OK, so now you are beginning to think about taxonomies in a different light based upon our discussions this week: The New Hip and The Backbone. You may even be thinking about ways that a custom taxonomy could be helpful to you and your own organization. However, getting from thinking about the benefits and implementing a custom taxonomy is a big jump. Maybe less of one if you have a forward thinking content management strategy in your business.
However, many organizations still lack such policies and strategies (shameless plug warning: which the professionals at AnswerMaven will gladly help you develop). Return on Investment (ROI) of a custom taxonomy can be hard to explain to management that has limited exposure to information management. Remember to include these four ways that a taxonomy will help support your organizational activities: (Vernau, Judi. (2005). The Business Benefits of Taxonomy. http://cm-mitchell.com/PDFs/WP-BusinessBenefitsTaxonomy.pdf) as you build your case for this efficiency tool.
- Searching – help improve search results and browsing
- Re-purposing of content – items are easier to find and item can be recombined
- Unifying language across organizations – everyone is using the same names for the same items
- Future-proofing knowledge held in the business - If someone leaves the organization you know where to find their intellectual material.
Hopefully this has helped some with bridging the gap between the need for and the implementation of a custom taxonomy in your organization. Questions abound, when a need arises there are lots of vendors ready to jump into the water and bring you to shore. Building a bridge between your information creators and your information users with a relevant taxonomy and other appropriate tools may just be better than a rescue.
Miller Montague
