Free Taxonomy & Folksonomy Book

Following on from my previous post about AIIM's upcoming 'Findability' report, Daniela Barbosa of Synaptica at Dow Jones Client Solutions, has created a colorful free ebook called 'The Taxonomy Folksonomy Cookbook: Finding the right recipe for organizing enterprise metadata'

Designed in the style of a 1960's cookbook, Daniela does a great job of discussing a pretty dry subject in very accessible and digestible terms.

I love this terrific quote from Daniela's book:

Satisfying expectations

Many organizations turn a blind eye toward technology on the Internet, failing to recognize that today’s consumers on the Web are tomorrow’s (or just yesterday’s) employees on their intranets. The truth is, today’s workers - especially younger employees who have been virtually nursed on cell phones, iPods, IM and more - expect speed, simplicity and control. And they expect it now.

If the enterprise fails to provide tools that fit their expectations, they won’t simply conform to standard practices - they’ll ignore formal processes and continue to use the tools that enable them to be successful, irrespective of potential corporate impact. Better to incorporate tools that bring these people in, rather than impose complex content management structures that shut them out.

I use the analogy of enterprise software sometimes being like a rock blocking a river: if users find it inadequate or plain unusable they will simply flow around it.

The banks of the river are moved by the tools and applications used in employee's personal lives applied to work tasks...leaving a large legacy rock that is increasingly underutilized and ignored as a more efficient path is found.

Weaving Taxonomies and Folksonomies into both legacy and new tools retains relevance for the weaker links. The value of tagging and organizing information is central to this and Daniela's ebook is an extremely useful resource that is very valuable for educating everyone involved in a team that is organizing their data.