Content Services

Iknow started the assignment by developing a NYPA-specific enterprise-wide taxonomy. Specifically, Iknow worked with NYPA’s staff to develop an enterprise subject taxonomy by using a combination of techniques, such as a review of prior internal classification schemes, an assessment of relevant external taxonomies, and the analysis of user search logs.

A second important work stream was user interface development. Iknow worked with the NYPA staff to understand their business-driven use cases and search requirements. Based on these findings, Iknow developed wireframe concepts for the presentation of various types of search results.

Iknow recommended the purchase of Smartlogic’s Semaphore suite of metadata management software products. Iknow and Smartlogic implemented the software suite to apply the new taxonomy in sophisticated autoclassification functionality to achieve more consistent content categorization and metadata tagging. Iknow also leveraged Semaphore’s ontology management and search enhancement features to offer NYPA users improved search relevancy and the ability to discover related content.

Iknow worked collaboratively with the NYPA staff in content management, IT, and several business functions to define the overall solution architecture, which included defining the business process workflows and the technical infrastructure requirements for metadata enhancement and autoclassification.

The new enterprise metadata management and search solution was implemented in NYPA’s software development and production environments.

Lastly, Iknow provided training for NYPA staff so that they could maintain the enterprise search and taxonomy platform in the future. The training included the installation and configuration of the Smartlogic Semaphore software and the development of the autoclassification rules.

Iknow’s approach to the taxonomy development effort consisted of the following three phases.

1. Defining the Objectives. Iknow clearly defined the objectives and search use cases for the new taxonomy. The UNU taxonomy was intended to support:

• Thematic area pages
• Search refiners (faceted browsing of search results)
• Links to other relevant content from each page
• Interfacing to other sites and data repositories dealing with humanitarian issues (using standard taxonomies to facilitate this, such as the HXL term set).

The taxonomy also needed to support longer-term content management. As the number of site items (e.g., blog posts, datasets, articles, etc.) increases in the future, UNU needs to be able to review the accumulated content by topic area to ensure it is highlighting the most important content and archiving anything that’s outdated.

2. Developing the Taxonomy. Iknow identified the taxonomy terms and created the new taxonomy. As with other taxonomy development projects, Iknow focused on key usage questions in order to develop the best set of terms. Specific usage questions included:

• How does UNU expect users to search and browse the content? What are the main concepts they will search for?
• How does UNU organize content internally? (e.g., Are folders set up for specific topics or other categories?)
• How do related organizations categorize content in these topic areas (especially if UNU may want to share data or documents with them)?

Iknow held a series of meetings with UNU project leaders to answer these questions and to jointly develop a taxonomy that was as simple and concise as possible, while allowing effective search refinement, browsing, and information exchange.

This work resulted in a five-facet taxonomy structure, with up to three levels of hierarchy for the terms in each facet. The five taxonomy branches were:

1. Policy areas, e.g., migration and displacement
2. Types of exploitation, e.g., modern slavery
3. Regions/countries, focusing on countries that are active in the UN’s 8.7 initiatives
4. Organizations (UN and other agencies that do field operational work and other organizations that are data sources or contributors to the site)
5. Industry sectors, focusing on those where exploitation is most serious, e.g., mining.

3. Implementation. After approval of the draft taxonomy, Iknow translated the term set into a structured XML file, which was used in the technology platform.

Iknow’s project approach involved four major phases of work.

1. Initial Taxonomy Review. Iknow reviewed user feedback on the current enterprise taxonomy as well as new requirements developed by the KM team since the close of the earlier project. These requirements were focused on the need for a more detailed technical vocabulary for describing specific expertise and lessons learned, especially in the generating plant environment. Iknow performed a draft manual classification of the new content, and then implemented the draft taxonomy updates and additions ready for review by NYPA subject matter experts (SMEs).
2. Trial auto-classification of new content. As a way of testing the new ontology and rules, Iknow ran a trial auto-classification of the best practice/lessons learned content and expertise records. This was used to refine the ontology (especially alternative labels and other evidence values) and the rules as necessary.
3. Initiation of the new ontology governance process. Iknow assisted NYPA with the preparation and execution of the new governance model, especially the review sessions with SMEs from each NYPA department. These sessions were used to discuss and get approval for recommended taxonomy changes as well as to review autoclassification results to identify any areas of systematic over-tagging or under-tagging and develop strategies to correct them.
4. Bulk re-classification of enterprise content based on the updated taxonomy and rules set. As in the previous project, Iknow assisted with the planning and initiation of the bulk re-classification jobs, as well as conducting a final review of results.

