Seth Godin had an idea about using EditGrid or Google Spreadsheets to pull data out of search results in more meaningful ways that are now possible.  But when someone tries to research how to do it and finds it can be done, sorta, now,  the results are boring.

Why?  It’s the idea behind those requests and ties in with Seth’s earlier posting about Museums and why people don’t go more often to Museums; Seth is often working on the same problem from many points of view.

The problem is that people use information differently than the tools that were designed to manipulate and collect data.  Spreadsheets are not easy to make into automatic data collection repositories that pick up on what we want and go fetch it.  And people don’t go to museums as often because many people feel they can’t really take in most of what’s in the musuem (there’s too much thrown at them all at once). 

What’s the common point between these two examples - a lot of information but it’s not usable.  For many, a spreadsheet is too hard to use the way Seth mentions and a Museum is too hard for some to get anything useful out of going.

BTW, I like museums.