Yes, I'm Actually Going to Show You How to Implement Taxonomies

This blog has been up and running since July of 2008, and during that time I've worked to raise awareness of the taxonomy issue.  Although I still intend to discuss some of the concepts and theories behind the use and usefullness of taxonomies, it is time to move the blog in a new direction.  So, I'm still going to tell the odd joke and write the odd anecdote, but the focus of the blog is now going to turn toward practical implementation.

I'm going to begin exploring practical taxonomy application.  My efforts will include, but not be limited to:

1. Evaluating taxonomy tools provided by various vendors in the world right now.  What do these tools actually do?  Are they useful?  What is the scope of their taxonomy service and application?
2. Evaluating vendors of "canned" taxonomy lists and files.
3. Providing insight into the benchmarks and standards that guide taxonomy providers.
4. Listing potenitial taxonomy consulting and contracting firms (in case you need to hire a small army of librarians to come in and help you develop a unique taxonomy)
5. Discussion of methods for integrating taxonomy management into your governance planning.
6. Tips on building taxonomy and governance management into your project planning processes.
7. Project initiation methods for taxonomy-dependent projects.

I've also received a great deal of encouragement lately to write and publish a simple and straightforward cookbook for planning, building and implementing taxonomy-related technologies and projects.  In other words, a book with sample taxonomies for different types of organizations, organizational change methods, project management methods, sample governance plans and strategies and so on.

I will do the book by hook or by crook.  Please note that the taxonomy and governance planning I'm talking about is frankly not the same governance and taxonomy planning everyone else is talking about.  Historically governance planning in IT has meant configuration information, deployment, recovery, lifecycle planning and a host of other topics knit together into a coherent plan.  The governance planning I'm talking about has more to do with organizational and business strategy.  I pose the question, "if you really could bake your business policies and strategies into the DNA of every single superfolder (library) in your computing environment, what would you want those policies and strategies (behaviors) to look like?"

In other words, how do you turn SharePoint from a pseudo 'network drive' into an efficient strategic resource for your corporation?  This is the question my blog seeks to solve.

 

 ©Copyright Mark Ragar Schneider, 2009 All Rights Reserved