At the Tinderbox Forum, an interesting post reminds is about the challenge of everyone’s everyday knowledge work.
I do economic development for a local government, and one of my primary programs consists of running a network of 25 or so resource providers (i.e., consultants) who I connect with various clients. The short version is: a) meet with a client and figure out where they need a hand, and b) start matching them up with consultants who can help them out with their challenges. I'm the matchmaker.
The IT department strictly limits the software that can be used on the government machines; the author uses Tinderbox on his personal laptop which he keeps with him all the time. (This is another reason the iPad is going to matter a lot — it’s a personal device outside the ambit of the bureaucracy.)
i also just created a map of all 162 consultant visits we made this year, grouping each individual consultant visit into various categories (i.e., 44 of the visits were in the "business planning/strategy" category; 14 were in the HR category; 16 were in the "sales/marketing" category, etc.) I'm putting that map up on the projector screen tomorrow during my steering committee meeting. Its a great visual.
I'd expect this would be terrific, too, for lots of NGO work.