|
Articles by Seth Earley
Microsoft's SharePoint 2010 provides features that enable organizations to deploy content-rich applications in less time and for less cost. SharePoint creates an opportunity for more efficient content curation, search relevancy, and automated display of related content on your intranet.SharePoint 2010 has constructs that did not exist in 2007-namely content types and managed metadata across site collections. Content types are collections of metadata along with rules for how a document created with the content type is managed. There is support for taxonomies and folksonomies, as well as for inheritance of metadata models and structures.
Making a business case seems reasonably straightforward. We assume that there is a reason why the project was initiated and that someone has articulated why this particular use of funds and organizational resources is best, given the goals of the business. Still, there is frequently a gap in communications about project activities, expected outcomes, and alignment with business objectives.
In my last column, I wrote about an individual organization moving through the various stages of maturity. The same thing happens on an industrywide basis. I recently attended Taxonomy Boot Camp, where I saw colleagues and new and old clients. One client in particular stood out: The company had been embarking on a faceted search project and needed to review, evaluate, and improve a large taxonomy that was used to navigate thousands of pages of product data.
I've just returned from a 3 week trip to Shenzhen, China, working with a large telecommunications manufacturer whose intranet for sales and marketing required development of new taxonomy and information architecture. In these situations, our first task is education.
|