In late October of 2011, Intel’s Sherry Chang gave a presentation at the Taxonomy Boot Camp conference in Washington DC describing the successful implementation of this solution in the Synaptica KMS software. Many companies large and small may find themselves in a similar situation, and Synaptica looks forward to addressing this and any other challenges that they are presented with as a result of the ever-evolving requirements of enterprise taxonomy management.

When Intel came to Synaptica in June of 2010, they had a problem, and they wanted the Synaptica development team to try and help out with it. Intel has a very large product catalog of integrated chips, CPUs, motherboards, and other computer components sold around the world. They also have a large, global work-force with requirements to source, manufacture, sell, and support those products worldwide. As a result, what should have been standardized product terms were being segmented, re-organized, and reprioritized by different internal groups and business lines, each to suit their own requirements and view of how they needed the catalog to be organized.

The result was 20 different product hierarchies that were being used across the organization, each one with variations on product names and descriptions for what should have been identical product entries. The requirement, then, was to allow for the creation of multiple, distinct product hierarchies to suit each business user’s needs, while utilizing the exact same terms to form these hierarchies.

After gaining a better understanding of the issue and the desire to maintain multiple, parallel hierarchies in the same set of terms, the Synaptica team’s initial response was to say, “That would break all of the rules!” An example provided by Intel had the term “Processors” as the parent to “Desktop” and “Server” for one internal customer, and as the child of those terms for another. Given existing rules for hierarchical taxonomy construction, you can’t have a term be both the parent and child of another term. It just couldn’t be done!

But, after further discussions and some out-of-the-box thinking by the Synaptica development team, an innovative approach was developed that would require the creation of an entirely new relationship class called “Multiple BT/NT” (mBT/mNT). This new class would allow for multiple, parallel hierarchies to exist using the same set of terms, a concept that could simply not be accomplished with the traditional hierarchical relationship “BT/NT” class.

Example of parallel, multiple hierarchies created using the mBT/mNT relationship class using a singular set of terms (the Term Cloud); From Intel’s Sherry Chang’s presentation, “Hierarchies & Polyhierarchies: Is More Better?” 2011.

Our Partner PPC are offering an excellent series of webinars on SharePoint that we wanted to make you aware of:

Roadmap your Path to SharePoint 2010 Webinar Series - Strategies to Maximize your ROI

Session Two: Designing Information Architecture in SharePoint 2010: Leveraging new features and taxonomy/metadata best practices

Tuesday, September 14, 2010 11:30am - 12:30pm EST

The information architecture for SharePoint 2010 site collections will lay a critical foundation for configuring sites and libraries, as well as for the success of end users’ adoption and their ability to find content. SharePoint 2010’s expanded features include management tools for metadata and keywords. This webinar will discuss the fundamentals of taxonomy and metadata, how these elements map to SharePoint 2010 features, and best practices for designing and implementing taxonomy and metadata within SharePoint 2010.

Presenters: Jill Tabuchi, PPC and Bill Hutchison, AEA

Intended Audience: Business Sponsor, Information Worker, IT Manager, IT Professional

Click here to start the registration process at Project Performance Corporation. This registration is for Session Two: Designing Information Architecture in SharePoint 2010: Leveraging new features and taxonomy/metadata best practices on Tuesday, September 14, 2010.

Contact PPC for more information about how to leverage SharePoint 2010 within your organization by clicking on the logo below.

Synaptica Express

We are very excited to announce a new addition to the Synaptica product line-up: Synaptica Express. This new taxonomy management solution is our cloud-computing answer for individuals or small-business users looking for a low-cost, low overhead taxonomy management tool.

Express systems are hosted on secure servers and available as a subscription service. They are designed for a single authorized user account, providing a streamlined system that allows users to be up and running with minimal training. With Express users can access the most powerful taxonomy management tools without expense of the IT infrastructure.

Express systems start at $1,200 per year and can be scaled up from single to multiple taxonomy systems as needed.

Learn more about this revolutionary new taxonomy management solution:

We here at Synaptica have worked with Heather Hedden for a number of years now and were very excited to learn that she has completed her new book The Accidental Taxonomist.

We found it to be a great read and full of information that will benefit anyone from a novice to the most seasoned taxonomy expert. Be sure to look for references to Synaptica inside! Pick up your copy today here.

This fascinating video that we came across shows us the world of Social Media and Web 2.0 technologies today, and poses the question,"What's to come?"

How will you meet the challenges and opportunities of what these technologies bring to the party? Synaptica certainly looks to play a part in many new media strategies. Will you be there?