A book that I have been reading (Structures
for Organizing Knowledge: Exploring Taxonomies, Ontologies, and Other Schemas,
by June Abbas, 2010) got me thinking about the comparison between
corporate/enterprise taxonomies and other “traditional taxonomies”. I found it
intriguing that Abbas presents corporate or “professional” taxonomies in the
same chapter on personal information structures. Thus, a corporate taxonomy
could more aptly be an extension of a personal knowledge organization system,
rather than the customization of standard taxonomy or controlled
vocabulary. So, how are corporate taxonomies
or enterprise taxonomies (corporate taxonomies that are specifically for use
enterprise-wide) different from traditional (library science type) taxonomies
or thesauri?
There are, in fact, multiple ways
in which a corporate or enterprise taxonomy differs from the traditional
taxonomies or controlled vocabularies used in libraries or in particular
subject disciplines. Enterprise taxonomies in particular are:
1. Relatively
small in size
2. Multifaceted
3. Customized
to an enterprise’s content
4. Customized
to an enterprise’s users
5. Relatively
informal
Size
An enterprise taxonomy tends to be relatively small in size with respect to the number of terms and depth of term levels. The size will depend largely on the complexity of an enterprise’s business (number of lines of business, for example), but the range of 1000-2000 terms in an taxonomy for an enterprise that has single line of business is typical. An organization may certainly supplement this enterprise taxonomy with additional subject-specialized controlled vocabularies, particularly in the areas of research & development or product catalogs.
An enterprise taxonomy tends to be relatively small in size with respect to the number of terms and depth of term levels. The size will depend largely on the complexity of an enterprise’s business (number of lines of business, for example), but the range of 1000-2000 terms in an taxonomy for an enterprise that has single line of business is typical. An organization may certainly supplement this enterprise taxonomy with additional subject-specialized controlled vocabularies, particularly in the areas of research & development or product catalogs.
Faceted Nature
An enterprise taxonomy deals with a variety of content which is differentiated in more than one way, not just by subject matter. Content is typically organized and searched not merely for what it is “about” but also what its purpose is, what its source is, what type of content it is, and perhaps also for what market or customer type it is relevant. Thus, an enterprise taxonomy is usually organized into several facets to support faceted search or faceted browse (see my April 2012 post), which include: document type, file format, department or functional area, line of business or product/service category, geographical region, and market segment, in addition to a topical facet.
An enterprise taxonomy deals with a variety of content which is differentiated in more than one way, not just by subject matter. Content is typically organized and searched not merely for what it is “about” but also what its purpose is, what its source is, what type of content it is, and perhaps also for what market or customer type it is relevant. Thus, an enterprise taxonomy is usually organized into several facets to support faceted search or faceted browse (see my April 2012 post), which include: document type, file format, department or functional area, line of business or product/service category, geographical region, and market segment, in addition to a topical facet.
Content Customized
A corporate or enterprise taxonomy should be highly customized to an enterprise’s own unique content. While two companies in the same industry may have nearly identical products and services, their customer or member base could vary slightly, and they probably do not have identical organizational structures, procedures, and workflows. Thus, no two companies or organizations would have identical content. Organizations also differ in the quantity of different kinds of content they own and in the importance they assign to different types of content.
A corporate or enterprise taxonomy should be highly customized to an enterprise’s own unique content. While two companies in the same industry may have nearly identical products and services, their customer or member base could vary slightly, and they probably do not have identical organizational structures, procedures, and workflows. Thus, no two companies or organizations would have identical content. Organizations also differ in the quantity of different kinds of content they own and in the importance they assign to different types of content.
User Customized
Just as important as
content-customization is user-customization. Corporate or enterprise taxonomies
are designed to help an organization’s users (employees, and often also
partners and customers) find content. Users include both those who
upload/publish content to the intranet or content management system, often
manually tagging it, and users who are looking for content. These are sometimes
the same people and sometimes not. Also in consideration of the users, there
may be a workflow or business rule aspect that is taken into consideration.
Thus, the process of designing an enterprise or corporate taxonomy involves
gathering input from users, via interviews and workshops. For this reason, the
author Abbas has combined corporate taxonomies into the same chapter as
personal taxonomies, because they are both highly user-centered.
Informal
Traditional discipline taxonomies
(such as for living organisms), thesauri, book cataloging and classification
systems follow industry standards for their design and construction, which can
be quite rigid and formal. For general-purpose controlled vocabularies, there
are the ANSI/NISO Z39.19 guidelines and
ISO 25964-1 standard (see my March 2012 post), which allow more flexibility than library cataloging
rules. The design of corporate or enterprise taxonomies should adhere to
ANSI/NISO or ISO standards at a high level, but in practice, other
practicalities and user needs and expectations should take precedence over a
strict following of every detail of the standards.
