Border of the Known

In any team-oriented context (product work, academic study, team projects, etc.) the whole team would benefit from documenting and sharing Strong Facts or Strong Opinions¹.

As you practice Note-Making and learn new information you can't know where it belongs.

It could be:

1. Known and documented facts I'm just re-discovering.
2. Already known but undocumented facts I can add to the shared repository.
3. Unknown, undocumented hypotheses that I can validate and then give to the team as insight.

It may take some time to discover that an idea or fact is already in the Border of the Known… shared knowledge you are just learning. If you have written down unrecorded "oral history" you can add to the team's knowledge bank.

Any information you discover that is outside that shared boundary of knowledge is potentially new information… true research. if validated, it is your unique contribution to the knowledge space:

research is simply a continuation of something we already naturally do: learning. Learning happens when you understand something that someone else already understands. Research happens when you understand something that nobody else understands yet.

– Research as Understanding - Kanjun Qiu

In a cooperative shared space, you can validate, persuade, and publish moving it into the shared knowledge pool. In a competitive space you can keep this information to improve your position.