CMS Watch predicts death oftaxonomy
On this first day of 2009, I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on the CMS Watch list of predictions for 2009. Getting big play in the top 3 is “Taxonomies are dead. Long live metadata!”.
With social computing coming to the fore, it’s never been more obvious that everyone does not, and will never, categorize things in the same way. It doesn’t even matter what’s correct anymore… I will assert that the days of the traditional, definitive, and single-hierarchy taxonomy are long behind us.
I think that this is accurate — insofar as it uses the traditional, definitive and single-dimension definition of taxonomy that ought to be left in the dust along with corded telephones and dot matrix printers. I mean, I can’t even remember ever building a taxonomy that was meant to be traditional or had a single-hierarchy.
The term “taxonomy” has grown to mean so much more than this… We use taxonomy in a very broad sense – suggesting that all metadata comes from the taxonomy. Everything is about classification and structure. Certainly “taxonomy” has become an abused term. The say taxonomy when they want their information world to be a better place. There is a comforting, ordered ring to the term. It sets all things in theworld in their proper place.
The fact of the matter is business people don’t get metadata. Sure,they know it’s “information about information”, but start a sentence with metadata and watch their eyes glaze over. It’s an abstraction, its technical, its stuff that they can’t connect with. It’s best left to IT. Don’t bother them with that sort of stuff. It sounds like something that will bore them or extra work that won’t bring in more revenue… at least taxonomy sounds kind of mysterious. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the sentiment: I heart metadata. I have the t-shirt. But I won’t put stock in it becoming the new buzzword.
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