Metadata: Not Delivering and Dying
August 26, 2009
I watched a year ago as dozens of people filed into a program called “the drill instructor’s approach to metadata” or something that suggested a Marine Corps. physical training session. Yep, I thought, metadata in a day. I flapped my tail feathers and waddled on by the room stuffed with people who paid hundreds of dollars to get a knowledge injection.
Metadata is not exactly a botox injection that worked particularly well.
Lousy metadata produces a result that can be unexpected.
The notion of adding specific index terms to a content object is simple on the surface, but the indexing and tagging are intellectual walnuts. Get the terms wrong and no one can find documents because no one uses those words. Get the categories wrong and the helpful folders are like lumber rooms filled with odds and ends. Try to fix these problems, and the average MBA or art history major falls to the floor with their ankles bound by torn garments.
I quite enjoyed “Resuscitating Your Dying Metadata Strategy.” The title evoked an image of a gasping automated indexing system with three or four consultants poking at an intellectual body lying face down on the content processing vendor’s license agreement. And the word “dying” was a good one. There is a certain urgency to the word. “Sickly” denotes that a recovery may be likely. “Dying” suggests that I flip to Google Local to identify a funeral home.
The key segment of the article in my opinion was this passage:
a large number of IT professionals know intuitively that metadata management is the right thing to do, but have a hard time articulating why they need it. Also they admit a lack of engagement and collaboration with business stakeholders they are aiming to help. They also often have failed attempts to get metadata efforts off the ground in the past and are trying to fast track something…anything! So how can IT reverse this trend? They need to better scope and prioritize their metadata efforts by building a more realistic business case that can demonstrate real value-add.
The touchstones for me are the notion of a disconnect between users and information technology professionals. Then there is the notion that a lack of intellectual rigor and perhaps expertise have created problems. The organization wants a silver bullet.
Yes, this sounds familiar.
Metadata are important. The addled goose has no quick fixes to offer. The type of controlled terms that once were the strength of commercial databases such as ABI / INFORM are no longer valued. Creating consistent, useful controlled term lists and developing meaningful classification systems takes time and effort. Once these lists are in hand, the terms can be applied via human or “smart” systems. The moment the lists and classification systems are completed, the work begins to keep these lists in step with language. Sci tech terminology drifts less quickly than general business terminology.
The message is that an organization must continue to invest in complex, knowledge centric work. In my experience few organizations have the appetite for this activity. Quite a few folks who buy commercial databases in order to create a knowledge monopoly invest too little to keep their information products’ indexing up to snuff. The newcomers spend some money and time but fall into the trap of finding a Hollywood doctor to administer a quick botox injection to hide a wrinkle before an audition.
The folks who work at metadata often find themselves ignored. A good example is the 500,000+ categories generated by the Google. You can see a bit of this system in action if you run this query, verified at 8 am on August 25, 2009: “skin cancer”. Here is the result list I saw:
Based on my research, Google has been plugging away at metadata and making progress. Organizations faced with revivifying their dying metadata systems may want to learn from their errors and their consultants’ silly promises about certain automated systems. Maybe Google will make its metadata systems available someday? Maybe one of the graduates of the drill instructor programs that teach taxonomy will discover a silver bullet that is easy, cheap, and fast?
The addled goose’s team does controlled vocabularies the old-fashioned way, working with partners like Access Innovations, a company with automated systems and the deep experience required to tackle metadata in an informed way. No wonder he is paddling alone and thinking of the good old days when the ABI / INFORM and the Business Dateline teams worked each week to refine their term lists and tweak their classification systems. That was hard work not suitable to the social networking, Tweet sending “experts” selling metadata systems like carnival mountebanks.
Stephen Arnold, August 26, 2009
Comments
One Response to “Metadata: Not Delivering and Dying”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
[…] Metadata: Not Delivering and Dying : Beyond Search Based on my research, Google has been plugging away at metadata and making progress. Organizations faced with revivifying their dying metadata systems may want to learn from their errors and their consultants’ silly promises about certain automated systems. Maybe Google will make its metadata systems available someday? Maybe one of the graduates of the drill instructor programs that teach taxonomy will discover a silver bullet that is easy, cheap, and fast? (tags: metadata roi google) […]