Taxonomies vs. Folksonomies 9 comments

I wanted to get myself up to date on contemporary ideas around use of taxonomies vs. folksonomies and was drawn to a course being run by the UKeiG (part of CILIP). The course was led by a renowned and respected information management professional and Fellow of CILIP.

It was like stepping back in time 10 or 15 years, where metadata standards, structured lists, taxonomies, thesauri and controlled vocabularies were paramount in the discipline of effective information management. Discussion on folksonomies, and social bookmarking (the original reason for my attendance) was sadly limited to a brief 10 minute slot at the end of the day. This led me to wonder whether professional bodies such as CILIP had truly grasped the magnitude of the change now taking place in the social computing space, and indeed, whether the social element of information management was recognised at all.

I was reminded of the unnecessarily over-complex government metadata schema e-GMS (a superset of Dublin Core) and the even more complex government subject tag encoding scheme, the Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary (IPSV), now over 8000 terms I’m reliably informed. Though I appeared to be the only one present who understood the connection between ‘over complex’ and ‘poorly implemented’. I thought it was common knowledge that many (most?) departments and organisations in the public sector arbitrarily picked a convenient high-level term from IPSV to classify all their web pages just so that they could tick the box for being IPSV compliant. I wonder how long it’s going to be before this ludicrous standard is consigned to the ‘good idea at the time but impractical to implement‘ bin by the folk over at the Cabinet Office.

Furthermore, I was not convinced by the argument put forward by the course leader as to the benefits of accurate and consistent use of IPSV terms for ensuring good search results. Searching on the term ‘wellington’, could, we were told, return results about the Wellington boot, Wellington New Zealand or the Duke of Wellington.

Right. But if users are foolish enough to use one search term without giving any context, then they deserve to get mixed and irrelevant results. One of the good things about Google is that it has conditioned most people on how to construct reasonably good search queries. I wonder how many users in the public sector would think to themselves as they surveyed their mixed bag of results from the ‘Wellington’ query “mmm, I must contact the webmaster about ensuring IPSV terms are more accurately applied” and how many would refine their search to something like ‘Wellington boot’, Wellington NZ’ or ‘Duke of Wellington’? Indeed, as far as a Google web search is concerned, complete absence of the IPSV meta-tag will make not a jot of difference to the search results because Google know they can’t rely on subject metadata in their search algorithms.

Then at last we finally got to discuss taxonomies and folksonomies. It was clear that folksonomies were not favoured by the course leader, who quickly demonstrated a tag cloud on Flickr, but without explaining why some tags were in a larger font than others (indicating their frequency of use) or the social networking aspect of how the tags got created in the first place. The sole reason put forward as to why folksonomies were not as good as taxonomies for information retrieval was the cost of tagging (?), conveniently forgetting – it seems – that taxonomies also require use of tags.

So, for the benefit of Librarians and other information professionals, and particularly the ones on the course I attended, here is my slightly more detailed analysis of the relative merits of taxonomies and folksonomies:

As always, I am open to other views and opinions from my peers and experts in this field, and in particular I want to be reassured that information management professionals do understand that there is a quiet revolution happening in the world of social computing that threatens some long established standards and practices for effective management of information, and that there are now some new tools in the toolbox.

Enterprise 2.0 tools and the need for business context No comments yet

An interesting discussion over at Jon Mell’s blog about Enterprise 2.0 tools and the need for systems developers to consider business process context for the tools and not assume the users will intuitively know this. I think there is merit in this idea, but as I have commented:

I don’t disagree with the general thrust of your argument, i.e. keeping the tools you use within the context of the business process. However, the last point you make (…the tools should do the thinking for us as to which communication mechanism to use – they shouldn’t require us to think) is arguably a utopian view and, certainly in my opinion, unlikely to happen. In fact, I was putting a presentation together yesterday for a group of people who we’re trying to encourage to get more involved in an on-line community, and one of my bullets read…”Live with the complexity; technology can’t solve everything”. So for me, I think we should strive to become more like Generation Y and learn how to use the tools in context until it becomes intuitive.

Pitch in if you have an opinion.

Is Web2.0 the same at Enterprise 2.0 – and does it really matter? 2 comments

(Photo by Daniel F. Pigatto)

I was in two minds on whether to get involved with this debate/discussion, but since we now seem to have accepted “Enterprise 2.0″ into the social computing lexicon I thought I should at least ensure I’ve got a clear understanding about what this means.

The authors over at Library Clips have identified seven ways that Enterprise 2.0 differs from Web 2.0. This article is in turn based on the blog by Bill Ives at Fast Forward blog. To summarise what is quite a lengthy diatribe, the seven differences between E2 and W2 come down to:

1. Enterprise 2.0 is more about project work whereas Web2.0 is more about purpose based sharing and learning.
2. Enterprise 2.0 means being accountable to someone other than yourself.
3. The choice of tools (applications) are mandated in Enterprise 2.0
4. Facilitation techniques are more appropriate to Enterprise 2.0 where people need to be encouraged and guided in knowledge sharing, whereas Web 2.0 has no agenda.
5. Enterprise 2.0 does not have the critical mass of the network effect (long tail).
6. Transparency – Enterprise 2.0 is not an egalitarian culture like the open web; it has managers and hierarchies.
7. Productivity is not measured in Web 2.0

My apologies to the authors if my synoptic presentation of the seven differences does not capture the entire context, but I’m trying to distil some fairly complex ideas into something most people can understand and relate to.

