Quote:
Originally posted by darkcreature
I think we should find someone who can program for PDAs, and consult with them, PHP programmers, IT guros and everyone come together to create the ultimate central scouting database (not saying that SOAP's is not nice) but use good tools PHP, Apache2, MySQL, and Jakarta and such to make something extremely nice for everyone to share and use...
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Great idea, but are you willing to work hard to accomplish it? Some of us have tried for years to reach this goal, but have failed. Hopefully someone will eventually succeed. Here are a few tips if you're serious about trying.
- Obviously it's a huge task, so get ready to work your butt off.
- Try to get as many people & teams in the 'inner circle' of decision makers. The first year I did WASH, Wildstang chose the data fields to collect, but the next year we got other teams involved in the decisions. Because of that we had better fields and more people were happy with the end product. But the more people you have the harder it will be to make the final decision. Figure out how to fix this problem. Maybe you should study how some open source projects operate before starting.
- Plain & simple, if the scouting standard is 'owned' by a single team it will fail. I can't say exactly why, but it will. Deal with other teams enough and you'll soon understand what I'm saying. Maybe the reason is that others are reluctant to join another team's effort because the other team will get all the glory.
- Leave your ego at the door. One of the biggest problems I found in trying to get scouting systems to work together is that people have a lot of pride in what they created and think it's the best - which is understandable. They are reluctant to change anything. Be willing to accept that someone else has a better idea or application and either use it or improve on it.
- Aim for interoperability. Come up with a set of data that you'll gather and a method or standard format to share that data. XML seems like a good choice. That way anyone can 'plug in' their module (PalmOS, Pocket PC, web app, etc) and start sharing data.
- Learn to be a good salesman. The two years that I worked on WASH, I loved the technical aspect of designing and coding the PalmOS app and the database, but I despised trying to 'sell' the product and get others to use it.
- Most people don't understand how difficult this project is. It's not something you can accomplish in a week, or even a month. It's an entire systems engineering project. You need to design the system from the ground up and then create requirements for each module.
I like what Jack and everyone at 201 have done so far with FBI. At first I was turned off when he listed the data he was gathering and told everyone to use it or else, but it looks like he has changed his tune.
Good luck to everyone who creates a scouting tool, I hope it's successful for you & everyone who uses it. If you really want to come up with a scouting standard, go for it. If you need help, ask the CD community and I'm sure you'll get a lot of volunteers.