The way companies are using software has been shifting- and if your head hasn't been in the clouds over the last few years i am sure you have noticed the shift to SaaS (Software as a Service) offerings and more services moving to the "cloud'. From The Economist's recent 14-Page Special Report on Corporate IT titled 'Let it Rise' focused on cloud computing, Microsoft's recent Azure announcement indicating an even bigger investment to moving services to the 'cloud', the recent discussions around Tim O'Reilly's post Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing , and of course discussions about the economics of cloud computing in today's world it is evident that these models- which are not really 'new'- are here to stay.

It is a little known fact- one that i am trying hard to ensure the marketplace knows, but Synaptica is available as a hosted application with complete access to most of all the features that are available (this includes access to robust Web Services). And just like the recent buzz in the marketplace, having access to Synaptica as a 'service' is something that recently we have been getting more and more requests about.

Who has interest in a Taxonomy and Metadata Management tool as a hosted model? Well it is not for everyone who has a need for a tool like ours, but for those who are interested it really varies. For example:

• Small to Medium, Corporate libraries or Product Manager/Marketing groups who are managing various taxonomies and do not have a lot of IT resources for bringing a tool in-house but can really benefit from a centralized taxonomy management tool that can be accessed via the internet securely by their global colleagues that work on the vocabularies collaboratively
• Companies that have an urgent need for a tool but don't have the resources to bring it in-house quickly at that specific point and chose a hosted model as a first phase to get their taxonomy development and deployment done
• Companies that perhaps have an technology architecture that is based on the LAMP Stack that Synaptica at this point can not fit nicely into
• Start-ups who are building a consumer service that requires a tool to manage their controlled vocabularies (e.g. product categories, navigation taxonomy etc.) but who do not have the IT infrastructure to host an application like Synaptica (e.g. most of their stuff is already in the 'cloud')

So with our hosted model, we can provide at whatever tier a company is at- an affordable and secure way to manage an important part of their business.

And the best part? Well coming in at the low-end, with access to a Synaptica hosted annual license (with full access to all editorial and administrative features including Web Services), you can basically choose to either use one of the premier taxonomy management tools in the marketplace or if you are so inclined- you can instead choose to spruce up your office by buying a Hyacinth Macaw Parrot, or perhaps you can buy one of your employees a nice baby shower gift like this blinged out Baby Pram or even update your office outside picnic patio area with the Kalamazoo Bread Breaker Two Dual-Fuel grill - yes, it really is your choice.

The Synaptica team is in Denver this week doing strategic planning, or as I say, scheming ! ;) There are a great number of really interesting problems in information management, and it's fun and rewarding to brainstorm ways of solving them. We're not the only ones scheming and it's great to see the market itself growing.

David Provost this week published a Global Review of the Industry and Leading Vendors in the Semantic Web space titled On The Cusp: A Global Review of the Semantic Web Industry in which Synaptica from Dow Jones and Dow Jones Client Solutions were highlighted. Dow Jones is in a unique position as a software vendor, consulting services provider and deployer of semantic solutions, which made for a great conversation - I highly recommend you read the report. (Not just because I was involved!)

Paul Miller has posted on his ZDNet blog a review of the report New report places Semantic Web ‘On the Cusp’ of something big. Paul adds some great commentary to his summary of the report, should you not be able to get through David's entire document at once.

Happy Reading!

At last week's conferences we had the wonderful opportunity to show the attendees how one of our customers utilizes Synaptica our Taxonomy and Metadata Management software.

Paula McCoy, Taxonomy Manager at ProQuest joined me on stage for two sessions during Enteprise Search Summit and Taxonomy Bootcamp. ProQuest provides global access to one of the largest online content repositories in the world and Paula is responsible for maintaining their controlled vocabularies that both editor's and end users use.

The case study addresses the challenges ProQuest faced in managing multilingual controlled vocabularies using multiple Word documents and authority files maintained in an Oracle database. During her presentations, Paula describes how implementing a thesaurus management tool helped ProQuest simplify and standardize its business semantic management to create a common language and connect disparate information assets as well as handling large and varied vocabularies and authority files, linking new and existing editorial systems and enabling hierarchical views, and automating thesaurus management tasks.

Note: Unfortunately the video does not focus on the slides during the taping like some of my other videos i posted from the conference so i have embedded the slides for you to follow along (maybe open a second window and click through).

The first session is 30 minutes and i go through what is and why customers use Centralized Taxonomy Management tools in the first 15 minutes and then Paula presents how she uses Synaptica daily to maintain the ProQuest taxonomies.

Centralized Taxonomy Management for Enterprise Information Systems

The second is a 45minute full Case Study (you only hear me introduce Paula and make some comments about how we need to make Taxonomy exciting!)

