A Site That Grabs You By Your Curiosity

The caution was 'be careful, once you enter this site you'll want to spend a lot of time there'-- and it is oh so true.

Nearly every day I hear people say they are challenged to get people to be interested in the information/knowledge they want to share or perplexed about how to present what people really want to know.

The answer, they proclaim, is that if it is not immediately usable, people will not be interested in the information

WARNING: This site will debunk at least some of those ideas.

The site I reference here is 'Structurae: An International Database and Gallery of Structures' http://en.structurae.de/index.cfm

In knowledge management we spend a great deal of time talking about immediate relevancy and how important it is to make the information usable at the moment people want it or they will not take the time to look.

Well folks, I am no architect, nor am I a structural engineer and I have no desire to build or remodel a home. Yet I am fascinated to learn about the structural details and construction methods of everything from a refurbished apartment building in Paris to the Pyramids.

Why? Because we are all curious, at least to some extent, about the world around us.

We forget that people are people and that around the globe we DO have some common experiences. One of those is that we are surrounded by structures that peak our curiosity or grab our attention. Those structures we do not experience in person, we see in pictures and this is a place to learn about them in a level of detail that feels as though we are voyeuristically looking in on a personal database, something we are not usually allowed to see.

Is it perfect? No. Do I care that it is not perfect? Not in the least.

Let's do more in our own work to tap each other's creativity and curiosity and let go, just a bit, of the immediacy we are so addicted to. We all need to look up and look out-- look at our world not just at what sits on top of our desk or is articulated in our goals. Let our goal be to explore the world around us. This site is a great place to begin that journey.