Folksonomies&Taxonomies Dow Jones Webcast

© Copyright 2007 Dow Jones and Company, Inc.

2© Copyright 2008 Dow Jones and Company, Inc.

Who am I?

Part of the Client Solutions Group within the Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group based in San Francisco. Work with large corporations in deploying information strategies through various parts of the enterpriseAn avid social media fan and producer on the topic of information delivery in the enterprise, she continually ‘eats her own dog food’ by using social media tools and processes to engage with customers and prospects. Have a Masters of Library and Information Science (MLIS) from the School of Information and Library Science at Rutgers Have been with Dow Jones since 1999.

- Daniela Barbosa


What will we cover in today’s Webinar?

Definitions- let’s all get on the same pageOverview of Recent Roundtable event

Who attendedWhat was discussedWhat were some of the conclusions

What next?Questions and AnswersAdditional References – How can you participate?


Definitions

EnterpriseEnterprise TaxonomyTaggingFolksonomy


Enterprise

The term ‘Enterprise’ has been adopted the from the computer industry

An organization that uses computers. Encompass corporations, small businesses, non-profit institutions, government bodies, and possibly other kinds of organizations. More often to larger organizations than smaller ones.


Enterprise Taxonomy

Hierarchical classification of entities of interest to an enterprise used to classify documents, digital assets and other information like expertise It can cover virtually any type of physical or conceptual entities (products, processes, knowledge fields, human groups, etc.) at any level of granularity

Simply….a standard vocabulary that a company uses to describe its business


Tagging

Simple data/metadata externally applied to an objectUsed for sortingA hook for aggregatingProvides identifier and/or descriptionPersonal markers

(sometimes the term Social bookmarking is also used)

InfoCloud Solutions, Inc. - Thomas Vander Wal


Folksonomy

Folksonomy is the result of personal free tagging of pages and objects for one's own retrievalThe tagging is done in a social environment (shared and open to others)The act of tagging is done by the person consuming the information

Simply…collaborative categorization using simple tags.

InfoCloud Solutions, Inc. - Thomas Vander Wal


Folksonomy elements : Collaboration

Tags are sharedFeedback loop


Kinds of Folksonomy

Broad : Many users tag one resourceConsumer Examples:Del.icio.us, Furl, Digg, Ma.gnolia

Enterprise Examples: Connectbeam, IBM Dogear, Scuttle

Narrow: Few users tag one resourceConsumer Examples:Flickr, Blog Software, Retail sites (Esty)

Enterprise Examples:Document Management, CRM


Quick Polls: 1

Do you have a Enterprise Taxonomy in place?

Yes. We have had one for a while (3+yrs)Yes we recently implemented NoI don’t know


Quick Polls: 2

Do you have corporate Folksonomy tool:YesNo, and we currently have no plansNo, but we are currently looking into it


Roundtable Event

Who attended:

Top Technology companies in Silicon Valley from various groups:

Market ResearchSales OperationsCorporate Portal

Media Biotechnology


Topics Discussed during roundtable

What is the business value of a taxonomy/ folksonomy and how can you deploy a solution that will grow with the organization? What’s the impact of social networking tools on the enterprise? Which governance tools can or should be applied? How do you merge folksonomies and existing taxonomies – or should you? Some best practices and common obstacles


An exercise (with apologies to David Snowden)

Which one of these is the ‘Odd-one Out’:

CowChickenGrass


Quick Polls: 3

Which one of these is the Odd Man Out?CowChickenGrass


How people are using social taggingWhat are others doing around search?What kind of hurdles do you run into?How do I overcome those hurdles?Issues of critical mass? Dilution of valueIssues of “freshness” of contentHow do you get it going?Who will do the tagging?How do I get Management to see value?

What items were top of mind for the Attendees?


Quick Polls: 4

When you start talking about Folksonomies with your colleagues what is the first ‘issue’that comes up?

What is a Folksonomy?Critical Mass - will enough people use it?What is the Value?Security IssuesWhat if someone uses a ‘bad’ word?None of the above


Where do users tag from?BrowserWidgetsDesktop

Why do users tag?Expertise locator/discoverySupport groups in development of new productsIncrease Search relevanceRe-findability Alerting and Discovery

User Experiences


How do you view tags?Flat ListsTag Clouds-

What is the shelf life?Is it useful for all groups? (e.g. sales)

User Experiences


What kind of tags are used?Content Type- e.g. FAQsPersonal tags – e.g. ‘toread’Opinion tags – e.g. ‘cool’Identification tags – e.g. ‘expert’

Issues of error and disambiguationMisspelling, Multiple spellingsAdding more keywords for disambiguationLack of background knowledge

User Experiences


Best Practices & Obstacles

Success seems to be dependent on industry and/or specific department within an organization

Engineering BiotechnologyPharmaceuticals But many others are experimenting:

Professional ServicesConsumer ProductsMedia


Best Practices & Obstacles

Opportunities for Best Practices:Maintenance of existing taxonomiesKnowledge retentionDocumenting Lessons learnedPretagging- ideas to move forwardIdentity and Transparency Designing for Extensibility: Enterprise RemixingAlerting and DiscoverySecurity- role based and global requirements


Change management 2.0

How do you get users to adopt?Early AdoptersLate Adopters

Issues with specific groupsUse Case: sales groups

How to better organize & tag content sales & global engineers audienceNot wanting to shareWhat is the motivation?What is the reward?


Which governance tools can or should be applied?

Business conduct rulesUse established Security- role based and global requirementsStandards that everyone understands, ratings, etc. Policies for cleaning up “Dirty” Tags

“Salesprocess” should be “Sales Process”Have key adopters become cheerleaders of these ‘rules’


How do you merge folksonomies & existing taxonomies- or should you?

Guess what? We don’t have the answers!Still early in the process of adoptionA lot of work is being done and companies are sharing their experiences

Different Hybrids ModelsUsing tagging tools as a suggestion push for taxonomistsMining folksonomy along with search logsMaintaining separate systems


Q & A


References

References available at:

http://DowJonesFolksonomy.pbwiki.com(password for editing = dowjones)

Please feel free to add, edit and contribute!

Daniela Barbosa Business Development Manager, Synaptica

Dow Jones Client Solutions [email protected]: 1.415.765.6181 Mobile: 1.415.321.9502 http://www.danielabarbosa.com

http://dowjonesfolksonomy.pbwiki.com/

http://www.danielabarbosa.com/