If someone says they like change, they are lying. I realize that is harsh, but the change they’re thinking of is perhaps a vacation, new car, or new love. Most change is not a choice and therefore rarely enjoyed. The end result may be better; the process of getting there can be painful.
However, change is certainly inevitable, and technology is not an exception. In all actuality, it is the leader. As it evolves, with it come new challenges. Information architecture sees its own changing landscape with new content types, expanding/collapsing the taxonomy and modifying the metadata, as well as relationships between content types and associated business rules. How do you manage that kind of change? This interesting topic was found on KM Institute in their article, “Governing the Information Architecture – Model, Taxonomy, Metadata.”
It is important to promote the consistency of the information used across the platforms. By managing enterprise content, its metadata, and associated taxonomy, users will find the content they are looking for when and how they need it.
Proper indexing against a strong standards-based taxonomy increases the findability of data. Access Innovations is one of a very small number of companies able to help its clients generate ANSI/ISO/W3C-compliant taxonomies.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
