So I Get to Be a Potty Mouth at Work

i got to be a potty mouth at work again this week, well at least i got to read and speak a lot of 'bad' words because i have been having various conversations with prospects and one with a partner about 'Inappropriate Language' taxonomies (uh but lot's of words are in my own daily vocabulary so does that make me inappropriate?- WT#@!?;-) .

So as you can imagine i am already loving my new focus as Business Development Manager for Synaptica which includes among other things the Taxonomy Warehouse site (yes site needs some work) that has such fascinating topics as 700,000 Acronyms, Initialisms and Abbreviations, Fashion and Apparel and of course my personal favorite Inappropriate Language that are partners provide.

So over the last few years custom taxonomies and pre-built taxonomies have been a major part of the work that my teams have delivered to customers. With my background in information science and years of experience in observing our taxonomy experts custom build taxonomies i know the hundreds of 'people hours' that it takes to build a solid taxonomy/thesaurus. However, it is a hard conversation to have with a lot of customers when license costs are discussed- because if you haven't built one you simply can't imagine the effort in not only building but implementing and governing to ensure that it remains fresh.

So, i have been stressing out a bit because of a meeting a signed myself up for and i don't think it was for a valid reason at all-just because i license taxonomies and thesauri for a fee it doesn't mean i don't support open standards like those that are supported by the DataPortability group - the DP group is not about 'free' it is about open standards that allow portability of data regardless if it is 'paid' for or not. So for example, many of our available taxonomies are delivered to customers via RDF format one of the DP supported formats.

So i was stressing specifically because I signed up for the Freebase meetup next week ( Freebase is a collaboratively-edited database of cross-linked data) and had to answer the following question as part of a survey:

Do you fit into any of these groups?

• I'm an open data person. Information wants to be free!
• >>So i am an open data person- but i don't think that all information wants or can afford to be free.
  
• I have this specific topic I'm really into, and want Freebase to hold the data about it.
• >>>ok sure i can come up with something and when i submitted the survey i had no use that i could devote time to but now I thinking of potentially looking at freebase to manage the DP Definitions.
  
• I develop apps or mashups, and want to use Freebase data
• >>>my dream, to have time and real skills to do this well
  
• I refuse to be labeled, but will describe myself here:

So i submitted that i refuse to be labeled because...my answer "it's a long story". So i am looking forward to dropping by and meeting some of the Freebasers (i attended a Freebase session at BarCamp but didn't really participate and honestly since it has been on my radar but i have not delved as deep as i wanted to).

Anyway....if you are interested in licensing an inappropriate language taxonomy please contact me so i can continue to be a potty mouth and if you are lucky enough (i promise i won't charge you any more ;-) you can hear me articulate some of the terms that essentially are inappropriate for corporate communications- just because we can.

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