Call for Speakers EXTENDED

From Potential to Powerhouse

Stepping Up the Taxonomy Game

When we say taxonomy, we mean power: the power of organizing, the power of creating meaning, the power of dynamic content. Taxonomies are all about creating structures that tap into this vast potential, bringing data and information to life.

This year’s theme is all about harnessing the power of taxonomies to generate value. For those starting from scratch, it’s about starting the process to create order from chaos. For those who already a taxonomy, it’s about unlocking the next level of benefits gained by increasing scope, implementing in new systems, or starting to move towards ontologies.

Taxonomy Boot Camp 2017 is focused on stepping up the taxonomy game. We’re looking for stories about how you turned your taxonomy into a powerhouse: moving from theory to practical application, expanding and enriching taxonomies, implementation challenges and solutions, or even converting to ontology. 

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
• Search & taxonomy
• 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

Presentation Formats:

• Short lectures (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

EXTENDED deadline to submit is April 30

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 20!!), 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 “Potential to Powerhouse”, which means we’re looking for techniques, tools and concrete ideas that people can take home and apply to step up their taxonomy game. 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.