Taxonomy

One of the problems of information management, as represented by both Master Data Management and Metadata Registry efforts, is a confusion of terms. Have we always referred to “purchasing decisions” or has there been a shift in terms with the merger or the change in management or simply a cultural evolution so that now we’re talking about “buying decisions”.

There’s a lot of discussion lately about Master Data Management; what it is and isn’t. Why is this of interest to the taxonomy practitioner? To a large extent a controlled vocabulary is trying to accomplish the same thing at the conceptual level as MDM is at the data level. MDM removes ambiguity at the data level through a variety of means as described in the item referenced in the above link. The how and why of MDM can provide valuable insight into the data workings of an organization. This can lead to a much more powerful enterprise taxonomy – one that can truly span the vast store of enterprise content. An MDM initiative is an ideal place to insert a taxonomic strategy and implementation. Making the business case for a taxonomy initiative, getting it funded, approved, and implemented will be easier if you can align yourself with an MDM initiative. An MDM deployment to succeed must analyze and potentially process all of an organizations data stores. Resolving data and structural ambiguities is also a great time to resolve conceptual ambiguities.