Finding a Common Language: Bringing Complex and Disparate Vocabularies Together

Thanks again to Paul McCoy who did an awesome Job!! Thanks!

The Synaptica team likes to think outside the box- both with customers as well as with the use of our own tools, so I wanted to share with you some of the ways that we use Synaptica internally here at Dow Jones that might seem surprising if you think about taxonomy management tools as just that- a development and management tool for controlled vocabularies.

Beyond straightforward taxonomy and thesaurus management, which of course is the primary purpose for Synaptica, we have incorporated a number of other vocabularies and projects into to the tool and integrated them into our development and account management processes.

One way that we are using Synaptica is to manage accounts, contacts and even lists competitors. Given the ease with which one can set up uniquely designed vocabularies, it is no problem to create one dedicated to storing any of the above information and the appropriate details. Once the vocabulary has been created and populated, it is just as easy to begin to link companies and individuals to account information, notations about sales status, and even suggested projects for enhancing Synaptica.

In the same respect we utilize Synaptica to manage our ongoing projects and a general knowledge base for any issues that might be encountered by our user base. We can store a definition, the status and priority of the project, and link it to the company or individual that requested it. Using this method we can easily track every aspect of the work from start to finish. Each project assigned to a specific version release is marked using things like category labels and workflow flags to very closely monitor and track where we are with each proposed project for ongoing releases.

We are applying the tools and functionality of Synaptica in ways that may not seem immediately apparent, but given the flexibility of the application there are many ways that one can find to creatively employ the features and functionality of Synaptica. Contact us today to find out more about how you can use Synaptica to assist with your internal processes, even in ways you may not have thought possible!

For many organisations, providing a single way to navigate information resources is unlikely to meet the increasingly complex needs of a diverse audience of users.

Forcing users to locate resources in a fixed manner is usually the main culprit in most failed taxonomy implementations. This problem is especially pronounced when users are migrating from their own information 'silos' to organisation-wide repositoies. To reduce resistance from users and to ease the transition into an environment that is more conducive to knowledge sharing and collaboration, multiple taxonomies reflecting the preferred discovery patterns and terminology of different user groups are highly recommended.

Those who have implemented taxonomies may immediately balk at this idea, since it could lead to a maintenance nightmare. However, we found that it is possible to both customize taxonomies for different user groups and to keep maintenance efforts to the minimum. Of course, this must be done with the proper planning, understanding of user needs and the right tools.

And this is where Synaptica fits in perfectly. A key differentiating feature of the Synaptica taxonomy management tool is its ability to provide 'audience-centric' views to diverse sets of users, yet maintaining a single 'master' taxonomy. This nifty feature builds upon the foundation of a master taxonomy by allowing alternative preferred terminology to be defined for multiple audience segments via audience 'extensions'. Terms that are not relevant to a particular audience can be suppressed and additional details or depth that are needed by another audience can be developed - depending on which 'extensions' are being deployed onto the navigation platform (Intranet, portal e.g.).

Synaptica automatically manages the relationships between the master taxonomy and its extensions, thereby enabling consistent searching using diverse taxonomic views. More importantly, it makes maintenance seamless as changes in any term will result in automatic updates across all 'audience-centric' views, eliminating the need to duplicate efforts across multiple taxonomies.

With the help of the Taxonomy Services team at Dow Jones Client Solutions, various organisations are using, or are planning to use this feature in Synaptica to enhance the information discovery process and experience. For example, in a typical corporate setting, users from different departments can continue to browse their contents using familiar terminology and views, even though they are really using a larger enterprise-wide taxonomy. Such functionalities help to lessen user resistance while fostering knowledge sharing at the same time.

In a wider context, such as that of a digital library designed for the Public, 'audience-centric' views can be designed to provide optimized browsing for varied audience segments. For example, the browsing needs on a topic such as Health and Medical Sciences would be very different between the general public and academic/researcher segments. These are just some of the taxonomy design and maintenance considerations that Synaptica addresses.

What this all means is that with the help of an experienced taxonomy design team and the right tools, knowledge managers can truly lay the foundation for improved information discovery and sharing without having to worry about details that can already be addressed by using existing tools and best practices.

To learn more about Audience Centric Approaches please see this paper:'Audience-Centric Taxonomy: Using Taxonomies to Support Heterogeneous User Communities'. This paper describes how the National Library Board in Singapore intends to utilize audience centric taxonomy to provide enhanced information access to its multilingual, multi-cultural user community.

This post was co-written by Tan Pei Jiun, a Dow Jones Senior Taxonomy Consultant based in Singapore.

ImageFlickr stephanieasher