As an old mechanical engineer who only ended up in the software corner through the wrong friends, I sometimes have problems understanding what new technologies and social media are used for. Then, as second level support for the Q-DAS Product Line, I was given the task of looking after the community. It started to be fun. Structured distribution of knowledge. Because as an engineer, you basically have to work in such a way that everyone else can share your own knowledge.
My main task, apart from support, is to write documentation. Technical documentation. With an approval process and corrections. (My favourite books are "Statistics for Engineers" and "Cooking for Engineers")
But there's all that little bit of knowledge that goes through your head after so many years in support. Which can only be explained well in verbal form, like in a conversation with customers or colleagues. How many times have I failed because I couldn't put my thoughts down on paper because it was difficult to express them in a technically correct form.
And then I have an employee who has been complaining for a long time that "we need a blog!"
A blog. So, there you go. And in the community, it was suddenly possible to create one, and I did as I was told. Without knowing what to put in it...
But then I saw the first entries. I looked around on other blogs and platforms, and suddenly I realised that you can't always distribute knowledge in a structured way. Sometimes you have a thought that you want to share, but you don't know how and where and when, and it's not even technically possible. And that's what the blog is for!
Just as Dumbledore stored his thoughts in the "Pensieve", the blog can be used to store short thoughts in a language that is like the spoken word, and anyone can read them.
