Why Your Second Brain Isn’t Producing Insights — The Knowledge Graph Fix! — Transcript

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1. 0:00In this video, I want to talk about the  second brain and why your second brain needs
2. 0:05a knowledge graph. A second brain is a system  that allows people to capture, organize, store,
3. 0:12and retrieve information using an external tool  like a knowledge management system, for example,
4. 0:17Obsidian that you see right now on your screen.  However, the problem with most approaches is
5. 0:22that they focus too much on classifying ideas into  different folders. And while this can be useful,
6. 0:28in fact our human brains do not work in this  way. They work based on associations on reasoning
7. 0:36logics and rules. So this is why knowledge graphs  are super useful. And if we can visualize our
8. 0:41ideas like I have here with my obsidian folder  as a knowledge graph and then apply graph theory
9. 0:47metrics that allow us to identify what are the  most important topics or clusters of ideas that
10. 0:52we have inside our vault, how they're connected  to one another, what are the gaps between them,
11. 0:58what are the different concepts at the periphery  of our thinking that could benefit from being
12. 1:03developed further. You know this gives us much  more capabilities especially if we talk about
13. 1:08research or creative work. On top of that if  you have a network structure visualized to you
14. 1:14as a graph and represented as a graph then you  can also identify diversity and this is what
15. 1:19InfraNodus does here. I have the InfraNodus graph  view extension here in Obsidian and I analyze the
16. 1:24whole folder of business ideas that I have and  then it shows me okay that I'm too focused here.
17. 1:30You see I have the diversity measure and so  it gives me an advice that I could diversify
18. 1:35my ideas. So I could benefit from thinking about  the clusters and ideas that are at the periphery
19. 1:41of the graph and if the graph was too dispersed  then it would encourage me to connect those ideas
20. 1:46together better. So as you can see this structural  approach and graph representation allows you to
21. 1:52not only generate interesting ideas and find gaps  but also identify how you can be thinking in order
22. 1:58to harmonize your knowledge. And in this video  I'm going to show you how you can do that and how
23. 2:04you can apply this approach to your particular use  case. Because what most people do, you know, when
24. 2:10they have a folder like I have here for instance  with business ideas that I've been writing down,
25. 2:14sometimes using voice recorders, sometimes using  text and I visualize it as a graph, right? Like I
26. 2:20can see the main topics inside. If I click here  in the InfraNodus extension, I can see what are
27. 2:25the main topical clusters in this idea. So I get a  really nice overview, but I can control how I will
28. 2:31be thinking around this graph. Because if I just  ask the AI to give me a summary of all the ideas
29. 2:37in this folder, AI will do what it does best. It  will generate a really predictable outcome that
30. 2:43will be quite generic. Of course, I can do some  prompt gymnastics in order to get it extract some
31. 2:49hidden insights, but it's going to be hard and I  have uh no control over how it does it. Even if I
32. 2:55ask it to explain how it's thinking, it's just  going to actually take me a lot of time. Here
33. 3:00with the graph visualizing all the ideas here,  I can directly see okay, I'm focused on workflow
34. 3:07dynamics, on interactive legacy, on content  generation, AI tools, contextual graphs. So if I
35. 3:13know this whole context, I already understand what  I'm talking about and what ideas tend to recur on
36. 3:21the permanent basis. So for example, I understand  that okay, I should really look into this uh idea
37. 3:26of creating repository of different workflows that  I've been thinking about for a while. Also here
38. 3:33I have something about market insights and so on.  And I can click on each of those clusters and then
39. 3:38ask in front to generate a summary of what I was  thinking about in relation to each cluster. And
40. 3:44then I can also look at the actual statements and  reiterate through them to understand where exactly
41. 3:49I was writing uh things that relate to market  insight. So it's really useful to get an overview
42. 3:54and this is kind of like the first uh advantage of  using the graph that you can get a nice overview
43. 3:59but you control what you're looking at and you  can choose exactly what you will be selecting and
44. 4:04what you will be exploring not relying on AI to  make this choice for you and produce some generic
45. 4:10result and maybe forget something that is quite  important to you. And then the second advantage
46. 4:15of using the graph and having this structured  representation of ideas is that you can click
47. 4:20on the gaps here and sometimes you can actually  use the 2D mode here. So you can see the gaps a
48. 4:25little bit better and then you iterate through  them and then you will see that it finds some
49. 4:30gaps between the clusters that are furthest  apart from each other in the graph. It means