The objectives of the taxonomy workshop were to provide:

• A critique of the division’s current taxonomy development roadmap,
• Guidance on creating a forward-looking taxonomy, and
• Best practices for classifying content in the pharmaceutical industry.

Preparation for the workshop started several weeks prior to the workshop date. Iknow’s initial step was to prepare and submit a data request for information about the company’s existing taxonomies, its taxonomy development plans, and use of text mining and autoclassification tools. The pharmaceutical company provided the information. In all, Iknow reviewed over a dozen documents, including:

• Current-state assessment of the division’s taxonomy development,
• Description of the major taxonomy-related initiatives for the past five years,
• The company's future-state vision for a new knowledge management KM platform, and
• Requirements documentation on the future-state KM platform.

Iknow then identified several of the division's KM team members for interviews, development a detailed interview guide, and scheduled and conducted telephone interviews to ask questions about the information in the initial data request and to gather additional information. Specifically, the interviews provided further insights about the KM landscape, user satisfaction with the current KM platform, and potential opportunities for improvement.

Based on the initial data request and the findings from the interviews, Iknow drafted an agenda for the taxonomy workshop. The agenda included the following topics:

• Assessment of the existing taxonomies
• Methodology for taxonomy creation and application, including a number of “deep dives” into the following practical aspects:
  • How to apply text analysis to identify terms and concepts to include in the taxonomy
  • How to harmonize taxonomies created by disparate business units, functions, and departments
  • How to merge repositories that contain similar document types and subject matter
  • How to apply new taxonomy terms to existing content
  • How to integrate existing enterprise data into the knowledge management platform
  • How to perform autoclassification incorporating taxonomy and ontology models.
• Next steps

After a few refinements to the agenda and subsequent signoff, Iknow developed the workshop presentation materials and several case study examples.

Iknow delivered the half-day workshop to the manufacturing division's KM team and other key staff. The workshop was engaging and highly interactive. The staff benefitted from seeing actual taxonomies and taxonomy-embedded applications developed by Iknow for other Iknow clients.

In addition to the workshop, Iknow prepared a sixty-page written summary report. The summary document contained highlights from the workshop, a taxonomy development roadmap, and next steps.

Iknow approached the problem in three steps:

1. Current-State Assessment. Iknow comprehensively analyzed the firm’s environment from the perspectives of people, process, technology, and culture, and developed a current-state snapshot, or baseline, to characterize its operations. The team studied several core processes, including project delivery and business development. Iknow conducted interviews with the firm’s employees and reviewed the available tools, checklists, and other resources used by the consultants and support staff.
    
2. Recommendations. Iknow distilled the research and interviews and developed specific and actionable improvement recommendations. We also created a knowledge management strategic roadmap and implementation plan, complete with milestones and resource requirements.
    
3. Board of Directors Presentation and Approval. Iknow presented the findings from the baseline assessment and the improvement recommendations to the firm’s board of directors and other senior staff to gain approval for implementation.

One of Iknow’s recommendations was that the firm needed to invest the time and resources necessary for capturing, storing, organizing, and sharing the company’s existing knowledge and intellectual capital. Another important recommendation was to implement an enterprise search strategy. In the short term, Iknow’s search strategy included:

• Purchase and implement an enterprise search software tool. The search software would index the firm’s existing content and make it available across the organization. Restrictions and access safeguards would be implemented to protect sensitive and proprietary data.
   
• Begin a knowledge-capture effort. The purpose of this activity would be to identify and capture the firm’s highest-value knowledge assets. This activity would allow the firm’s consultants to submit knowledge at any time and from any location to designated knowledge managers.