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Features
It is generally accepted that folksonomies are most useful when they take the collective wisdom of a group and use that knowledge to organize and classify information in a way that makes the most sense to that user community. The reasoning goes that a userbase that categorizes and tags content in its own way—regardless of how unorthodox that method may be— knows what works best for itself, and a system should not dictate how an object isclassified for later retrieval. In contrast to highly structured taxonomies, a folksonomy requires less oversight, owing to its decentralized nature, and is ideal for applying descriptive data to a large number of information objects quickly and with minimal effort. Indeed, a folksonomy approach is often the best method for applying structure to an unwieldy, disparate assortment of assets. On the other hand, folksonomies with expansive tag clouds are also known for imprecision and generally lower metadata quality.
As they mature, intranets gain in personalization and collaboration features.This is one observation from the Nielsen Norman Group, based on its assessments of intranets for its 2009 annual design awards (www.nngroup.com/reports/intranet/2009). It certainly applies to McKesson Corp.’s intranet, one of Nielsen Norman’s 10 best. Known as McKNet, the corporate intranet encourages usage by a diverse group of employees and outside contractors.
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An operational intranet is one that provides the place to go to find what you need to do your job. It is an essential tool for staff and management. If the site goes down, people are disrupted in their work within an hour or less. My firm’s “Global Intranet Trends for 2009” report identifies three stages of intranet maturity, with Stage 3 representing organizations where the intranet has become highly operational and is the “way of working.” Large international enterprises (from 15,000 to more than 50,000 employees) represent more than 60% of the enterprises in Stage 3 in the 2008 data. A striking, often overlooked aspect of their intranets is that they offer more ways of connecting people to people.
As financial turmoil engulfs more and more organizations, intranets and related employee-facing technologies are experiencing a new injection of momentum. Intranets are being viewed by senior management as drivers of efficiency, productivity, and providers of “cultural glue” during turbulent times. (You can almost hear them thinking, “Let’s get rid of the people handling travel and automate the service via the intranet.”)
Read_Me_File
Reviewed this issue: Successful Enterprise Search Management, and Andrew McAfee’s Blog:The Business Impact of IT.
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