When Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke told employees that “everyone means everyone” in the company’s AI rollout, he wasn’t being provocative for the sake of it. He was setting a new standard for how technology adoption should work–bold, all-in, and deeply human. In a company-wide memo, Lütke laid out a mandate that repositions AI from a …
AI First, Humans Always: Insights from Shopify’s AI Transformation Read More »
Libraries have spent millennia refining the art of organizing, retrieving, and safeguarding information. Their systems prioritize clarity, accountability, and ethical stewardship, qualities businesses now find indispensable as they integrate AI into their operations. While AI promises efficiency, its success depends on structured implementation, thoughtful governance, and human oversight. Look no further than the example set …
Modern AI systems are only as effective as the information they consume. Unfortunately, much of that information is messy. Taxonomies and other structured knowledge models have long helped organizations make sense of complex data. When paired with data management tools, they support everything from content discovery and analytics to personalization, integration, and lifecycle governance of …
Enhancing AI Effectiveness with Taxonomies and Knowledge Graphs Read More »
The role of Chief Data Officer (CDO) has evolved. No longer just a technical steward of data assets, today’s CDO is a strategic architect of business value. As enterprises recognize data as both a competitive advantage and a risk factor, the CDO operates at the crossroads of technology, business strategy, and organizational change. This is …
The Strategic CDO: Four Success Factors for Data Leadership Read More »
Most organizations would never tolerate an IT system with no security controls or a sales process that relies on guesswork. Yet when it comes to managing the raw material of modern business, many enterprises operate in a state of ambiguity. Critical decisions are made without a clear picture. Business functions work at cross-purposes. The same …
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 »
