After Noah: Making Sense of the Flood (of Information)

Thomas Vander WalPresented to: Enterprise 2.0

Boston, MA, USA :: 10 June 2008

After Noah: Making Sense of the Flood (of Information)

2 Common Statements

Nobody is using our services

OR

Good

OMG we have way too much information

GreatUtterly fantastic

Encouraging Use

Add or improve guidance for use

Keep in mind: perceived light use can have high value

InfoCloud Solutions, Inc. 2008

Number of Tags Per Item

0

22.5

45.0

67.5

90.0

A6473

Distribution of “x Tagged”#

Peo

ple

Tagg

ing

Median

Focus on values derived

Who is using the service?

What value is gained?

Personal

Collective

Collaborative

Newbie

Service Owner

Quick instructional videos

http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english

Easy tagging - similar to Amazon

InfoCloud Solutions, Inc. - 2008

Tag Yes/No

Provide many use cases

Continually highlight various success stories

Move to pervasive tag tool integration

Integrate with search

Social search

Collective search

Selective social search:

• Groups

• Co-worker

• Selected interests

Personal contextual search

Too much info

Causes

Single tags

Tools too simple

Lacking structure

• Tags are taken as singles terms

• Not using co-occurrence

Lacking context

• No grouping of taggers

• ID does not tie to a persona or profile

• Lacking relationship of tagger

Facets needed

Across many applications and services

External incentive encouraged tagging

Taggers are adding tags terms to self-stem

(e.g. tag, tags, tagging)

Many misspellings

Tools need improved guidance & in-line help

Solutions

Single tags

• Interface encourages diversity of tagging

• Use more than one tag

• Detect homogeneity

Use a taxonomist who understands folksonomies


Terms Around an Object

Taxonomy Folksonomy

- Ball- Sphere- Blue- #A6437

- Ball (89)- Circle (63)- Blue (23)- Orb (11)- Sphere (6)- Gradient (3)- ToBuy (3)- Darkblue (2)- Round (2)- … 26 more


Part #A6473 Terms

0

22.5

45.0

67.5

90.0

A6473

Distribution of TermsValidate

taxonomyor add totaxonomy Interest

& watch

Value inSynonyms &Unique views

Tool is simple

• Simplicity is good, but they need to be smarter

• Surface multiple context

• Surface co-occurrence of tags

• Lacking individual tagging

Embrace structure

• Use co-occurrence of terms

• Use identity and personal relationships

• Tie to a taxonomy

• Existing

• Generic

- Andy Edmonds @ http://surfmind.com/muzings/?p=107

Show context

• Human

• Object

• Related terms

Facets

Identify facets• Interface

• Takes time - neg

• More complex interface may deter taggers

• Automated

• People

• Products & type

• Geo-location

• Temporal

Tools Get Out of the Way

Aggregate tags across tools

• Tag in and across applications

• Blogs, wikis, Sharepoint, etc.

• Retrieve across applications and services to provide breadth and more value

Remove false incentives and focus real value - such as refindability

Auto-stemming

• Identify synonyms

• Plurals

• Spelling variations (incl. mis-spelling)

• International terms

Improve application guidance

Pulling it all together

Human needs and support

Support various uses

Improve the tools used


Thank You!


URL: http://infocloudsolutions.comE-mail: [email protected]: [email protected]: vanderwalSkype: tjvanderwal

Technology

After Noah: Making Sense of the Flood (of Information)