KMWorld & Intranets - Tagging strategies and the impact on search in the intranet

Notable quotes and key ideas from Jordan Frank from Traction Software who spoke about "Tagging Strategies & E2.0 in Action". (This is not a product endorsement - only comments on the talk.)

Described 3 wiki use cases
1.  Unordered documentation (for example a wikipedia), glossary,  policies, FAQs
2. Ordered documentation, reference manuals, proposals
3. Project team collaboration - hybrid blog and wiki, combines wiki content - order and unordered
as well as blog type content - questions, issues, status, meeting notes, comments - chronological information.

Described 5 types of tags that can be defined, then used to slice and dice information and display it in different ways. A way of bringing some structure without limiting spontaneity and flexibility.

1. Content - bulleting, requirements, milestone, process, practice, etc
2. Importance: headline, alert, priority 1,2 etc, next, etc.
3. Status:  to do, done, stalled, skipped, waiting, no
4. Assignment: person, role, function, etc.
5. Category:  strength, weakness, threat, opportunity; 4 P's of marking, and so on (depends on the group)

Put this cocktail of tags together in a  project team space, and you can see a lot of different angles

Impact on search

• Search in the wiki/blog context can outperform the traditional intranet - wikis and blogs often reference information outside themselves. They are tagged in such a way that is more effective than in the average intranet CMS-driven content.
• You can use the wikis and blogs to weight the information around them, in the enterprise, which will help to make search better.

Frank included 3 case studies in his presentation: a competitive intelligence application in  Ipsen, a team in the Department of Defense (US) doing experiments with night vision equipment and a team in the National Health Services (UK).