Collaboration Is the Database

I write a blog about collaboration with SharePoint. I also use blogs about SharePoint. But my using other blogs discourages me. See I generally find other blogs on SharePoint by searching on Google. This is almost always when something has gone wrong. By then the mistakes have already been made. And by then the information is hard to place in proper context.

I write blog posts about doing things like setting up search context after having some problem with a project I inherit. The issues I deal with are about technically fixing the problems I inherited. But what I want to get people to read is a higher level view of how one should set up search scopes in the first place, to prevent other people making the mistakes I have to live with now months later.

Blogs too often just feed fixes to problem for which its too late for real fixes. In this way they may do as much harm as good.

I don't want to provide or gain data in isolated pieces from search results. I want to provide information in context, I want to get and give information being able to move back and forward asking questions and answering questions on both ends.

The best I can see for a wiki is kind of a "tell me at a high level about this", a good tool for general introductions and support for formal learning. Perhaps the wiki tool will also be a good tool for experience capture. But it still is a high level introduction. For most questions I have Google, Wikipedia and the blogosphere do not provide the right data. One of the great things about working with SharePoint is that someone has already asked almost every technical question that can be asked. The problem is that not all the answers are in place. There is still nothing like an expert.

The promise of a twitter is the ability to ask a pool of global experts anytime on any subject. Until we solve the "AI Problem" there is nothing like being able to ask and expert.