Strategies LLC Taxonomy September 25, 2008Copyright 2008 Taxonomy Strategies LLC. All rights reserved. Strategy, Planning, Stakeholders & the Semantic

Strategies LLCTaxonomy

September 25, 2008 Copyright 2008 Taxonomy Strategies LLC. All rights reserved.

Strategy, Planning, Stakeholders & the Semantic Web

Joseph A Busch, Founder & Principal

Ron Daniel Jr, Principal

2Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information

Taxonomy lessons from Web 1.0

Lesson from shopping websites – a few small taxonomies, rather than one large one.

Easier to tag Easier to build services Easier to maintain


Taxonomy lessons from Web 2.0

Customize metadata scheme from Dublin Core The heartbeat of the semantic web.

Handle non-product content in the same way as products Identify the key attributes

– Type, Location, Function, Topic (instead of Type, Size, Fabric, Color) Then filter on them. Narrow collection to a few relevant items in 3-5 clicks

– aka Facet navigation.

Provide almost instantaneous feedback Show end user tagging with tag clouds. Use ratings—don’t just ask for a rating. Show comments—don’t just ask for a comment.

A little bit of tagging can go a long way Got metadata—Do mash-ups.


You Tube metadata

Description

Creator

Date

Category

Subject

Identifier

Format

Relations

Title

Rating

Comments

Dublin Core

Other attributes

Channel Audience


You Tube taxonomies

All

Comedians

Directors

Gurus

Musicians

Non-Profit

Partners

Sponsors

YouChoose 08

Channel

Autos & Vehicles

Comedy

Education

Entertainment

Film & Animation

Howto & Style

Music

News & Politics

Nonprofits & Activism

People & Blogs

Pets & Animals

Science & Technology

Sports

Travel & Events

Audience

Autos & Vehicles

Comedy

Education

Entertainment

Film & Animation

Howto & Style

Music

News & Politics

Nonprofits & Activism

People & Blogs

Pets & Animals

Science & Technology

Sports

Travel & Events

Category

Featured

Most Subscribed

Most Viewed

Most Discussions

Most Members

Most Videos

Most Active

Most Discussed

Most Recent

Most Members

Most Responded

Most Viewed

Previously Popular

Top Favorites

Top Rated

Rating

Audience & Category use the same controlled

vocabulary


You Tube services: From just a little bit of tagging

Populate all Video, Channel & Community pages. Automatic RSS subscriber based on tags for any page. Identify more videos from the same creator. Identify related videos. Create, publish & monetize (place ads) your playlists &

favorites.


Agenda

Taxonomy business case and use scenarios. Taxonomy project start-up tasks. Business stakeholders participation. Early taxonomy tasks and deliverables.


What is a Taxonomy?

A categorization framework agreed upon by business and content owners (with the help of subject matter experts) that will be used to tag content.

6 broad, discrete divisions (called facets) 2-3 levels deep. Up to 15 terms at each level. 1200 terms total. With some logic—hierarchical, equivalent and associative

relationships between terms.


What uses must a Taxonomy support?

Primary categorization Navigation Content Management

Secondary categorization Search Tagging

“ When we talk about a taxonomy, we are not only talking about a website navigation scheme. Websites change frequently, we are looking at a more durable way to deal with content so that different navigation schemes can be used over time.”

– R. Daniel “Taxonomy FAQs”


Effectiveness of taxonomies

Categorize in multiple, independent, categories.

Allow combinations of categories to narrow the choice of items.

4 independent categories of 10 nodes each have the same discriminatory power as one hierarchy of 10,000 nodes (104) Easier to maintain. Easier to reuse existing

material. Can be easier to navigate, if

software supports it.

42 values to maintain (10+6+11+15)

9900 combinations (10x6x11x15)

Main Ingredients

Cooking Methods

Meal Type Cuisines

• Chocolate• Dairy• Fruits• Grains• Meat &

Seafood• Nuts• Olives• Pasta• Spices &

Seasonings• Vegetables

• Breakfast• Brunch• Lunch• Supper• Dinner• Snack

• African• American• Asian• Caribbean• Continental• Eclectic/

Fusion/ International

• Jewish• Latin American• Mediterranean• Middle Eastern• Vegetarian

• Advanced• Bake• Broil• Fry• Grill• Marinade• Microwave• No Cooking• Poach• Quick• Roast• Sauté• Slow

Cooking• Steam• Stir-fry


Why build and apply a Taxonomy? Taxonomy enables usability and re-usability

The presentation of relevant related content provides users with a “scent” or context.

Googlers are oriented—even when they land on a page fifteen layers deep.

Tagging content enables content re-use and dynamic web publishing.

Tagged content exponentially increases the ability to aggregate related content, making it easier to present users with relevant content.

