Robert J. Glushko

Much of the business transacted on the Web today takes place through information exchanges made possible by using documents as interfaces. For example, what seems to be a simple purchase from an online bookstore actually involves at least three different business collaborations—between the customer and the online catalog to select a book; between the bookstore and a credit card authorization service to verify and charge the customer's account; and between the bookstore and the delivery service with instructions for picking up and delivering the book to the customer.

Organizing is such a common activity that we often do it without thinking much about it. In our daily lives we organize physical things--books on shelves, cutlery in kitchen drawers--and digital things--Web pages, MP3 files, scientific datasets. Millions of people create and browse Web sites, blog, tag, tweet, and upload and download content of all media types without thinking “I’m organizing now” or “I’m retrieving now.”