Gary Carlson

An image of a building foundation being constructed, used metaphorically to describe the foundation of something more broadly.

Information Architecture: the Importance of a Solid Foundation

February 28, 2023 / Perspectives

Providing concrete return on investment (ROI) numbers for IA projects is often complicated and difficult to calculate. Successful IA project executions are dependent on a solid foundation. At enterprise scale, IA builds the foundation of an organization’s information infrastructure so that users can connect with the right information across multiple platforms to create the required connection. When the foundation is flawed, the connections don’t happen….

Your Content Strategy is an Important Organizational Asset

February 28, 2023 / Perspectives

Most business organizations know they should manage their information and content. It’s easy to sink a lot of time and resources into creating, capturing, curating, and codifying content without realizing any tangible benefits. Indeed, without an Enterprise Content Strategy (ECS), any strategic content management process is like driving without a map.

Words have meaning. Words have context.

June 22, 2020 / Perspectives

Taxonomists spend their time wrestling with words, categories, relationships, and meaning. In so doing, it immediately becomes clear that context is an essential part of the work.

When “Broken” Search is a Trailing Indicator of Deeper Issues

June 23, 2020 / Perspectives

Often, after digging into projects it becomes clear that “search” is a trailing indicator of more systemic problems. Fixing or replacing a search engine is not always sufficient to address the underlying goals (even though it is necessary in some cases). “Search” projects often morph into knowledge management, content strategy, or information modeling initiatives…

Taxonomies and AI Chatbots

June 23, 2020 / Perspectives

This blog post is adapted from a Presentation by Gary Carlson at Taxonomy Bootcamp, November 2018 Taxonomies, AI, and Chatbots: Connecting People With Information There is a natural relationship between AI chatbots and taxonomies—but how do they work together? More importantly, how can taxonomies/ontologies support best AI practices? Taxonomies and ontologies interact with, support, and …

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Scalable Taxonomies

June 22, 2020 / Perspectives

In working on enterprise taxonomy projects, the issue of scale always comes up. “Scale” is a word that gets tossed around a lot but what does it really mean for taxonomies? How can taxonomies scale? What do organizations need to think about when considering requirements for taxonomy scale? We’ve found that the best way to …

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Taxonomy Workshop – Designing and Building Taxonomies for eCommerce and the Enterprise

June 22, 2020 / Past Events

Join the Factor team for this taxonomy that workshop geared to the taxonomy needs of enterprise scale taxonomies. We will cover the breadth of inputs needed to design taxonomies and then show how to translate these inputs into a durable and sustainable taxonomy. The workshop includes activities geared to provide experience with many aspects of the taxonomy design and building process.

Implementing Taxonomies and IA: Ensuring Success

June 23, 2020 / Perspectives

So, you did all this work and built these fantastic taxonomies and navigation models. Aren’t you done yet? Not really. Like architectural or backcountry trip plans, the realities of the situation will require modifications and adjustments to the information architecture.  The taxonomies, metadata, content models, and navigation that make up the IA will all be tested during implementation. …

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Essential Assessments for Designing Enterprise Taxonomy

June 22, 2020 / Perspectives

Designing a taxonomy is the process of defining its structure. It details how different relationships will be used, formatting of the labels, and the attributes that will be associated with each term and relationship. The design process is also the right time to consider the governance and maintenance procedures for the taxonomy along with the technical implementation considerations.