Say I’m in a bookstore trying to choose between two books. Price is not much different, both have very compelling subjects and are written by authors I already know I love, but I am bound and determined to be reasonable, and buy only one, especially because I know there are another twelve or so in a stack at home that I haven’t read yet.

Which will I buy?

No question about it: The one with the best (if any) index.

Before I finish reading the book, I’ll have added to its index as well, writing in dozens of my own entries. When I finally get around to publishing a new edition of my own book, the index pages it has will double (especially because Managing with Aloha was always intended to be a resource book for managers).

With so much information readily at our fingertips in this knowledge-packed world of ours, I have become index-obsessed, especially when the written word does not come with a digital search box, or can’t be archived with the weird-but-mine tags I use in Delicious (still one of my favorite free apps on the web.)

So I naturally feel like I should help others out, and be my own index-writer when I start to churn out new content. Far as the blogging platform goes, I think the choices authors make on categories (like a book’s table of contents in progress) and tags (digital kin to indexing) is thoroughly maddening, but supremely necessary. Some of you will have already stopped reading this post, but if you are anything like me, or if you’ve enjoyed any of what I’ve written here so far, you may like what follows and find it useful too.

Here is a Linked Title Index of what I have populated Say “Alaka‘i” with so far, and I’ll update it every so often as we go forward… we’ll keep it in the Alaka‘i Library category:

About Say “Alaka‘i”

• What is “Say Alaka‘i” all about?
• Management vs. Leadership: Power up your vocabulary!
• Your Aloha has created Sunday Koa Kākou

Definitions and Context~ Alpha version

• Busyness: Business and Busyness: A world of difference
• Friendship Factor: The Friendship Factor; Be the Best Boss Instead
• Ho‘okipa: Hawai‘i’s Primary Recession-Proof Strategy is Ho‘okipa
• Koa Kākou: Your Aloha has created Sunday Koa Kākou
• Leadership: Management vs. Leadership: Power up your vocabulary!
• Management: Management vs. Leadership: Power up your vocabulary!
• Role of the Manager: Staying Positive in a Negative Workplace
• Strategy: The Top 7 Business Themes on my 2009 Wish List
• Value-Alignment: The Holiday Gift of Workplace Values

Article Index

November 2008

• Leaders Don’t Wait for Any Cycle
• Our Thanksgiving Day Management Mahalo
• What’s in the Aloha name? What’s in your name?

December 2008

• Good companies make us healthier”“ but what is healthy?
• “Do you know what I remember most?” [You knew my name.]
• Leaders don’t do all the work
• Business and Busyness: A world of difference
• Hawai‘i’s Primary Recession-Proof Strategy is Ho‘okipa
• The Writing Habit: Best Gift You Can Give
• The Friendship Factor; Be the Best Boss Instead
• Good Delegation Can Happen in Every Conversation
• Staying Positive in a Negative Workplace
• The Holiday Gift of Workplace Values
• It’s Christmas, and You’re at Work
• The Top 7 Business Themes on my 2009 Wish List

How do you practice archive love for the information you want to keep at your fingertips? It is worth spending some time with as the year ends, for the review can trigger several reminders for you, especially with those things you have yet to follow-up on, but might otherwise forget.

Think about it for a sec: Valuing your archives, whether information and knowledge you created or had found and appreciated, is valuing your history. It is also a way to practice Mahalo as a Hawaiian value: Yes, 2008 was a tough year in many ways, but I am quite sure there was a lot of good within it for you too. Mahalo your good.