[Sigia-l] Selling content owners on the taxonomy concept

[Ruth Kaufman]

At IBM, we're big on taxonomy work as you've described it below. 

The key benefits of doing what you've outlined in your post include:
- improved user experience through
   - consistent nomenclature
   - better search/query results
   - clarity in navigation schemes and overall site architecture

- re-inforcement of terms and concepts -> more effective marketing communications for the enterprise; this can also be thought of as breaking down information/content silos that reflect your organization's structure rather than users' conceptual models. 

- ability to create dynamic, adaptive sites, pages, and queries for content link lists that yield truly relevant content -> cost savings in web operations and improved user experience (you can't have a truly dynamic site without a good information model.)

- ability to create and manage an information model that has integrity -> cost savings/operational efficiency (you can't have a good information model for a large site without in-depth taxonomy work. Think about it -- how much time do analysts and develpers spend doing convoluted mapping of content and data feeds to get systems to talk to each other? Taxonomies and consistent information models lubricate these efforts.

Hope this helps,
Ruth