Darren Neimke arrived in Canberra last night so he could start out at a client site with me on Monday. We were having a chat over lunch about the applications of various pieces of technology. Darren is getting into InfoPath and SharePoint at the moment and I’ve always been a big fan of the WikiWikiWeb.
I think both of us realise that the technologies that we are passionate about don’t necessarily work in every situation – but how do you figure out that something is appropriate or not? I think there is a very coarse grouping that you can make. Structured and unstructured . . .
Work with me:
- Expense Claim = Structured
- New Product Idea = Unstructured?
- Leave Form = Structured
- This Blog Post = Unstructured
- My Brain = Definately Unstructured
- Bug Report = Structured (depending on who fills it out)
Thats just a simple list. But I think there is a theme in the structured data area – its business as usual stuff. Things that you can build ahead of time and expect to get an ROI on. Unstructured data is all about coping with things that are out of the ordinary. For example – I don’t have a form to log my discussions with Darren 