February 2021


How to avoid 'dad dancing'

Less than two weeks to go until the first ever virtual Bite-sized Taxonomy Boot Camp, and we've just caught up with our Keynote speaker, BBC Data Architect Jo Kent. In this quick Q&A, Jo tells us about the challenges and learnings from the Corporation's recent social media taxonomy project. Find out more at her session, What's Up Doc? Using a taxonomy to turn health news into cartoons on 2 March, starting at 14.00 GMT/ 15.00 CET/ 09.00 EST.

Why did you embark on your project?
We wanted to make sure we were reaching younger people, particularly women, with important health information.

What was the single biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?
Understanding the Instagram mindset, what makes a good Instagram post, what are people looking for there? Thankfully we have an excellent team of social media editors who were able to explain it to us and take us through the process.

Greatest learning from the project?
Insight into social media consumption and younger audiences, how to join in without it looking ‘like dad dancing’.

And biggest mistake?
Assuming we knew what we were doing/what would work with young people/in this format.

Single piece of advice you’d give to someone embarking on a similar task
Talk to your audience and people who work with them first, don’t assume you know what will work.

January 2021

Bite-sized Taxonomy Boot Camp - 2 March 2021
Delighted to continue our conversations with the global taxonomy community through the launch of Bite-sized Taxonomy Boot Camp, a series of live quality learning events for taxonomists, knowledge managers and other info pros. Until we can get together again in person, join us at Bite-sized Boot Camp, kicking off on 2 March 2021 with two real-world taxonomy case studies, and a knowledge graph session.
Speakers at Bite-sized Boot Camp

    November 2020

    Boot Camp's webinar - taxonomy reading list
    Many of you joined us in October for Boot Camp's first-ever virtual session, a lively and energetic discussion on the future for our roles as taxonomists and information specialists. Our panellists got together after the webinar and came up with the following list of articles, resources, and further reading designed to support you in your work:

    Articles
    Racial bias in AI algorithms:www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-regulator-probes-unitedhealth-algorithm-for-racial-bias-11572087601 
    2005 article by Maewyn Cumming (then of the Cabinet Office’s e-Government Unit) - 'Tomatoes are not the only fruit' - introduction to the basic concepts of taxonomies, thesauri etc: nanopdf.com/download/tomatoes-are-not-the-only-fruit_pdf  
    Dave Snowden on Cynefin and ontologies and trying to impose order on random systems: www.cognitive-edge.com/the-ontology-word/ 
    Resources
    Don't forget Boot Camp's sister events on 16-19 November! www.kmworld.com/Conference/2020 
    Podcast of BBC Word of Mouth show on how the NHS chooses language on its website and in letters:www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000dpkc 
    Archive of ISKO UK events, including links to slides:
    www.iskouk.org/events
    The ANSI/NISO standard for controlled vocabularies:
    www.niso.org/publications/ansiniso-z3919-2005-r2010 
    Enterprise Knowledge Graph Foundation website has links to best practices, maturity models and more:
    www.ekgf.org/
    Books
    Book written by the brilliant Caroline Criado-Perez on the gaps in data and design that impact the lives of women:
    www.amazon.com/Invisible-Women-Exposing-World-Designed/dp/1784706280 
    Ali Shiri’s book Powering Search is used in Canada as a textbook for thesaurus and taxonomy construction courses:
    books.infotoday.com/asist/Powering-Search.shtml
    Caitlin O'Connor and James Owen Weatherall “The Misinformation Age, How false beliefs spread”:
    yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300234015/misinformation-age

    - ends -

    October 2020
    An important announcement from London’s Taxonomy Boot Camp
    The pace of the continuing global health crisis makes it difficult for us to determine how many of our international delegates and speakers will be able to travel to London and get together face-to-face.

    For this reason, we are delighted to announced that London's Taxonomy Boot Camp will be a virtual conference, taking place online on 2 & 3 March 2021 (workshops 1 March), making it possible for you to join us from wherever you are in the world.
    Our virtual conference programme will be announced in November 2020, built from the interesting stories submitted by so many of you during 2020. Reserve your personal copy of the programme here.