Take a minute to read the whole Directory. Then, try combining  terms from the facets – Actors, Action, Judgements, Measurements terms and Time frame. Note how the tag line tells the story of the Clip in general terms.

ACTORS

Energy

Oil

Renewables

Biofuels

Ethanol

Coal

Nuclear

Electricity

Economy

Business

Financial markets

Stock markets

Agriculture, Farming

Food

Media

Web 2.0

Clipmarks

Consumers

Housing

Currencies

Exchange rates

Interest rates

Growth

Society

Culture

Government

Military

Politics

Health

Consciousness

Evcon

Ethics

Metaknowledge

Taxonomies

Environment

Land

Forests

Farmland

Soil

Atmosphere

CO2

Methane

Water

Glaciers

Sea Ice

Species

ACTION

Processes

Commercial

Innovation

Investment

Policy (making), Strategy

Spending

Taxation

War

Employment

Non commercial

Carbon offsetting

Climate change

Drought

Melting

Pollution

Ecocide

Evolution

Fires

Peak oil

States

Commercial

Ownership

Supply

Demand

Debt

Price, Pricing, Prices

Costs

Recession

Liquidity

Non commercial

Disease

Extinction

Safety

JUDGEMENTS

Positive

Opportunities, Opportunity

Sustainability

Efficiency

Negative

Risk, Risks

Crisis

Neutral

Consequences

Paradigm shift

Uncertainty

MEASUREMENT TERMS

`General

Depletion

Lack

Decline

Acceleration

Comparison

Record

Decrease

Increase

Monetary

Inflation

Deflation

Losses

Profits

TIME FRAME

Forecast

Current (to be implemented)

Historical (to be implemented)

Actors

Energy

Oil

Renewables

Biofuels

Ethanol

Coal

Nuclear

Electricity

Economy

Business

Financial markets

Stock markets

Agriculture, Farming

Food

Media

Clipmarks

Web 2.0

Consumers

Housing

Currencies

Exchange rates

Interest rates

Growth

Trade

Society

Culture

Government

Military

Politics

Health

Consciousness

Evcon

Ethics

Metaknowledge

Taxonomies

Environment

Land

Forests

Farmland

Soil

Atmosphere

CO2

Methane

Water

Glaciers

Sea Ice

Living Species

Action

Processes

Commercial

Innovation

Investment

Policy (making), Strategy

Spending

Taxation

War

Employment

Non commercial

Carbon offsetting

Climate change

Drought

Melting

Pollution

Ecocide

Evolution

Fires

Peak oil

States

Commercial

Ownership

Supply

Demand

Debt

Price, Pricing, Prices

Costs

Recession

Liquidity

Non commercial

Disease

Extinction

Safety

Judgements

Positive

Opportunities, Opportunity

Sustainability

Efficiency

Negative

Risk, Risks

Crisis

Neutral

Consequences

Paradigm shift

Uncertainty

Measurement terms

General

Depletion

Lack

Decline

Acceleration

Comparison

Record

Decrease

Increase

Monetary

Inflation

Deflation

Losses

Profits

Time frame

Forecast

Current (to be implemented)

Historical (to be implemented)

“A recent research piece by Bank of
America estimates that approximately $500 billion of
adjustable rate US mortgages are scheduled to reset
skyward in 2007 by an average of over 200 basis points,”
says Bill Gross. “2008 holds even more surprises with
nearly $700 billion ARMS subject to reset, nearly
three-quarters of which are subprimes.”

Here in the UK, one million home-owners
will meet the end of their fixed-rate deals in the next
12 months, says the Financial Times – your correspondent
amongst them. The trouble has barely begun, in short. “It
is only since last month that those whose fixed rates
were expiring found themselves facing a bigger bill for a
new fix,” notes Gary Duncan in today’s Times. “Now ever-
rising numbers of people with expiring fixed-rate loans
will face an unappetising choice between a more expensive
variable rate, or a new, more costly fixed offer.”

None of this would need to cause trouble beyond a mere
house-price crash and consumer slump – if only it weren’t
for the credit derivatives issued against so much of the
world’s outstanding housing debt. Running up debt – a
promise to pay in the future – can only last as long as
the promise comes good. Squaring that promise by issuing
a derivative against it only increases the chance – and
the cost – of it failing.

“Where the knowledge representatives, i.e. linguistic symbolization as words, is easily pointed out by descriptive (statistical) analysis, the represented knowledge i.e. the meaning signified is harder to capture. Within semiotics it is referred as relation between sign and object. However in order to connect the sign and object, a process of interpretation is required. The act of interpretation is an act of
meaning making. In order to relate sign and object, certain skills, ideas, concepts and knowledge are required by the interpreter e.g. domain knowledge in order to distinguish certain observations within a specific discourse and consequently activate communal symbolizations i.e. terminology.”
Meaning is in this view not objective, but discursive; concepts does
not ‘mean’ objectively but relatively to a frame of thought from where it is conceived.
The approach assuming that objective categories exist in the world promotes a objectivist ideal, and consequently endorses universal
ontologies; concepts have only one meaning (Wüster 1985; Felber 1989), where on the other hand, the interpretive view endorses that concepts are based in human cognition, and consequently promote a constructivist approach; concepts, are constructed to serve a purpose, including certain individual and social values and interests”

(Concepts and terminology reflected from a LIS perspective. – How do we reflect meanings of concepts? – Martin Thellefsen Associate Professor, Royal School of Library and Information Studies, Denmark)

by Brian Durrant

Yields have fluctuated, but each successive peak in yields has been lower than the preceding one. Those peaks provide the points of contact for a downtrend line that has survived for 20 years. Traders that have bought Treasury bonds when yields were on the line made money time after time. Accordingly the line has been a source of great confidence. Such trends give traders something to hang on to.

