in which the item's geographic location is pertinent. The first of the larger bins, bin 6, holds the headline of the source article; and the large bin with all the text in it holds the first two or three graphs of the source article itself. That large empty block at the bottom of the record is labelled "Comment" so I guess I was supposed to be able to attach my own wisdom to each record as well. It's an empty bin on every record. (Which may show more than I want it to.)

With a database like FileMaker, setting up a data structure can start simple but you have the flexibility to build complexity of purpose over time. You can link bins together in conduits of information, you can redirect flow, you can automate processes. You can construct hugh Rube Goldberg structures whose subroutine cogs and shafts grind up data and crank out information. You can analyze huge amounts of information.

Databases are symphonies (or maybe concertos, damn, now I have to go back to those Great Courses CDs to see which form of music databases seem to reflect). The are intricate structures built to satisfy man's deep need to look for patterns. Databases can make info dance to the conductor's tune. I think building databases was the most fun work in all my years of promoting personal computers. Chances are pretty good I'll be back to talk about them. 

Well-intentioned purposes aside, my project fell apart after only 12 records. That's all it took to show me that I would have to spend hours upon hours just collecting info on those categories above. Even with straight cut-and-paste from source to database, major investment in time. Project on pause because of huge volume of data being generated by news sources.

Oh well, that frees me up to worry about something else.