Taxonomy in Extreme Places

How often do you get to be immersed in a completely alien work environment?
As a taxonomist, I get to learn about so many different domains through my work, from mouse genetics to greeting card manufacturing. Each company has its interesting quirks and workplaces…Like the toy manufacturer, whose workers had their cubicles adorned with all sorts of [...]

The Fractal Nature of Knowledge

Here is the question posed by Arnold King (http://arnoldkling.com)
I am interested in the phenomenon of knowledge specialization.For example, in medicine, there are many more specialties and sub-specialties than there were 30 years ago. My guess is that if libraries are still using classification systems, there should be a lot more categories. My guess is that [...]

Hype cycles revisited – taxonomies under the gun

My last post discussed the idea that knowledge management has gone through the hype cycle and people are abandoning the term for more fertile buzzwords. According to Gartner, taxonomies are now at the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” headed for the “Trough of Disillusionment” in the hype cycle, which begs reflection on the concept of taxonomies. [...]

Knowledge management – is the hype over?

There’s been some talk about knowledge management becoming a thing of the past…
KM is not passé, but has been through the hype cycle. To quote Gartner Group, I would say we are on the “plateau of productivity” meaning organizations are more realistic about what they can achieve with KM and the vendors have for [...]

Encouraging participation in communities or repositories

Someone on the Taxonomy Community of Practice (TaxoCoP) recently wrote about methods to improve usage of knowledge management repositories. The challenge of encouraging and measuring participation is a tough one. You might build a terrific application with a great taxonomy and people may not use it.
A repository is only as good as the content [...]