Call for Speakers - IS NOW CLOSED

Taxonomies are powerful tools used by a wide range of professionals, from marketers to data scientists, for solving diverse problems from navigation to product information management. This year’s Taxonomy Boot Camp is about highlighting taxonomy's many faces and sharing practical solutions in different real-world environments.

  • On the web team? Learn how taxonomies can help improve the user experience and dynamically publish web content.
  • Work in retail? Find out more about managing product information and creating good e-commerce experiences.
  • Fascinated by everything? Wade in and get immersed -- from enterprise taxonomies to ontologies, taxonomy tools, auto-classification, and everything in between.

The Taxonomy Boot Camp program is designed to provide something for everyone, from taxonomy newbies to seasoned experts (and everyone in between). Two parallel tracks on the first day provide those new to the field with the nuts and bolts they need to get up-to-speed and give seasoned practitioners insights into how others have honed their craft and made their organizations more successful through taxonomies. On the second day, hear case studies, practical sessions on taxonomy tools and methods, and cutting-edge developments in the field.

Taxonomy Boot Camp is the only conference dedicated to exploring the successes, challenges, methodologies and products for taxonomies. Share your experiences, knowledge and work with taxonomies, ontologies, folksonomies, tagging mechanisms and other techniques for organizing information at this one-of-a-kind boutique learning and networking event.

Last year’s attendees said: “The conference was great and really added a lot to my knowledge base and gave me great ideas for moving forward.”, “This was a very useful and interesting two days... Very very glad that I attended.”, “The speakers were all interesting, enthusiastic and provided useful insights into the development and maintenance of taxonomies. I made some useful contacts and came home with very helpful resources.”

Conference Chairs 

Stephanie Lemieux, Dovecot Studio
Mike Crandall, University of Washington

Please submit your proposal here

Topics for Taxonomy Boot Camp include but are not limited to:

  • Taxonomy/ontology modeling and development best practices
  • Taxonomy governance & adoption
  • Techniques for maintaining taxonomies (analytics, testing, etc.)
  • Information architecture and user experience (navigation, content publishing, etc.)
  • Metadata modeling and management (role of taxonomy)
  • Auto-categorization and other tagging techniques
  • Taxonomy management/development software selection and use
  • Working collaboratively with stakeholders, content and IT teams
  • User research & usability
  • Implementation of taxonomies and metadata in specific content management applications (including DAM, CMS, SharePoint, etc.)
  • Getting buy-in and proving ROI of taxonomy
  • Big data & big taxonomies – dealing with volume
  • Linked data, ontologies, semantic technology
  • Managing multi-lingual vocabularies

We’re also looking for great case studies from the following verticals and applications:

  • Retail/e-commerce
  • Healthcare
  • Small organizations/non-profits
  • Intranets/portals
  • Master data management/BI

Presentation Formats

Taxonomy Boot Camp will have the following formats:

  • Short lectures (15-20 minutes) – big ideas in compact form
  • Full lectures (45 minutes) – complex idea with many examples, practical methods
  • Panel (45 minutes, 3-5 speakers) – moderated discussion or interlinked short presentations and Q&A

Advice for Presenters

We’re always on the lookout for new, fresh presenters – so don’t hesitate to submit! Here are some helpful tips on how to get your presentation picked.

Be specific
Don’t try to cover all things taxonomy in the space of 45 minutes (let alone 15!!), it’s too much. Writing up a submission is one thing, delivering it is another. Broad topics often come across as rushed and confused. Try to whittle your concept down to a small, tight idea and then submit that.

Teach them something they can use
This year’s theme is “Sharing Solutions”, which means we’re looking for techniques, tools and concrete ideas that people can take home and apply. You might have some theoretical grounding you need to do for the talk to make sense, but keep the theory concise and make sure your takeaways are practical.

Give examples
We’re hot for case studies and visual examples of taxonomies in action. Be sure to mention what real-world examples you’ll be bringing to bear in your presentation.

Know your audience
Sharing insights about taxonomy is not about how clever you are, it’s about how clever you make your audience feel. Taxonomy Boot Camp caters to both novice and intermediate information management professionals, so make sure you tell us which group you’re targeting and match the tone and level of information.