On May 25, 2021 at 1:33:18 AM, Jay Kreshel (jkreshel@...) wrote:

I have begun a Knowledge Mapping exercise and have learned a couple of things about my data that I need help managing. 

1. We have a lot of really good content. But, when we posted it to our Content Management Systems, we failed to document its post dates... AND, as we work through determining which content will help us engage our employees and customers at the right time. When it is time to add new content, what is the best practice on expiring content and when to remove it from the system?
2. With our taxonomy of labels for tracking and tagging data, we have a list of 130 individual labels across 18 categories. Feels like a lot... What is the Best Practice for a reasonable count?
3. I was also given guidance around a Controlled Vocabulary as an alternative. I believe that this would decrease the number of categories and categories. Does anyone have a case study that would help me determine which method to use?

Thanks in advance.

Jay.
(300 person start-up, Technology company.)

My comments:  [DLT]

1.  This is a judgment call.  The retention period is relative to who uses the material and its time-value. 

2.  No idea.  The general rule is whatever works.  Every situation is different.  There is, however, a point of diminishing returns.  At some point, the process becomes too cumbersome and people will not use it.

3.  See attached diagram of a knowledge acquisition study that was completed for the US Government.  It’s goal was to define what knowledge existed within the Science & Technology labs.  The study used Controlled Vocabularies to insure accuracy.  It was determined that much of the research knowledge could not be understood by the Program Managers and it was therefore, not implemented in end-user projects.   For this reason, associating Acronyms, Synonyms, jargon with the Controlled Vocabularies was essential. People understand based on the language they already know and understand. 

Martha Nawrocki, our Master Knowledge Engineer modeled this project.  The Map was created by Dr. Richard L. Ballard, Principle Investigator

Good luck with your report.  Dennis 

On May 25, 2021 at 1:33:18 AM, Jay Kreshel (jkreshel@...) wrote:

I have begun a Knowledge Mapping exercise and have learned a couple of things about my data that I need help managing. 

1. We have a lot of really good content. But, when we posted it to our Content Management Systems, we failed to document its post dates... AND, as we work through determining which content will help us engage our employees and customers at the right time. When it is time to add new content, what is the best practice on expiring content and when to remove it from the system?
2. With our taxonomy of labels for tracking and tagging data, we have a list of 130 individual labels across 18 categories. Feels like a lot... What is the Best Practice for a reasonable count?
3. I was also given guidance around a Controlled Vocabulary as an alternative. I believe that this would decrease the number of categories and categories. Does anyone have a case study that would help me determine which method to use?

Thanks in advance.

Jay.
(300 person start-up, Technology company.)

Thanks, @Steven, I have been referred to Patrick Lambe's writings before. I will check it out...

If as you say my issue may not be tagged at all and an improved Search functionality is advisable... Can you please recommend one or a few to review? I keep hearing from everyone that KM is about the process and not technology, but it seems as if I am starting to run into a corner where it may be the solution.

Jay.

On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 6:06 AM Stephen Bounds <km@...> wrote:

Hi Jay,

Dennis has pretty much nailed it.

On point 1, you need to consider: (a) the cost of leaving something 'wrong' up and (b) if something 'wrong' could still be useful. One option to consider is applying automatic warning headers on content that is at more than X days old to encourage people to look for newer content. This also encourages relevant content to be refreshed by stakeholders (even if people just click Edit => Save to update the modified date).

On point 2, assuming that the main purpose of labels is discovery, you could analyse the number of times a label is searched for to get a sense for which are resonating with your users and then trimming the excess. But first I think you need to understand why you're labelling content at all. Is it performing a function that search won't and if so, could you fix the problem with a better search engine? 😁

Patrick Lambe's book "Organising Knowledge: Taxonomies, Knowledge and Organisational Effectiveness" is a great way to learn about this stuff, BTW. Highly recommend.

Cheers,
Stephen.

====================================
Stephen Bounds
Executive, Information Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
====================================

On 25/05/2021 9:33 pm, Dennis Thomas wrote:

My comments:  [DLT]

1.  This is a judgment call.  The retention period is relative to who uses the material and its time-value. 

2.  No idea.  The general rule is whatever works.  Every situation is different.  There is, however, a point of diminishing returns.  At some point, the process becomes too cumbersome and people will not use it.

3.  See attached diagram of a knowledge acquisition study that was completed for the US Government.  It’s goal was to define what knowledge existed within the Science & Technology labs.  The study used Controlled Vocabularies to insure accuracy.  It was determined that much of the research knowledge could not be understood by the Program Managers and it was therefore, not implemented in end-user projects.   For this reason, associating Acronyms, Synonyms, jargon with the Controlled Vocabularies was essential. People understand based on the language they already know and understand. 

Martha Nawrocki, our Master Knowledge Engineer modeled this project.  The Map was created by Dr. Richard L. Ballard, Principle Investigator

Good luck with your report.  Dennis 

On May 25, 2021 at 1:33:18 AM, Jay Kreshel (jkreshel@...) wrote:

I have begun a Knowledge Mapping exercise and have learned a couple of things about my data that I need help managing. 

