Taxonomies 3.0
Taxonomy specialist Jan Wyllie, author of one of Ark Group’s biggest-selling special reports, is writing an updated report intended for publication before the end of the year. IK interviewed him about his reasons for bringing out a Third Edition.
What’s new since the old report that makes it worth writing a follow-up?
The report, which was written four years ago, does include sections on folksonomies and tagging over the new user made Web of blogs and wikis which was at the beginning of what is now called Web 2.0. Now the millions who use the new free media of Web 2.0 just assign any descriptive words which come to mind, and hope to remember them, and that other people whom they would like to see their stuff will happen to use the same words.
As Web 2.0 platforms migrate from the open internet enthusiasts to the worlds of business and government, the issue of information management will become a company-wide problem, rather than the problem which information professionals and taxonomists are paid to solve. Everyone will start tagging and chaos is liable to result.
Yet we know that taxonomies, especially faceted classification, add considerable meaning and value to the information retrieval experience. They help people turn information, whether in the form of text, sound or video ‘out there’ into practical knowledge ‘in here’.
The purpose of the Third Edition will be to make an understanding of how and why to use taxonomies as part of an information management strategy available to the growing number of casual taggers, both inside and outside corporations, whose knowledge acquisition experience is being impoverished by the unnecessary confusion, information overload and chaos that ensues after random tagging.
Will it be all-new material or simply additional or re-written chapters?
My belief, backed up by the positive feedback on the first and second editions, is that one of the report’s strengths is its organization. So I aim to keep the chapters, but will update and rewrite them. I will also posit new Scenarios at the end, in addition to evaluating how the existing Scenarios fared in the light of the future. I will, of course, also be including a collection of recent finds in the ‘What the Experts say’, key quotation boxes.
Although the core methodologies mentioned do not change, contexts do and experience increases. The whole issue of how best to integrate tagging and taxonomies will be fully addressed, rather than mentioned in passing. Indeed, it is the issue I want to raise in my article next month.
Like methodologies, taxonomy and thesaurus software functionality and techniques actually change very slowly. However, marketing strategies and companies do change, all too frequently. The Technology chapter will have to be overhauled.
Since prospective readers of the report are less likely to be exclusively information management specialists, I will strive to make it as readable and as interesting to read as possible for a general audience.
When do you intend to complete the new report?
The plan is to publish in the autumn.
Why should anyone with the old report(s) buy this new one?
The new report will put taxonomies and the management issues which they raise into the new Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0 business context. It is important for readers of the old report to see where their departments fit in, and to fit the new technologies and practices into their existing business environment. I predict that customer relations will be an area of special interest.
Also as the new blogs, wikis. podcasts, and videocasts make information management a near universal concern, people outside the KM world will need to be informed and to learn. It is because more people need to know this stuff that the price will be considerably less than what Arkgroup charged for the first two editions. The exact price will be announced nearer the publication date.
