reply to u/atomicnotes at https://old.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1fa0240/early_1900s_3_x_5_inch_card_index_filing_cabinet/

This is an excellent question. I strongly suspect you won't find a booklet or book from Macey after 1906 that does this, though there may have been something before that.

You'll notice that on page 9, the 1906 Macy Catalog takes what I consider to be a pot shot at their Shaw-Walker competition in the section "Not a kindergarten". Shaw-Walker was selling not just furniture, but a more specific system, as well as a magazine. Since there's something to be learned for current knowledge managers and zettel-casters in the historical experience of these companies and the systems and methods they were selling, I'll quote that section here (substitute references to enterprise and business for yourself):

Not a Kindergarten

Every successful enterprise knows its own requirements best, and develops the best system for its own purpose. We manufacture business machinery. Our appliances and supplies are boiled down to a few parts, and simple forms, and will accommodate any system in any business. The office boy can understand and use them. If we undertook to teach the whole world how to run its business, we would have to saddle the cost on those who buy for what we tried to teach those who do not.

System in business is desirable, but no system can make a business successful, where the management is deficient. So called ‘Systems’ often result in useless expense and disappointment. We retain what experience proves useful and practical; so far as possible, eliminating all complicated and useless features. This explains how we can employ the best workmanship and material, combined with pleasing designs, and sell our goods with profit at lower prices than the inferior articles offered by others.

There may have been some booklets at some point, but I've not run across them for any of the major manufacturers of the time. (I've only loosely searched this area.) Some of the general principles were covered in various articles in System Magazine which was published by Shaw-Walker, a filing cabinet manufacturer, in the early century. System Magazine was sold to McGraw-Hill which renamed it Business Week, but it is now better known as Bloomberg Business Week. In the December 1906 issue of System, W. K. Kellogg, the President of the Toasted Corn Flake Company, is quoted touting the invaluable nature of the Shaw-Walker filing system at a time when his company was using 640 drawers of their system.

To some extent the smaller discrete "system" was really a part of a broader range of information and knowledge of business and competition. This can be seen in the fact that System Magazine still exists, just under an alternate name, along with a much broader area of business schools and business systems. We've just "forgotten" (or take for granted) the art of the smaller systems and processes which seemed new in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Other companies had "systems" they sold or taught, much like Tiago Forte teaches his "Second Brain" method or Nick Milo teaches "Linking Your Thinking". However, most of them were really in the business of selling goods: furniture, filing cabinets, desks, index cards, card dividers, etc. and this was where the real money was to be found at the time.

A similar example in the space is the Memindex System booklet that came with their box and index cards. The broad principles of the system can be described in a few paragraphs so that the average person can read it and modify it to their particular needs or use case. The company never felt the need to write an entire book along the lines of David Allen's Getting Things Done or Ryder Carroll's Bullet Journal Method. Allen and Carroll are selling systems by way of books or classes. Admittedly, Carroll does have custom printed notebooks for using his methods, but I suspect these are a tiny fraction of the overall notebook sales for those who use his method.

Here's evidence of a correspondence course from the Library Bureau some time after 1927, which was when they'd been purchased by Remington Rand: https://www.ebay.com/itm/335534180049 . Library Bureau had an easier time as their system was standardized for libraries, though they did have efforts to cater to business concerns the way Shaw-Walker, The Macey Company, Globe-Wernicke and others certainly did.

I think the best examples in broader book form from that time period are Kaiser's two books which still stand up pretty well today for those creating knowledge management systems, zettelkasten, commonplace books, getting things done/productivity systems, second brains, etc.

Kaiser, J. Card System at the Office. The Card System Series 1. London: Vacher and Sons, 1908. http://archive.org/details/cardsystematoffi00kaisrich.

———. Systematic Indexing. The Card System Series 2. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., 1911. http://archive.org/details/systematicindexi00kaisuoft.

“Real business is done on paper. Okay? Write that down.” —Michael Scott<br /> (class full of students types the quote into their computer keyboards)

The Office S3 E16 "Business School"<br /> Episode aired Feb 15, 2007<br /> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0964922/ <br /> See also clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol-wwJBVncQ

courses on effective imitation.

If imitation is so effective, what would teaching imitation to students look like in a variety of settings including, academia, business, and other areas?

Is teaching by way of imitation the best method for the majority of students? Are there ways to test this versus other methods for broad effectiveness?

How can we better leverage imitation in teaching for application to the real world?

Major COVID course correction immediately required. (n.d.). Retrieved February 7, 2022, from https://ozsage.org/media_releases/major-covid-course-correction-immediately-required/

Prof. Christina Pagel. (2022, January 19). This makes it so clear that the release of all measures right now (esp masks, esp schools) is only to protect himself & his job. Boris has zero interest in protecting others from getting sick, needing hospital or dying. Or protecting businesses, schools, NHS from disruption. [Tweet]. @chrischirp. https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1483884632651313152

Interesting statement!

A Different Theory of Economic Development | Inside Higher Ed. (n.d.). Retrieved September 25, 2020, from https://insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/different-theory-economic-development

James O’Brien on Twitter. (n.d.). Twitter. Retrieved August 30, 2020, from https://twitter.com/mrjamesob/status/1299248453416083456

Sellgren, K. (2020, August 5). Schools “should be first to open, last to close.” BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/education-53650648

Sudden Stop: When Did Firms Anticipate the Potential Consequences of COVID-19?. COVID-19 and the Labor Market. (n.d.). IZA – Institute of Labor Economics. Retrieved July 29, 2020, from https://covid-19.iza.org/publications/dp13457/

• Greg Autry
• Greg Autry | USC Marshall
• Greg Autry Biography | National Space Society

The Lancet. (2020). Sustaining containment of COVID-19 in China. The Lancet, 395(10232), 1230. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30864-3

Jameson, J. #eLeadership. Paper.li. https://paper.li/jjameson/1299791439#/

Lades, L., Laffan, K., Daly, M., & Delaney, L. (2020, April 22). Daily emotional well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/pg6bw