1. We have a lot of really good content. But, when we posted it to our Content Management Systems, we failed to document its post dates... AND, as we work through determining which content will help us engage our employees and customers at the right time. When it is time to add new content, what is the best practice on expiring content and when to remove it from the system?
2. With our taxonomy of labels for tracking and tagging data, we have a list of 130 individual labels across 18 categories. Feels like a lot... What is the Best Practice for a reasonable count?
3. I was also given guidance around a Controlled Vocabulary as an alternative. I believe that this would decrease the number of categories and categories. Does anyone have a case study that would help me determine which method to use?

Thanks in advance.

Jay.
(300 person start-up, Technology company.)

Hi Stephen,

I apologise for joining the conversation without introduction or invitation. However, I’m very interested in findings re document location methods efficiency on the chart that you shared. Is it part of your own research results? Could you please share any additional info on the source of info? I failed to google it on my own

Thank you in advance

Tatiana

On 28 May 2021, at 02:08, Stephen Bounds <km@...> wrote:



Hi Jay,

Honestly, almost all full-text search engines are perfectly fine. Until you get to millions of documents there is minimal difference in performance and effectiveness.

Categorisation tends to be seen as a good option due to its high efficiency in locating information with medium numbers of documents, as illustrated by the chart below:

<knmnljjcecfmimek.png>

This makes some pretty basic assumptions about user behaviour and the crossover points in efficiency will change depending on those assumptions but the basic idea holds.

However, what this chart does not capture is the cost of applying the categorisation in the first place. The benefit of search is that it is literally "set and forget" - the cost of capturing thousands of additional documents is minimal compared to hand-tagging each. Thus people tend to overvalue categorisation and undervalue search. Applying metadata for the sole purpose of location only makes sense when dealing with a small number of documents with a relatively frequent and valuable amount of reuse.

(Note of caution: Don't forget whole-of-lifecycle governance. If you're going to end up with a pile of unowned documents in your system, it can be costly to identify people responsible for their later review. Ideally documents should be tagged with an identifiable group owner at point of upload if you need to delegate their subsequent management or disposal. Usernames are a poor substitute but better than nothing.)

Cheers,
Stephen.

====================================
Stephen Bounds
Executive, Information Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
====================================

On 26/05/2021 12:18 am, Jay Kreshel wrote:

Thanks, @Steven, I have been referred to Patrick Lambe's writings before. I will check it out...

If as you say my issue may not be tagged at all and an improved Search functionality is advisable... Can you please recommend one or a few to review? I keep hearing from everyone that KM is about the process and not technology, but it seems as if I am starting to run into a corner where it may be the solution.

Jay.

On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 6:06 AM Stephen Bounds <km@...> wrote:

Hi Jay,

Dennis has pretty much nailed it.

On point 1, you need to consider: (a) the cost of leaving something 'wrong' up and (b) if something 'wrong' could still be useful. One option to consider is applying automatic warning headers on content that is at more than X days old to encourage people to look for newer content. This also encourages relevant content to be refreshed by stakeholders (even if people just click Edit => Save to update the modified date).

On point 2, assuming that the main purpose of labels is discovery, you could analyse the number of times a label is searched for to get a sense for which are resonating with your users and then trimming the excess. But first I think you need to understand why you're labelling content at all. Is it performing a function that search won't and if so, could you fix the problem with a better search engine? 😁

Patrick Lambe's book "Organising Knowledge: Taxonomies, Knowledge and Organisational Effectiveness" is a great way to learn about this stuff, BTW. Highly recommend.

Cheers,
Stephen.

====================================
Stephen Bounds
Executive, Information Management
Cordelta
E: stephen.bounds@...
M: 0401 829 096
====================================

On 25/05/2021 9:33 pm, Dennis Thomas wrote:

My comments:  [DLT]

1.  This is a judgment call.  The retention period is relative to who uses the material and its time-value. 

2.  No idea.  The general rule is whatever works.  Every situation is different.  There is, however, a point of diminishing returns.  At some point, the process becomes too cumbersome and people will not use it.

3.  See attached diagram of a knowledge acquisition study that was completed for the US Government.  It’s goal was to define what knowledge existed within the Science & Technology labs.  The study used Controlled Vocabularies to insure accuracy.  It was determined that much of the research knowledge could not be understood by the Program Managers and it was therefore, not implemented in end-user projects.   For this reason, associating Acronyms, Synonyms, jargon with the Controlled Vocabularies was essential. People understand based on the language they already know and understand. 

Martha Nawrocki, our Master Knowledge Engineer modeled this project.  The Map was created by Dr. Richard L. Ballard, Principle Investigator

Good luck with your report.  Dennis 

On May 25, 2021 at 1:33:18 AM, Jay Kreshel (jkreshel@...) wrote:

I have begun a Knowledge Mapping exercise and have learned a couple of things about my data that I need help managing. 

1. We have a lot of really good content. But, when we posted it to our Content Management Systems, we failed to document its post dates... AND, as we work through determining which content will help us engage our employees and customers at the right time. When it is time to add new content, what is the best practice on expiring content and when to remove it from the system?
2. With our taxonomy of labels for tracking and tagging data, we have a list of 130 individual labels across 18 categories. Feels like a lot... What is the Best Practice for a reasonable count?
3. I was also given guidance around a Controlled Vocabulary as an alternative. I believe that this would decrease the number of categories and categories. Does anyone have a case study that would help me determine which method to use?

Thanks in advance.

Jay.
(300 person start-up, Technology company.)