The Business Value of Taxonomy August 1, 2012 Gary Kahn
Earley & Associates Overview Founded - 1994 Headquarters - Boston, MA What we do Design and deliver content management and search solutions for companies and their customers Our core team 35 information and system architects, library scientists, process improvement consultants, project managers and other information management specialists Our unique offering Content Choreography SM Planning, composing, organizing and publishing content and creative assets for dynamic presentation and search using taxonomy and metadata 2
Partial Client List clients 3
Upcoming Webinars and Discussion Groups Communities of Practice Linked In Taxonomy CoP - http://linkd.in/taxocop IA Experts - http://linkd.in/iaexperts Upcoming Webinar Events September 5 - Visualization and Information Strategy October Jumpstart: Taxonomy, Metadata and Knowledge Management Upcoming Training Opportunities SharePoint Information Architecture (3 days) Learn more and register: http://www.earley.com/training/sharepointinformation-architecture 4
Housekeeping Webinar will last 60 minutes You may submit questions to the speakers via the Question box on your screen. Need help? You can email sharon@earley.com Tweet about this webinar with hashtag #eawebinar Follow us on Twitter at @earleytaxonomy Fill out the survey that should be in your inbox Let us know what topics you are interested in, and how we can improve the series. Slides and recording will be available in a few days 5
Today s Speaker Gary Kahn VP & Client Services Partner Earley & Associates Management consultant and program manager with over 25 years of business and technology experience Held positions with major consulting companies, including PriceWaterhouseCoopers and IBM As a research scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, developed innovative designs for knowledge-based systems Holds a PhD from the University of Chicago. He has taught classes on information-based marketing and e-commerce at the Boston University School of Management 6
Why is Taxonomy Important? Organizations need better ways to manage information assets 1. communicate more effectively with customers and partners 2. reduce rework and prevent duplication of effort 3. speed processes 4. create new efficiencies 5. improve decision making 7
What You Will Learn Today What is meant by taxonomy and metadata Five ways in which taxonomy is used to create business value Four critical success factors for succeeding with a taxonomy/metadata program How will this help you? 8
Taxonomy is a System For Organizing and Categorizing Concepts Expresses hierarchical relationships (parent/child) Arranged in a tree-like structure, with top level categories that branch out to reveal sub-categories and terms in varying levels of depth Action figures Products Board games Games Card games Dictionary of preferred terminology Scrabble Monopoly 9
Taxonomy is a System For Organizing and Categorizing Concepts There is no one way to organize concepts for an enterprise Managing relations between taxonomies are critical Relationships themselves can be categorized brands Disney Milton Bradley Scrabble Scrabble letter tiles letter tiles colored wood Action figures Products Board games Disney Brands Games Milton Bradley Card games Battleship Scrabble 10
What Is Metadata? The is-ness of a piece of content (e.g., a product description, a white paper) The about-ness of a piece of content (e.g., about the Motorola DROID; about HIPAA) If you can t name it, then you can t find it, and therefore you can t reuse it Photo credit: http://4.bp.blogspot.com 11
The Relation Between Taxonomy & Metadata Taxonomies provide organizing principles for managing authorized values for database records and content metadata 12
Taxonomy and Metadata Support a Range of Applications enterprise search, portal design, collaboration digital asset management content management taxonomy, metadata, IA, & usability website navigation, search & SEO records management workflow management security & privacy management rights management Taxonomy brings a user-centric approach to multiple systems and applications 13
Five Best practices for Creating Value from Taxonomy 1. Search query enhancement 2. Browsing and navigation 3. Content reuse 4. Process management 5. Business Intelligence 14
SEARCH QUERY ENHANCEMENT 15
1) Search Query Enhancement Add synonyms to the query Search for foreign language matches Search more broadly Car SYN: Automobile fr-ca: Voiture en-uk: Auto es-co: Carro Sample taxonomy record Preferred term Synonyms Translations and regional variants 16 16
1) Query Enhancement Focuses on Relevance Not Precision 17
Failings of the Just Get Google Decision Google leverages linkages on the web that are not typically duplicated internally in the organization Search engines cannot infer intent or know what is important to you in the context of your work task Information relevance is dependent on who you are and your level of expertise as well as what you are trying to accomplish Not all content is equal - Google is fine for broad search results or less precise information, but may not work as well if large numbers of documents with finer granularity of differences 18
BROWSING & NAVIGATION 19
2.1 Browsing & Navigation: Faceted Navigation Router is an ambiguous term 355,574 results 20
2.1 Browsing & Navigation: Faceted Navigation (continued) Document Type Taxonomy terms Facets Site Area Product Task 21
2.1 Browsing & Navigation: Faceted Navigation (continued) Refinement of choices based on selected terms 85 results 22
2.2 Improved Sales: Increased Findability Linked to Conversions (Sales) Example: out of top 10 e-commerce vendor sites, improvement from 7 th to 1 st place Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4 Task 5 Task 6 Task 7 Task 8 Task 9 Task 10 23
CONTENT REUSE 24
