It was really amazing to participate in a complete day of discussion about metadata and taxonomy. Each speaker took a different angle and addressed a different aspect of the issues and the work. The individual presentations complemented each other and came together to tell a whole story.

Here’s what some of the other participants had to say about it:

• taxonomysociety.com blog – posted by Madi Welend Solomon
• DigitalAssetManagemet.org.uk
• CMS Watch – posted by fellow speaker, Theresa Regli
• Vocab Control

These are the proposals I submitted:

• Semantic Web and the User Experience – a solo presentation
• Cage Match! Taxonomy vs. Folksonomy – a panel

Here’s a diagram I created to show how taxonomy building tasks should be integrated with the phases of a web development process. Communication with the stakeholders should be taking place throughout the project lifecycle. What’s the goal? Getting the following things from the stakeholders:

• Approval for data
• Expert input
• Partnership in the effort
• Distributed communication to other contributors

The approach I recommend, as indicated in the diagram, includes:

1. Groundwork – Gather background information that your stakeholders will need to make good taxonomy decisions. This may include some basic education about the concepts involved.
2. High Level – Start thinking about the general ways in which you will need to organize the data of the site. These may emerge naturally, based on the concept behind the site.
3. Dimensions & Relationships – Use diagrams, lists, tables, or spreadsheets to further express how the content will be organized. Use real data to inform the Information Architecture of the site.
4. Detailed Taxonomy – Apply the concepts in the taxonomy to all of the content, products, etc. on the site. Consider prototyping your data to make it come to life.
5. Usage Guidelines – Communicate to the content creators how to apply the taxonomy to the content once the site is live.
6. Taxonomy Maintenance - Document the things that your stakeholders need to consider in order to keep the taxonomy up-to-date.

It’s pretty straightforward, and may not seem all that earth-shattering compared to all the excitement around semantic technologies these days. But sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to put into words.

After the presentation, one person told me that he’s an engineer and he has always had trouble communicating about these things with the domain experts, and this helped him see how he could approach it more systematically. That’s exactly the effect I was trying to achieve.

Have a look at a low-res version of my complete presentation (B&W, PDF, 2-up)

A few new tools, like Piggy Bank – an open source tool for gathering data. I haven’t tried it, but I heard a couple people mention it at the Semantic Technology Conference. Sounds like a good way to gather data for prototypes and proof-of-concept projects. 

A couple Semantic Wikis (Visual Knowledge and Knoodl.com). I’m very interested in this approach because it seems like a manageable entry into the world of building semantic content. People are already kind of familiar with the way to interact with a wiki, and this overlays a powerful layer of functionality. People will be building semantic content and applications without even realizing it. Unfortunately I think that both of these products have a little way to go before they are fully presenatble, but it’s great to be able to go in and play around with them. Alice in MetaLand is a budding semantic community built on the Visual Knowledge platform.

 I also stumbled across this Semantic Web FAQ, which seems to be a work in progress, but has some potential. Check it out and add some things, if you feel so inclined.