[Sigia-l] [Faget] FW: In need of stories.....

[Richard Hill]

[Forwarded because of html coding.  DIck Hill]

If you care to share and agree to change the names to protect the 
innocent/guilty parties, I would love to have your stories of doom and gloom.

How can the lack of a predefined end-to-end strategy for organizing 
information / managing content save an organization dollars?  Or cost an 
organization time, resources?

Thoughts on other topics?

For example
"Folks in the IM/IT shop of Organization X received some funding to buy a 
new tool to categorize their information.  This tool was purchased and put 
to use after minimally training employees with little prior experience in 
organizing information.  Was there a content management strategy? No.  Did 
they know how users would search for information?  No.  Was all the 
information being categorized? No.  Was there an existing schema for 
organizing information that could be tapped?  Perhaps, but striving for 
interoperability was only a "nice to have goal" not deemed a "critical goal".

Where are they two years later? Better searching has not resulted from 
their efforts.  Searching results include 600 imprecise results for every 1 
hit.  Unfortunately, Organization X has realized an additional $1.3 million 
this year will be required to re-organize their efforts.  A content 
management strategy is being developed.  Critical factors are being 
identified and put in place to insure a successful outcome.  A synchronized 
taxonomy effort will begin employing the skills of information professions 
familiar with existing information structures.  Organization X has taken 
two steps back...after their original step forward....and plans to right 
itself on the path toward better search and retrieval."

Nancy
====================================
ARMY LIBRARIES - KNOWLEDGE LEADERS
    LINKING LEADERS TO KNOWLEDGE
====================================
Nancy.G.Faget at HQ02.USACE.Army.mil
Nancy.G.Faget at US.Army.mil
(703)428-6727 office
(703)428-6896 fax
328-6727 DSN
US Army Corps of Engineers
Humphreys Engineer Center Support Activity
Headquarters Library Casey Building
7701 Telegraph Road
Alexandria, VA 22315-3860

Executive Director
American Society for Information Science and Technology
1320 Fenwick Lane, Suite 510
Silver Spring, MD  20910
FAX: (301) 495-0810
PHONE: (301) 495-0900

http://www.asis.org