I’ve been debating tasking IT with prepping our note taking tools accross my org/enterprise to better prepare us for AI, so that whatever the killer use case looks like for our business, we’re better positioned to adopt it.
We’re rolling out Enterprise ChatGPT, and i’m disappointed to only see one note taking tool (Notion) available under the “available connections” settings options, but I’m sure eventually they will support many more.
While we don’t know exactly what the killer use case for users-notes+AI at an organization like mine will look like, which model will enable it, what the user workflow will look like (plugin vs api vs standalone), it seems like we can at least be ready so that when it reveals itself we are best positioned to adopt/utilize. Obsidian seems well positioned given its: (1) ability to sync/host user notes anywhere (pvt cloud) and thereby avoid 3P hosting lock-in like with Notion; (2) interoperability with whatever Ai tools you might want given the open syntax, notes stored in raw text.
However, my org wants to consider Notion – and i get it from a user experience point of view – more similar to word. I think there are some Obsidian plugins which could get it almost there from user experience standpoint, but there is one thing that seems like a deal breaker if we are talking about adoption for the masses (of my org): we are Microsoft shop. Most of the users are not particularly sophisticated with technology. The way that copy-pasting to and from MSFT related apps works (office, outlook, word, etc.) seems like a deal breaker. You simply cannot copy/paste markdown syntax text from obsidian to word, or from an office-document to obsidian, and have it maintain formatting/spacing, list hierarchies, etc.
Yes there are some workarounds if trying to paste content from html format into obsidian/markdown – i’m aware of plugins like Paste as HTML. This isn’t completely full proof as then the user has to swtich to reader mode to read the content they just pasted, and GOOD LUCK if they have to edit any of it in edit mode.
But i’m simply not aware of any even semi-adequate solution for the other side of this workflow (pasting content copied in Obsidian into a MSFT-App, like Word or Outlook). If a user writes an email in Obsidian and then intends to copy-paste it into an outlook new email window, all spacing is lost, list hierarchies gone, etc.
So all this to ask: (1) is this a limitation of the open syntax/raw text document format of Obsidian (which is also what makes it so great)?; (2) does anybody have any viable solutions to this small user experience flow that would enable me to push Obsidian to a >1k+ enterprise organization?
Any thoughts appreciated