A bundle of great thoughts here. Thanks! Love the idea of an \”integrator incubator\”… kind of a la the \”training for trainers\” model. Nice.

Thanks also for the endorsement of integrators! Gideon’s definition is great, I hadn’t seen that before.

I am unconvinced that ‘automated integrator’ tools can do the job of (or even be compared to) a human integrator. While the TechAtlas tool is a great structured way to gather the information needed for technology assessment and planning, there is no replacement for the person to person consultancy process which intelligently reviews that information, relates it to the organizational mission, the subtleties of the orgs culture and working practices and then tries to align these with a strategic direction, specific technologies and training needs in order to transform or improve effectiveness.

Perhaps one useful incremental step in that direction might be the tying together of the TechAtlas Approach with the upcoming directories like your ning.ToolCrib.com or www.SocialSourceCommons.org in which the data collected by the assessment tool triggers tech tool suggestions based on keyword/tagging from the directories. But while this might provide some rudamentary sign-posts, it would still leave a lot of human consultancy work to be done.

With regard to the database, my sense is there just aren’t very many integrators around - and we have a hard time keeping up with the speed of change and available tools ourselves. This deficit is also true of the for-profit world, and even of IT depts the world over, where in my experience the focus is on the hardware infrastructure and the break/fix model of support rather than improving data and process management.

Perhaps an ‘integrator incubator’ would be helpful!