TM2: Expectations of low interest rates makes it much easier to sell debt, since pay back rates seem affordable

But when trend that has been in place for so long breaks, there is pandemonium in dealing rooms. This is what happened in the US Treasuries market on Thursday June 7. Once the downtrend line had been crossed at the yield of 5.05% on 10-year paper, there was indiscriminate selling of US Treasury bonds.

To some traders the breaking of the trend line marks the end of an era of ever cheaper credit. Hitherto the stock market has gained enormously from cheap credit. It has made it worthwhile for companies to buy back their stock at a record rate. It has also enabled the private equity industry to go on its buy-out binge, taking out public companies at values significantly higher than priced by the market.

TM2: Blackstone’s recent share offering may not be a coincidence. It is they kind of companies that they buy out which are liable to suffer most from any credit tightening, not to mention Blackstone’s own liability. The key decision in speculative financial markets is when to activate your exit strategy i.e. pass the risk on to someone else.

Moreover the long-term optimism engendered by low stable bond yields allowed the rapid development of credit derivatives. These have made it easier for lenders to spread their risks. This in turn reduced the rates at which companies could borrow.

The last time bond yields were as high was in mid-2002 when stock markets were in free fall. In the last three months the cost of 10-year money has risen from 4.5% to a high of 5.33%. If bond market losses are compounded in the future, it will force a more widespread flight out of risky investments that have been founded on cheap money and low volatility.

Although it is too early to say that we are at the end of the four-year rally in equities, we may be at
the beginning of the end.

TM2 – It looks very like the trends are really starting to reverse.

Couple this historic cheapness with the fact that larger companies tend to have the highest dividend yields, strongest cash flows and highest return on equity and the case for shifting into mega-cap stocks
becomes quite compelling.

TM2 – Returns on these stocks will be much lower than those which traders have become accustomed to. Plus it is unlikely that these megacap stocks will be immune from the consequences of a credit squeeze.

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.

Consumers: Consumers are portayed as “taking a break” on spending as major US retailers reported April sales which were described as “the worst on record”.

Housing: With home sales estimated by the US National Association of Realtors to have suffered their biggest drop in nearly two decades, Robert Shiller, the Yale Economist who predicted the Internet bubble, is cited in ‘The Financial Times’ warning of a housing bubble “to match the Internet bubble”. He says UK and Spanish house prices are twice as over valued as in the US.

Trade: The US trade deficit is reported reaching a six month high on May 11, while China’s trade surplus is said to have doubled in March continuing a two year accelerating trend with its main trading partners, the US and Europe.

Markets: Companies are reported re-purchasing shares in un-precedented numbers boosting sharing prices, but setting the stage for “coming tsunami” of equity supply. The cost of borrowing is expected to increase, which will add to “the swollen ranks of lowly-rated firms that are up to their necks in debt” which will have to sell shares — as well as various other assets — as a matter of survival, often regardless of price. Meanwhile, Warren Buffet calls the $1.6 trillion hedge fund industry with its fast trades in and out of assets “a fool’s game”. On May 5 ‘The Daily Reckoning’ suggests “Practically every one of them is walking around with dynamite taped to its belt”.

Debt: According to the Bank of England, a “surge” in cheap corporate lending and looser credit standards is an increasing danger to the global financial system. ‘The Financial Times’ quotes Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, the $1,000bn-plus fund management group, saying “lending to highly indebted companies was becoming lax in ways similar to those that have undermined the US subprime mortgage market, making the leveraged loan market tomorrow’s problem”.

TM2 – How was your experience being the Featured Clipper?

RGS – Today, I was pleasantly surprised to be informed that I was the “featured clipper” on Clipmarks. I had already noted items that I wanted to clip, but might not have got around to doing it. Being Featured Clipper encouraged me that GET CLIPPING, and I did. I clipped stuff from BBC radio on the subjects of Hurricane Katrina (under disaster management), UK identity cards, the £200 a day fee for all trucks in Greater London. I also clipped this year’s Reith Lectures on how popular pressure can improve the lives of the world’s poorest and save the environment too because I feel that my fellow clippers should be aware of such matters.

I felt more part of the Clipmarks community. I also felt that I wanted to tell others outside Clickmarks that I was the featured Clipper. And I like the feeling that I am helping my Followers stay on top of key information flows.