Readily offering content-related web services—RSS feeds, bookmarking, user tagging—provide a more rewarding experience.


What’s going on behind the screen?

… as well as what’s going on in front of the screen.


Behind the screen: Taxonomy enables …

Find all content related to …

Replace or update all instances of …

Restrict access by …

Create a new website or content package for …

Enable a new RSS feed for …

Provide relevant links from … to …

Support a service for …

Find an item you created in the past.

Archive or purge old content.


Agenda



Taxonomy start-up tasks

Identify target content to be focused on. Provide a list of websites (and/or other target content file stores) Prioritize this list for the purposes of the taxonomy project.

Gather any query logs, usage statistics and usability surveys.

Collect any existing documentation related to audience personas, content organization, metadata, keywords, and any other guidelines or standards.


Taxonomy start-up tasks (2)

Designate who will be the project manager / single-point of contact.

Develop a list of stakeholders and interview candidates Minimum of 6 and usually less than 12 interview sessions. One-on one interviews, or focus groups.

Schedule stakeholders briefing Schedule interviews to start immediately after the briefing.


Agenda



Taxonomy development overview

Any taxonomy development process needs to engage key stakeholders such as:

End users Content managers

Engaging busy professionals and bureaucrats so that they have the maximum impact with the minimum effort is a tricky business.


Stakeholder screening considerations

Breadth: Does the candidate uniquely represent a business-critical function?

Business-critical functions are marketing, public relations, product marketing, legal, etc.

Depth: Is the candidate a subject matter expert (SME)?

Subject matter experts include: – Customer-facing (e.g., support, maintenance, etc.) – Product and service (e.g., product marketing, sales, etc.)– IT (e.g., CMS systems administrator, usability expert, etc.)


Stakeholder screening considerations (2)

Credibility: Does the candidate have credibility in the organization?

Senior managers and decision-makers need to be engaged.

Priority: Is the candidate an early adopter, large content holder, squeaky wheel or fan?

Early adopters - will or would participate in a pilot or proof of concept project.

Large content holder. Squeaky wheels - Tough customers and skeptics such as

financial or business analysts, technical gurus (i.e., IT as well as industry-specific gurus)

Fans - Librarians, information architects, planners, etc.


Stakeholder selection scorecard

Breadth SME Credibility Priority Score

Joe 1 1 3 1 1.5

Jennifer 2 2 1 2 1.75

Michelle 1 2 2 2 1.75

Paul 2 3 1 2 2

Ricky 1 2 1 2 1.5

Stacey 1 3 1 2 1.75

…

1 is high and 3 is low

Based on Marcia Morante’s candidate screening scorecard


Tiered participation

If the project is likely to have a large reach, such as an enterprise taxonomy, consider multiple rounds of interviews and workshops.

Scenario: Brief everyone. Interview a small group. Report back and refine results in workshops with larger groups.


Agenda



Early taxonomy deliverables: Kick-off presentation

Who we are

Goals

High level plan

Resources


Early taxonomy deliverables: Interview questionnaire

What do you do? What kinds of digital assets are being produced? For what audiences?

What is the business process for submitting, selecting, editing, maintaining digital assets?

How many digital assets are there? How fast is this growing?

Are there particular industry or other standards that are important?

What types of assets are hard to search for (that should be easier to find)?

What tools would be helpful in locating assets? Acronyms? Abbreviations? Nick names? Glossary? Thesaurus? Taxonomy?

Who else should we be talking to?


Early taxonomy deliverables: Content inventory

Path/URL

1. Identify target asset file path/URL.

Spider-generated

2. Automatically generate inventory metadata by spidering file stores.

Audit process

3. Audit assets using inventory.

New facets

4. Enhance metadata with new facets.


Early taxonomy deliverables: Business benefits

Potential Benefits Cost per %

ReduceCurrent

No%

IncreaseAnnual Benefit

1Reduce call center customer service/support requests $ 20 1% 10,000,000 $ 2,000,000

According to HDI 2007 Practices & Salary Survey, median cost per incident reported via phone, e-mail and self-service was $20, $16 and $5 respectively. In phone interview, John M said there were 10M calls in 2007.

2 Improve call center efficiency & effectiveness $ 44,014 3% 300 $ 330,105

According to PayScale, median call center salary for company is $44,014. In phone interview, John M said there were 300 agents.

3 Reduce cost per UU (unique user) $ 0.10 10% 19,196,774 $ 191,968

2007.com+ Inet visitors from web summary report. What are the total estimated costs attributed to .com + Inet?

5 Decrease searches with zero hits $ 15 10% 100,000 $ 150,000

Cost per is difference between self-service and phone call. How many zero result searches? Can this be inferred to be a customer service call?