50. 4:35that you're thinking about these topics like I'm  thinking about AI tools and uh I have this another
51. 4:39idea of digital legacy but I'm not connecting  them together. So for me a nice idea would be
52. 4:45how I can connect those two clusters together.  And if you use an analogy with social networks
53. 4:50it's like you have two groups that kind of like  to hang out together but never connect and maybe
54. 4:55they would benefit from being introduced to each  other. So maybe these two clusters of ideas could
55. 5:00also benefit from being introduced. And there's  a whole theory that shows that really great ideas
56. 5:05lie exactly at those structural gaps between  different topics. So I can identify those topics
57. 5:10using the InfraNodus graph and then generate an  interesting research question that would propose
58. 5:15me how I can bridge those ideas together and then  I can reiterate through them and generate some
59. 5:21really interesting stuff that will get me thinking  in this direction and help me connect my ideas
60. 5:26further. One other thing I mentioned is that you  can switch to the concepts view and then you can
61. 5:32increase the number of concepts you see here. And  then what I like to do is to also use the graph to
62. 5:37identify what I have at the periphery of my ideas  like some smaller stuff that will take me beyond
63. 5:43this bubble that I'm in when I'm thinking about  a certain topic. Right? So I can select those and
64. 5:49also generate a business idea for example based  on those clusters and that will help me take my
65. 5:55ideas further beyond the limits of that particular  knowledge graph. So is also a really interesting
66. 6:01way to ideulate and finally like I showed you  at the beginning you have this diversity measure
67. 6:07that shows you what the structure of your network  is. So it kind of gives you an advice that okay
68. 6:11Demetri you're too focused on certain ideas here  in this case you know I'm talking a lot about AI
69. 6:17and marketing and if I look at the topics you know  I can have like a more highle overview and maybe
70. 6:23you would benefit from actually diversifying your  ideas. So that means focusing on smaller clusters,
71. 6:29looking beyond the periphery and kind of seeing  how you can uh make them a little bit different
72. 6:34from each other or maybe even erasing some of  the central ideas and focusing on the ones that
73. 6:40are less obvious. So this would be another really  useful way to apply graphs to this thinking. So as
74. 6:46you see, we're not really imposing categories  on top of our knowledge, but we allow them to
75. 6:52organically emerge from the bottom up. and we use  a network science and graphs in order to make sure
76. 6:59that they will be fully related to the content  that we're studying. So that I find is very very
77. 7:06interesting. And one last thing, if you want to  see how that works, uh the easiest way to do it
78. 7:11is to install the InfraNodus graph view plug-in  to Obsidian if you're already using Obsidian. If
79. 7:18you don't have Obsidian, you can also go inside  InfraNodus and create a new graph and import from
80. 7:23multiple sources that we have. So for example, if  you have Evernote, you can import your Evernote
81. 7:28notes here and then connect it to your vault and  then you see I have the connection here. So I can
82. 7:34import my notes from any folder and then once you  do that you will have it visualized and then you
83. 7:40can analyze it also using the graph inside  InfraNodus. But if you use obsidian you can
84. 7:46um organize your ideas into folders. So here I'm  using categories. Okay. But it's because I want
85. 7:51to have things slightly organized. But inside  this organization I would like some ideas to
86. 7:57emerge. So this is why I select uh this folder  once I have the uh graph view plug-in installed
87. 8:03and then I right click on that folder and I say  okay open InfraNodus graph. And what it does is
88. 8:07that it takes all those different notes all  those different ideas I've been having. Some
89. 8:12of them are more developed, some less and then it  visualizes them as a graph and shows me okay what
90. 8:16are the main topics inside how they connect to  one another and then you apply this workflow that
91. 8:20I demonstrated earlier to see uh how you could  develop them further and you can use the built-in
92. 8:27AI to summarize ideulate and also generate  questions in relation to them. So, I hope you find
93. 8:33it useful and I hope it will enhance your approach  to building your second brain. And like I promised
94. 8:39in the end of the video, I will link above to the  video of Nate Jones where he explains how you can
95. 8:45build a really nice stack using n8n and various  tools to kind of like create your own system where
96. 8:52you can capture ideas through Slack and then use  categorization to split them into different groups
97. 8:58and then uh retrieve them using notifications.  I really like his approach. So I recommend you
98. 9:03to check him out and also give a shout out from  Dimmitri from InfraNodus as well. All right. So
99. 9:09if you have any questions, let me know. I'll  be happy to help you. And also if you have any
100. 9:14comments or feedback, I will be happy to engage  in the comments section below the video. Thanks.