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

Slide 1: After Noah: Making Sense of the Flood (of Information) Thomas Vander Wal Presented to: Enterprise 2.0 Boston, MA, USA :: 10 June 2008

Slide 2: 2 Common Statements

Slide 3: Nobody is using our services

Slide 4: OR

Slide 5: Good Great Utterly fantastic OMG we have way too much information

Slide 6: Encouraging Use

Slide 7: Add or improve guidance for use

Slide 8: Keep in mind: perceived light use can have high value

Slide 9: Number of Tags Per Item Distribution of “x Tagged” A6473 90.0 # People Tagging 67.5 45.0 22.5 0 Median InfoCloud Solutions, Inc. 2008

Slide 10: Focus on values derived

Slide 11: Who is using the service?

Slide 12: What value is gained?

Slide 13: Personal

Slide 14: Collective

Slide 15: Collaborative

Slide 16: Newbie

Slide 17: Service Owner

Slide 18: Quick instructional videos

Slide 19: http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english

Slide 20: Easy tagging - similar to Amazon

Slide 21: Tag Yes/No InfoCloud Solutions, Inc. - 2008

Slide 22: Provide many use cases

Slide 23: Continually highlight various success stories

Slide 24: Move to pervasive tag tool integration

Slide 25: Integrate with search

Slide 26: Social search

Slide 27: Collective search

Slide 29: Selective social search: • Groups • Co-worker • Selected interests

Slide 31: Personal contextual search

Slide 32: Too much info

Slide 33: Causes

Slide 34: Single tags

Slide 35: Tools too simple

Slide 36: Lacking structure • Tags are taken as singles terms • Not using co-occurrence

Slide 37: Lacking context • No grouping of taggers • ID does not tie to a persona or profile • Lacking relationship of tagger

Slide 38: Facets needed

Slide 39: Across many applications and services

Slide 40: External incentive encouraged tagging

Slide 41: Taggers are adding tags terms to self-stem (e.g. tag, tags, tagging)

Slide 42: Many misspellings

Slide 43: Tools need improved guidance & in-line help

Slide 44: Solutions

Slide 45: Single tags • Interface encourages diversity of tagging • Use more than one tag • Detect homogeneity

Slide 46: Use a taxonomist who understands folksonomies

Slide 47: Terms Around an Object Taxonomy Folksonomy - Ball (89) - Ball - Circle (63) - Sphere - Blue (23) - Blue - Orb (11) - Sphere (6) - #A6437 - Gradient (3) - ToBuy (3) - Darkblue (2) - Round (2) - … 26 more InfoCloud Solutions, Inc. 2008

Slide 48: Part #A6473 Terms Distribution of Terms Validate A6473 taxonomy 90.0 or add to taxonomy Value in Interest Synonyms & 67.5 & watch Unique views 45.0 22.5 0 InfoCloud Solutions, Inc. 2008

Slide 49: Tool is simple • Simplicity is good, but they need to be smarter • Surface multiple context • Surface co-occurrence of tags • Lacking individual tagging

Slide 50: Embrace structure • Use co-occurrence of terms • Use identity and personal relationships • Tie to a taxonomy • Existing • Generic

Slide 51: - Andy Edmonds @ http://surfmind.com/muzings/?p=107

Slide 53: Show context • Human • Object • Related terms

Slide 55: Facets

Slide 56: Identify facets • Interface • Takes time - neg • More complex interface may deter taggers • Automated • People • Products & type • Geo-location • Temporal

Slide 57: Tools Get Out of the Way

Slide 58: Aggregate tags across tools • Tag in and across applications • Blogs, wikis, Sharepoint, etc. • Retrieve across applications and services to provide breadth and more value

Slide 59: Remove false incentives and focus real value - such as refindability

Slide 60: Auto-stemming • Identify synonyms • Plurals • Spelling variations (incl. mis-spelling) • International terms

Slide 61: Improve application guidance

Slide 62: Pulling it all together

Slide 63: Human needs and support

Slide 64: Support various uses

Slide 65: Improve the tools used

Slide 66: Thank You! InfoCloud Solutions, Inc. - 2008

Slide 67: URL: http://infocloudsolutions.com E-mail: thomas@infocloudsolutions.com E-mail: thomas@vanderwal.net AIM: vanderwal Skype: tjvanderwal InfoCloud Solutions, Inc. - 2008