In trying to find a way to have a comprehensive database that anyone in the office can tap into when they need to look at research to help them plan new programs, Skim and I came across a problem.  Of the categories we had, there was no clear separation – most topics could stand on their own, but could also be subtopics of at least another topic.  It was impossible to organize it nicely, which made it a logistical nightmare.  What we needed was a way to cross reference readily and have intense searchability.

So what did I come up with?  Blogging.

Simple. Clean. Professional.

Yup, since with a blog you can make each entry a “file” and use the categories to put it into “file cabinets” for a loose framework.  From there, tags can be added for cross-referencing and the search function allows you to search the entire text of posts to find relevant keywords.  Brilliant, no?  Blogs are truly a powerful tool and I don’t know if anyone ever considered it a database outright, but essentially that’s what it is.  For personal bloggers, it’s a database of their lives.  For professional bloggers, it’s a database for their expertise.  For companies, it’s a database for their development.  How awesome is that?  No wonder I love blogging.  So, now I would like to present you with a new term: blogobase.  A database housed on a blog.

This is far better than Access, which we were going to use, not only because it’s less confusing, but it’s far more accessible.  Initially people would have had to use the one PC in the office (seems only the transient staff own PCs – this place is Mac Heaven) to look at the information in the database.  As Slim and I slaved over idea after idea of how to make it work best in that program, we found it to be inadequate.  Now we don’t have to worry what platform people are on.  The internet comes to the rescue again and provides mobility and accessibility to our database so anyone anywhere (authorized, of course) can edit it as they need.  Ah, the beauty of group/shared blogs!

We’re still working on some of the details of making it even easier to browse (like displaying summaries rather than the full text for quicker scanning), but soon it’s going to be the grandfather of all databases.  All we have to do is get all relevant people to be authorized to post and we’ll have an ongoing internal development project!  Suddenly, boring data entry type work is exciting because we made it interesting by putting it in the form of a blog entry!  Skim and I are having a field day setting things up and I’m glad for my experience blogging, since it was so useful to draw from for inspiration.

This is why I think it’s important for everyone to pursue things they love and have a broad base of experiences.  After all, you never know what seemingly unrelated ideas you could link up, or what could inspired from something you remember doing, seeing, or hearing.  Creativity works at its best when it has a lot of random things to draw from and the freedom to start connecting those things until something strikes us.  Extracurriculars and personal development are key to this process!  I hope my other random experiences will value add to other aspects of my life as well.  There’s nothing quite as exhilarating as linking something you do for fun with work.