Is Metadata About the Content?

I just returned from the Sentiment Analysis Symposium, recently held in NYC where I presented a short talk on the role of taxonomy in social media. This conference focuses on solutions that discover business value in opinions and attitudes in social media, news, and enterprise feedback.  I used my Blackberry to tweet ideas in real time during the session (hash tag SAS11).

This combination of immediacy and mobility has interesting implications for business. Consumers are connected to the feedback and opinion of others and are increasingly using their devices to research products and services through multiple mechanisms.

We'll be addressing aspects of this in our session this week on "Optimizing the Information Supply Chain for Competitive Advantage" where we will discuss how optimized supply chains, cross channel shopping and mobile commerce will require integrated taxonomies and metadata.

Healthcare and Electronic Health Records is the topic of a two part call we are presenting in May.  This is another area where the development of systems that can provide immediate and accurate information about patient health will depend on taxonomies. Patient safety data, evidence based medicine and integration of diagnostic and patient management systems along with a range of other methods to improve quality and control costs will require harmonization of complex healthcare and life sciences information sources.

In the last year, many of our clients are coming to us not to only address issues of findability through navigation and search, but also to define classification approaches for completely new applications or business contexts. In most of the cases, at the heart of the challenge is the development of a common vocabulary for communication between systems - systems that may be new or legacy. Change often comes from integrating prior concepts, capabilities, and solutions in new ways. At the heart of this is the ability to find a common language for communication.

What is your perspective on all of this?  I'd like to hear from you.