3) Content Reuse - Applying a Taxonomy to Content Management A Taxonomy can be used to Define content and document types (an example of a content type might be Article ) Define the fields that will describe attributes (an example might be to tag a document with Industry ) Define the actual values of certain fields and attributes (for example the list of values for the attribute Industry might include Construction, Information Technology, Utilities, etc.) 25 25
3.1 Content Reuse: Knowledge Management Example: Call center representatives required 50% less time to solve a problem with correctly organized information. Average Reactive Time Per Incident (TPI) with knowledge not available (KNA): 10.35hrs Knowledge Helpful (KH) Average Reactive TPI: 5.45hrs Knowledge Helpful Comparison to Average Time per Incident: 5.45/9.6hrs = 57% Knowledge Helpful Time Saved Per Incident: 43% Code Number of Incidents per code Percentage of total where codes were used Percentage of total incidents Time per incident Total number 25,164 (avg.) 9.6 K helpful 3,833 18% 15% 5.45 K not 455 2% 2% 8.49 effective K not 3,313 15% 13% 10.35 available K not required 13,992 65% 56% 5.95 no code used 3,571 not applicable 14% 8.22 Compliance 86% Use/Opp % 68% KH/Use % 50% 26
3.2 Content Reuse: Improved Management of Marketing Assets Type: Magazine Ads Channel: Print Target Demographic: Parents Country: US Language: English Concept: Rebellion Brand: Settletra Do your kids: Have discipline problems? Trouble paying attention in school? Trouble getting along with others? Maybe it s time to find out how Settletra can help 27
3.2 Improved Management of Marketing Assets (continued) Taxonomy values are added as metadata, providing structure to allow asset retrieval Logos Types Advertisements Magazine Ads TV Ads Metadata Date created Type 15-Oct-2010 Magazine Ads Country Country USA UK Asset Demographic Parents USA Multiple taxonomies will contain descriptive data for a single asset Demographic Parents Youth 28
3.3 Content Reuse Improved Management of Marketing Assets (continued) Example: Central marketing service organization saved $1.25M / yr. through digital asset management and increased image reuse 29
3.3 Content Reuse: Composite Publishing / DAM Marketing organizations are asking creative agencies to provide components and not just composites. Digital asset reuse scenarios allow organizations to retrieve creative building blocks for new asset creation. Taxonomy allows components to be located separate from composites, and then used in completely different contexts. Hoppy Birthday! Occasion = Birthday Subject = Rabbit Subject = Rabbit Subject = Balloons Style = Cute Style = Cute Component asset Composite asset 30
3.4 Content Reuse: Web Content Management System Taxonomy and metadata allow both management and assembly of component assets. product template product data product page + promotion data = disclaimer text 31
PROCESS MANAGEMENT 32
4) Process Management: The Problem IBM Media Bin Endeca E commerce suite Digital Asset Management Guided navigation Autonomy/ Interwoven Sterling Content management Cross sell/up sell www.target.com 33
Infrastructure Harmonization: What Disharmony Looks Like 34
4.1 Process Management: Infrastructure Harmonization IBM Media Bin Endeca E commerce suite Digital Asset Management Guided navigation Enterprise taxonomy Autonomy/ Interwoven Sterling Content management Cross sell/up sell 35 www.target.com
SEO User Experience 4.2 Process Management: Product Information Supply Chain Taking your product information supply chain online: To web & mobile channels SEO deliverables Supplier product content Create controlled metadata Cleanse product data Retailing success or failure Add to taxonomy Product Data Management Search & Navigation 36
4.3 Process Management: Master Data Management Understanding what metadata originates where, and in which systems it is consumed drives efficiency and change management 37
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE 38
5) Business Reporting / Business Intelligence Taxonomy can provide data aggregation models for BI systems Taxonomies are used to normalize and categorize data for analysis Ontologies can provide relationships for data discovery applications Taxonomy provides the linkage between structured data and unstructured content 39
5.1 Business Intelligence: Campaign Personalization Prospect/customer data sources Text /Social media Sources Campaign execution Data extraction TX Prospect List Builder Data Normalization Prospect/Customer Time-series Data Prospect Profile Manager Prospect Profiles 40
Summary: What is a Taxonomy? It is a system for classification It enables the organization of documents and other (web) content It provides a means for fine-tuning search tools and mechanisms It is a common understanding for sharing concepts It is a common language for business processes It allows for a coherent approach to integrate information sources 41
Taxonomy Applied Throughout the Business Browsing & filtering Related documents Financial reporting Compare product Case Example: Motorola s Global Taxonomy Framework Served Multiple Processes Business intelligence Program Management Product Lifecycle Management 42
Four Critical Success Factors 1. Tie-down governance processes 2. Build a critical mass of knowledgeable resources (CoP/Com) 3. Plan to transition from taxonomy as a standard to taxonomy as a system component 4. Never stop building the business case 43
Conclusion Taxonomy provides benefits to many aspects of enterprise operations Most organizations have pieces of the puzzle, but not a comprehensive approach to cross platform and application integration To learn more about Earley & Associates services contact me at gary.kahn@earley.com 44
Wrap up and Questions
Please fill out the survey that should be in your inbox. Let us know what topics you are interested in and how we can improve the series. Email your suggestions to sharon@earley.com 46
Thank You 47