When you don't know what you don't know

Lots of asyncronous dialog about my Qunu, the 'push-to-talk-to-an-expert' company, post going on this week. The Qunu team wrote some well thought out comments back to my critique. And Dean had a really good point to make about my last post on Qunu, . When it comes to needed expert advise on a subject, bulletin boards are a actually better. Why? Peer review. If you ask a technical question on the bulletin board, both the question and the answer are public. So if someone gives you bad advise, it tends to get corrected. And it should be faster, because in theory the first person who knows the answer to your question responds. However - Dean points out the true value of the free-form talk - when you don't know what you don't know. This is where google, search engines, and many expert locators fail. Its easy enough to find the answer to a question when you know the question. But its not uncommon as a knowledge worker to need to know something that is well outside your area of expertise. And when you are working outside your area of expertise, its hard to know where to start, or even how to ask the question. And thats where something like Qunu really comes into play: the chance to engage an expert in an extended dialog.