6 Increase number of links (internal cross-cutting links) $ 20 200,000 100% $ 4,000,000

Specifically counting links to related content. Usually, this is in right column box, but could be embedded in text. Not included are top, left or bottom nav which are usually part of the template. How many links of this type are there currently? How much does it cost to create such a link? How much of an increase should be considered a target benefit?

7 Reduce time/cost to build new website $ 100,000 50% 5 $ 250,000

How much does it cost to build a new website, or re-design an existing one? How much could reasonably be saved by improving content re-usability?

8 Increase no. of web pages with metatags $ 3 50,000 100% $ 150,240

How many pages have metatags? How many metatag values total? How much does it cost to add metatags to a page? How much increased metatagging should be considered a benefit?

Total $ 7,072,313


Early taxonomy deliverables: Intranet use cases and use scenarios

Content related to business areas or facilities By geographic location, by type, by specific facility, by access

restrictions, by audience, etc.

Company-wide content By business function, by topic, by access rights, etc.

Use Case: Create a safety policies and procedures website for facilities organized by State.

Use Scenario: Find all safety policies and procedures related to a facilities located in Oregon.

Use Case: Locate any content that has policies and procedures around a particular topic.

Use Scenario: A policy regarding smoking company-wide has changed and references to outdated policies should be removed. Find official policies, as well as newsletters related to the smoking policy company-wide.


Early taxonomy deliverables: .com use cases and use scenarios

Web content managers By content type, by topic, by location, etc.

Public users seeking information by topic, by location, etc.

Use Case: Provide search for dividend schedules, earnings statements and stock splits; and the corresponding press releases for a specific time period.

Use Scenario: An investor who recently sold stock is preparing taxes and would like to do a concise .com search so that they can find historical information about their holdings.

Use Case: Find and recall all public-facing pages that describe a specific safety tip.

Use Scenario: Find and recall all public-facing pages that discuss child safety.


Early taxonomy deliverables: Typology of use cases

Intranet

Ac-cess Right

Audi-ence

Bus Func-tion

Content Type

Pro-duct

Geog Loc

Job Type Org Topic

Find content related to a specific location by …

Find company-wide content by …

.com

For web content managers, find content by …

For public users, find content by …

Primary

Secondary


Early taxonomy deliverables: High-level taxonomy

Acme Taxonomy

AudienceTopicsContent Types

OrgsGeo

LocationsProducts

Business Functions

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Early taxonomy deliverables: Tagging Example: Investor Connection

Facet Value

Content Type News

Organization

Business Function

Financials & Investor Relations

Product

Geo Location

Topic

Job Type

Audience Investors

Access Right Public Access


Early taxonomy deliverables: Tagging Example: Directions to Headquarters

Facet Value

Content Type Map

Organization Headquarters

Business Function

Product

Geo Location New York > Buffalo

Topic

Job Type

Audience Employees

Access Right All Employees


Early taxonomy deliverables: Tagging Example: Travel Approval Form

Facet Value

Content Type Form

Organization

Business Function

Travel

Product

Geo Location

Topic Approval

Job Type

Audience Employees

Access Right All Employees

Strategies LLCTaxonomy

September 25, 2008 Copyright 2008 Taxonomy Strategies LLC. All rights reserved.

Questions?

Joseph A. Busch, +1-415-377-7912, [email protected]

Ron Daniel Jr, +1-925-368-8371, [email protected]

www.taxonomystrategies.com


Strategy, Planning, Stakeholders & the Semantic Web

There's no question that the technologies surrounding a taxonomy effort are very different than they were even 18 months ago, and the world keeps changing the starting point. Perhaps the greatest difference is that business managers now expect that information on an organization’s public and internal websites be findable, and that web services such as RSS feeds and alerts, guided navigation and search result filtering, mashups and visualization, and others be available. The Semantic Web offers the potential of several additional new technologies in the future. But these technological possibilities are simply new means to achieve the traditional ends of a return on the investment. Developing the business case, setting strategy, getting stakeholders on board, and engaging in the collaborative process of developing a content organization framework is just as important as before. This means that project scoping, start-up, on-boarding, education and high-level taxonomy remain critical factors in the success of a taxonomy effort. This talk will focus on making the business case and starting up a taxonomy project. The talk will answer the following questions:

What are the most the typical and most compelling use cases and use scenarios for developing a taxonomy?

What are the critical start-up tasks in a taxonomy project? What are the best criteria for identifying business stakeholders to participate in the project, how do

you get them involved, and what should be their role in the taxonomy development process? What do business managers need to know about taxonomy and why it’s important? What are the best practices for early tasks and deliverables such as the high-level taxonomy

design?

Documents

Strategies LLC Taxonomy September 25, 2008Copyright 2008 Taxonomy Strategies LLC. All rights reserved. Strategy, Planning, Stakeholders & the Semantic