What if your data could connect itself? Imagine a system that stores information and understands how it all fits together. That’s the power of an ontology. What Is an Ontology? In Information Science, an ontology is a structured framework for representing knowledge within a domain. More simply, it connects objects and concepts through defined relationships, …
Ontology 101: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Use It Read More »
Effectively scaling core business capabilities means ensuring the right information flows to the right people at the right time. Without a strong process for managing information, growth often leads to chaos instead of progress. Structured taxonomies, metadata, and governance policies turn raw data into an asset, making it easier to find, interpret, and use. These …
The Role of Information Foundations in Scaling a Business Read More »
Data silos, which are effectively isolated data repositories within an organization, are one of the most common data management problems. They create barriers to information sharing and information use in general, hindering business performance by adding friction to collaboration, decision-making, and business operations. This sand in the gears of business processes is so common that …
A snapshot of an AI workflow modeled in Langflow, an open tool for moderating LLM-system workflows. Image source: Langflow Docs. As Information Architects, it has been fascinating watching our collective understanding of generative AI improve over the last few years, myself included. Openly accessible models*, frameworks and datasets, available via Ollama and Huggingface, have enabled …
Checking In on the State of Linked Data at the Dawn of RAG Read More »
As taxonomy consultants at Factor, we are frequently engaged to help our clients clean up and improve existing taxonomies; these have often developed ad hoc and, often, have not been constructed or managed by taxonomists. This is fine! Having controlled lists of tags is better than not…having controlled lists of tags, and it’s a great …
On Term Formation: Consistency, Standards, and Exceptions Read More »
I recently re-read a pre-LLM blog post about our work creating ontologies to support an AI-powered chatbot. My sense going into it was that our argument about the need for strong information foundations was still relevant. After re-reading it was clear that taxonomies play a crucial role in any AI application, and that role is …
There’s no shortage of stories about “AI gone wrong” in the news, on social media, and here on LinkedIn. For example, the AI Incident Database, in what is almost certainly an incomplete collection, lists nearly 4000 of them. Regardless of the metric used, these incidents damage businesses and do real harm to people. In this …
How Can Information Architecture Help Address AI Risk? Read More »
Lately I’ve been mulling over the misleading nature of the term “artificial intelligence.” Taken without context, it connotes, unintentionally, the idea of an intelligence equal to human intelligence, only artificial. It is not. It is absolutely not. But I believe that much of the recent generative AI hype is stirred by companies taking advantage of …
Technostress, Misalignment, and “Artificial Intelligence” Read More »
A recent post I wrote on LinkedIn hit a nerve. Talking about information/semantic rich projects failing due to the lack of organizational commitment is not new, for me or others in the field. Unfortunately, the reasons for these failures are often hidden to the organizations and are often pinned on bad technology, complexity, or a …
My colleague Connor Cantrell recently wrote a piece on taxonomy governance, placing it in the context of collection lifecycle management in libraries. One of the primary reasons for governance, whether of taxonomies, metadata, content, data, records, books, academic journals, or any other digital or physical information asset, is to ensure that it’s managed in a …
Don’t Skip Steps, but Don’t Boil the Ocean: Practical Advice on Taxonomy Documentation Read More »
