You’ve got to really love note-taking apps to stumble upon an epic beef in the ___personal knowledge management___ world. In 2018, [Evernote users began migrating]() to the [“all purpose tool” Notion](). However, barely a year later there’s a new kid on the block: [RoamResearch]() creating a productivity geek’s own version of East Coast vs West Coast. ## What is Roam Research? Roam’s [Conor White-Sullivan]() describes the app as __“A note-taking tool for networked thought__.” The app’s been under development for two years and has already garnered an eye-popping list of power users who go by the [#roamcult](). And to see the beef in action, you have to look no further than shared tweets between [Tiago Forte (from Building a Second Brain) and Conor White-Sullivan (Roam’s creator]()). Even RadReaders threw their hat in the mix, with messages coming at me via Slack, Twitter and DM. So what’s the beef? How does it work? And should you try? ## __It’s a battle of ideologies, not tools__ What this ___note-taking beef___ highlights shows the inherent tension of any system to collect ideas. * Is your knowledge organized __associatively__ or __hierarchically__? * Do your notes hold their own in __isolation__ or mandate __inter-connectivity__? * Are you more of a __hedgehog__ or a __fox__? The famous [Isaiah Berlin essay]() distinguished hedgehogs as seeing the world through world through the lens of __a single defining idea__ , whereas foxes reversed engineered a worldview __from distinct observations__. ## __Zettelkasten’s been around for a while__ However, this ideas’s been around for along time. It’s got a crazy name that I can’t even pronounce: [Zettelkasten]() (German for “slip box” or “card index.”) And like GTD, the PARA method and Bullet Journaling, it’s a system. One that works with physical note cards, or tools like Roam, Evernote, and Notion. (In fact, one of our students from our [Notion course]() played with the [Zettelkasten approach in Notion]().) ## __What’s the verdict on Roam?__ The core idea behind Roam is bi-directional links. Imagine if you could tag any paragraph (or image, or bullet) within a note and then string together all the graph of relationships through these links. Effectively, you’re creating a mini-web of every idea fragment you’ve ever had. Here’s my explanation of bi-directional links and where Roam shines: [su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/3GG0Ck14ISM” width=”1600″] For a writer, that’s extremely compelling. I know I’m aways trying to create a patchwork of zeitgeist ideas, anecdotes, quotes, and emotions in the perfect post. With Roam, you could have tags for each of these buckets and when it came time to write the post, could visualize the “tree of ideas.” So if you were to look up the list of idea fragments for the tag #story, you’d see the following screen: So for now, I’m super-intrigued by Roam, particularly for the messier part of my brain that I tap into for writing. Right now, my Notion editorial setup is super Foxy (i.e. hierarchical) and it could benefit from a sprinkle of Hedgehog-iness.