Five Star Food – Folksonomies, Taxonomies and the Hybrid

Having worked in the world of taxonomies for just under a year I have heard a lot about the use of taxonomies and folksonomies (otherwise known as social tagging where the categorisation of information is done by the end user), both in general and in the Enterprise workspace. Comments that I have heard and read have tended to be either pro-folksonomies or pro-taxonomies. Both arguments in my humble opinion appeared to be flawed, not so much because of the basis of the arguments, but from the fact that the statements are rarely objective.

I have just finished reading an excellent ebook by Daniela Barbosa which tackles this subject, advocating a hybrid approach in an objective, balanced and light-hearted manner. I say light-hearted as the ebook is written in the style of a cookery book - including comic style illustrations of the head chef herself. It sounds unusual, but is a very refreshing way to read about what is essentially a corporate/technical subject that all too often comes across as stuffy and boring.

Daniela takes the concepts of traditional taxonomies and social tagging, highlighting the pros and cons of each method for organising a company’s information (information coming in many forms such as web pages, podcasts and photos, not just the traditional documents such as word, excel and powerpoint). She examines the fears and misconceptions of the introduction of social tagging in to a corporate environment.

When you are focused on one particular approach it is easy to become blinkered in thinking that yours is the correct way of doing things and dismiss other ideas on an incomplete understanding. One thing that really caught my eye when talking about the use of social tagging for example (speaking from the viewpoint of a taxonomist) was how they can eliminate the need for focus groups to decide on how the corporate taxonomy needs to be expanded or amended. "In the past, information professionals conducted quarterly or biannual updates that might have required time-consuming focus groups and/or indepth interviews with group leaders. Tagging provides a continuous stream of refreshed metadata for evaluation." The participation of the end users by their tagging of the content also helps to gain a crucial consumer/user perspective, since the categorisation of the information exists for their benefit in the first place.

The cookbook then looks at the potential benefits of a hybrid system, taking the best of both worlds. Daniela details the benefits to the enterprise of this approach in a concise and distinct way, giving practical advice on what sort of questions to ask before deciding on the correct implementation and the kind of hybrid systems that could be used as well as covering best practices, common challenges and obstacles.

All in all this is a fantastic ebook providing five star food. It is also written well enough for those only recently joining the Knowledge Management environment to understand without getting bored and to come away with a better informed understanding of the use of both taxonomies and folksonomies in a corporate environment. If I were writing a book review, this would get five stars!