tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9783047.post116095769347824186..comments2023-12-19T02:18:05.429-08:00Comments on unstruc chitchatting: Collaboration in the Enterprise- take 1 Social bookmarkingdaniela barbosahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13017233266605018199noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9783047.post-1163717660284128132006-11-16T14:54:00.000-08:002006-11-16T14:54:00.000-08:00Daniela, Facetag (http://www.facetag.org) is an ex...Daniela, Facetag (http://www.facetag.org) is an experimental project (i'm working on) trying to fill this gap, creating a 'passable bridge' between the consumer conception of folksonomies and the real needs (scalability, a better structure without limiting the freedom of users, etc) of social tagging inside an enterprise-like environment.<BR/><BR/>Our approach mixes emergent (bottom-up free-form tagging) and traditional classification schemes (taxonomies and facets) with a special focus on the overall user experience of the tool.<BR/><BR/>We believe that traditional tools can be effectively used to reduced the issues haunting flat tagging spaces while folksonomies can be introduced to relax the inflexibility of controlled vocabularies.<BR/><BR/>We presented at the EuroIA Summit in October and you can find online both the presentation and the paper.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9783047.post-1161314031504540732006-10-19T20:13:00.000-07:002006-10-19T20:13:00.000-07:00Tom- you have an uncanny resemblance to Al Gore so...Tom- you have an uncanny resemblance to Al Gore so by default i already like you...many thanks for your comments. <BR/><BR/>These disadvantages that i list from the entry on Wikipedia are things that i think as web 2.0 hits the enterprise will shift from being 'disadvantages' to being issues that are resolved when both what you call 'formal' and 'informal' practices start blending <I>seamlessly</I> to the user. The main goal is to get the user to 'tag' things in order to enable collaboration and sharing painlessly. For example, things like correcting spelling errors, with 'did you mean' like functionality or suggested tags are already being implemented. I believe that the shear volume of information being produced and digested in the Enterprise leads to the need for a combination in order to avoid another failure in the quest for knowledge management/sharing. What ConnectBeam and others are doing in this space is what i see as one of the enablers to this. Maybe we will get the opportunity to update that Wikipedia entry soon enough.<BR/><BR/> <I> What we cannot solve<BR/>ourselves we share, a simple shift<BR/> of letter from irresistible<BR/>last light to first darkness.</I><BR/>- you said it welldaniela barbosahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13017233266605018199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9783047.post-1161117944167970192006-10-17T13:45:00.000-07:002006-10-17T13:45:00.000-07:00Daniela - what you call "disadvantages" of tagging...Daniela - what you call "disadvantages" of tagging may actually be advantages. Put another way, the objection to *informal* information architecture as opposed to *formal* information architecture a) may not be valid, and b) reprise the arguments of positivists a century ago that a "perfect" or "logical" language would better serve communication than our imperfect, messy one.<BR/><BR/>I.e. "no... controlled vocabulary" -- I fail when I try to imagine that when I wanted to express an idea I was required to use a predefined, controlled vocabulary. When I extend this point in my mind to a standard (or worse, a hierarchical) structure for how keywords were required to relate to one another, it leads me to muteness -- or to understand why so-called knowledge management systems (based on such predefined structures) have been so dismal a failure.<BR/><BR/>Consider, as well, "tags that can have more than one meaning" -- this they share with words in general. Words can have more than one meaning. Does this prevent communication? No, and it often *stimulates* communication, as people hash out what they mean by things and in that way move good ideas forward quickly.<BR/><BR/>"Personalized tag schemas" -- thinking outside the box is a *good* thing, not a bad thing. Tags that whose "unorthodox" thinking do *not* add to others' understanding will fade within the emergent and dynamic taxonomy. Won't get used much.<BR/><BR/>cheddar | cheese: sure, *sometimes* it would be nice if the taxonomy's *structure* told me about relationships between tags, but only sometimes. Much more often, building semantics into the information structure leads to rigid structures. It's very like the difference between the old telephone network (where all intelligence was in teh structure of the network) and the Internet (a "stupid" network designed only to move bits) as outlined by David Isenberg in his famous paper on "The rise of the stupid network" at www.isen.com. The rise of "stupid" taxonomies will allow people to do intelligent things with each other in a way that mirrors David's argument.<BR/><BR/>sorry for the over-long comment. Note that I am an advisor to connectbeam.Tom Mandelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10763025165272538833noreply@blogger.com