At this point I should make clear that I personally find this preoccupation with categorising and defining behaviours so that we can apply some suitable marketing labels to them (which sadly is what Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 have become) a rather frivolous activity. However, I accept it is important to some people (and particularly product vendors), and as a professional in this area myself, I need to ensure I’m using these labels in the right context when I’m having conversations with my clients or peers.

From my own experience – drawn primarily from the development and support of Communities of Practice (CoPs) in the public sector, and deploying social networking and social media tools to facilitate connections and knowledge sharing – I have tended to think of Web 2.0 more as an enabling technology that can release the inherent creativity and desire to socialise that exists in most of the human species. If I tried to apply the Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 definitions to the public sector CoP platform, I wouldn’t be able to find any Community of Practice that could be neatly pigeon-holed. Some are working on projects, some are learning communities. Some have management inspired objectives, some maintain hierarchies. Some are facilitated and some are just self-organising groups (yes I know – not strictly a definition of a CoP). None of them are mandated to use the tools. So, whether I’ve created a Web 2.0 or an Enterprise 2.0 environment I really don’t know, and don’t really care because it doesn’t make an iota of difference to the fact that the environment enables people to find and share knowledge, to collaborate with experts and peers and encourages innovation.

So, whilst I’ll accept the definitions or differences between Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 – all of which seem to be reasonably well thought through – the priority for me is encouraging, supporting and coaching the behaviours that will enable people to make the most of these technologies – regardless of what labels they are given!

Connect to survive? The implications of the digital divide 2 comments

I’ve posted a presentation to Slideshare that I gave last month as a keynote presentation for an audience primarily made up of local government staff. The presentation illustrates the growing velocity and volume of on-line connections being created in the wake of Web 2.0 and the prevalent demographics of those considered to be ‘connected’ and those who are not. I was trying to raise the awareness of the audience that being part of the on-line digital community (and in particular social networking) was becoming an increasing factor in how we evolve and survive as human beings, and that those who fail to grasp this will find themselves ever more isolated – cut off from the networks that are sharing, adapting and updating knowledge to create value.

However, It is recognised that not everyone is digitally disconnected or socially disengaged by choice, but interestingly, it’s not necessarily the socio-economically deprived that make up the majority of this group; age demographics play a big part, with Baby Boomers and Generation X (i.e. all those born between 1942 and 1965) being the least likely to engage in social networking. These demographic groups make up the majority of staff working in local authorities and this presents a challenge to local government employers in how to accomodate significantly varied working parctices and work-life expections between these groups and Generation Y (or the Net Generation).

The presentation concludes with a look at the issues around consultation with citizens and questions whether enough is being done to engage with the digitally excluded, particulary where vast sums of government (i.e. tax payer’s) money is being invested in on-line services and on-line consultation.  In other words, digital exclusion can also mean dis-empowerment and dis-engagement.  Is the technology (Web 2.0, Web 3.0) widening the divide?

As always, comments/views are welcome.

Enterprises urged to pay staff to use their own kit 6 comments

According to analyst group Gartner, enterprises could make significant savings by paying staff to use their own laptops. The report suggested that a monthly payment of £47 per employee would be cost effective and attractive to staff. Gartner said that schemes that encourage staff to use their own laptops would reduce maintenance and support costs and improve productivity.

“The costs go down for the enterprise if the notebook is provided by the employee because the employee takes more responsibility fixing the computer I their own time”

the Gartner analyst is reported as saying.

This touched a sensitive nerve for me, given my own experience as a consultant. More often than not I’m compelled to use the ‘corporately approved’ hardware and software build for PC and laptops when I’m working at a client’s site, which usually means – at best – IE6 with no plug-ins, 3 versions back of Flash player and an obscure version of PDF reader. The only plus point is that Vista is not yet widely deployed. The transition from my personal laptop configuration to these corporate versions is like stepping back to medieval times (though in reality it’s probably no more 5 – 10 years). No more one-click access via my Firefox plug-in to my del.icio.us account for tagging useful web pages; no more one-click social bookmarking to Digg or Stumble; no more one-click saves to Google Notebook.

I get the impression that any whiff of user productivity is sniffed out by these ICT departments and vigorously stamped out, as a recent experience would seem to reinforce. A short time ago I managed to install the Google toolbar on my corporate PC. All was well for a couple of weeks, and then I got one or two obscure messages from the virus checking software. I made the mistake of calling the IT support desk, who soon sussed that I had installed the toolbar (shock, horror), and wanted to arrange an appointment for a techy to visit my desk and remove it. Needless to say I haven’t returned these calls, and have so far managed to dodge the IT security police. In the meantime, I can save a few seconds each time I want to do a Google search by using the toolbar. But then again, a few seconds saved for each search mounts up to a few minutes each day and maybe even a few hours each month. Multiply this across several hundred employees and you begin to wonder if the inmates are running the asylum!

Perhaps one day (but unfortunately not in my life time), these ICT departments will begin to understand the business needs of the enterprise and provide the services that will contribute towards the business and user productivity. Devolving ownership and responsibility to users for their own PCs and laptops is probably a step too far for most enterprises, but I remain hopeful that it will happen one day. On that note I will hastily finish – I think I see an IT person approaching looking for a rogue laptop!

Tom Watson talks about social media initiative at 2gether08 4 comments

Finally got to see Tom Watson in person, presenting at 2gether08 about the Government initiative to provide more open access to public, non-personal data sets. Tom talked about the launch of a competition for social innovators and entrepeneurs to develop more effective products and services using government pulished provide more effective use of published information. More information about this on the ‘Show us a better way‘ website. This is one of the initiatives coming out of the Power of Information Taskforce that was created earlier this year.

Apologies for the shaky video, but key messages are all there.