Up updated version of this popular topic given during day 2 of the European SharePoint Conference in Copenhagen on February 6th, 2013. This was part of the Business Value track, and provides an overview of what metadata and taxonomy are, critical components in SharePoint, and what it takes to manage them successfully in a sustainable manner. Hopefully people found the session entertaining, as well.

1. Looking Under the Hood:
How Your Metadata Strategy Impacts Everything You Do
Christian Buckley
Director of Product Evangelism, Axceler
@buckleyplanet

2. How your metadata strategy impacts
everything you do
What I’ll cover today:
• An overview of metadata – what it is,
and why you should care about it
• Why taxonomy matters
• Taxonomy component in SharePoint
• What it means to manage metadata

3. About
Christian Buckley, Director of Product Evangelism at Axceler
• Microsoft MVP for SharePoint Server
• Prior to Axceler was part of the Microsoft Managed Services team at Microsoft
(now part of Office365 org)
• Prior to Microsoft, was a senior consultant working in the software, supply chain, and grid
technology spaces – always focusing on collaboration technology
• Co-founded and sold a collaboration software company (Qoses Inc) to Rational Software. At
another startup (E2open), helped design, build, and deploy a SharePoint-like collaboration
platform (Collaboration Manager), onboarding numerous high-tech manufacturing
companies, including Hitachi, Matsushita (Panasonic), Cisco, and Seagate
• Co-authored ‘Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Creating and Implementing Real-World Projects’ link
(MS Press, March 2012) and 3 books on software configuration management
• Twitter: @buckleyplanet Blog: buckleyplanet.com Email: cbuck@axceler.com

4. Get the Book
Microsoft Press, order your copy at http://oreil.ly/qC4loT
Tackle 10 common business problems with proven SharePoint solutions
• Set up a help desk solution to track service requests
• Build a modest project management system
• Design a scheduling system to manage resources
• Create a site to support geographically dispersed teams
• Implement a course registration system
• Build a learning center with training classes and resources
• Design a team blog platform to review content
• Create a process to coordinate RFP responses
• Set up a FAQ system to help users find answers quickly
• Implement a cost-effective contact management system

5. Axceler Overview (Booth #44)
Improving Collaboration since 2007
Mission: To enable enterprises to simplify, optimize, and
secure their collaborative platforms
– Delivered award-winning administration and migration
software since 1994, for SharePoint since 2007
– Customers in over 40 countries
Dramatically improve the management
of SharePoint
– Innovative products that improve security, scalability,
reliability, “deployability”
– Making IT more effective and efficient and lower the total
cost of ownership
Focus on solving specific SharePoint
problems (Administration & Migration)
– Coach enterprises on SharePoint best practices
– Give administrators the most innovative tools available
– Anticipate customers’ needs
– Deliver best of breed offerings
– Stay in lock step with SharePoint development and market trends

6. The #1 reason why your
SharePoint deployment will fail

7. Looking Under the Hood:
How Your Metadata Strategy Impacts Everything You Do
Christian Buckley
Director of Product Evangelism, Axceler
@buckleyplanet

8. Let’s walk through this…
What are you trying to
accomplish with SharePoint?

9. What was missing from your
previous attempts?

10. Let’s get down to
the fundamentals

11. Why aren’t my end users
using SharePoint?

12. Creating Passionate Users, Kathy Sierra

13. Things your end users want
that rely on taxonomy
• Social that works
• A working search engine End Users are so selfish
• Reliable eDiscovery
• The ability to automate

14. What is your metadata strategy?

15. What is metadata, anyway?

16. Metadata 101

17. Email Cell Twitter Blog
cbuck@echotechnology.com 425.246.2823 @buckleyplanet http://buckleyplanet.net

18. • Book title • Name • Device ID
• Author • Account Number • Email
• ISBN • Credit Card • Software version
• Publisher • Social Security #
• Billing Address

19. Email Cell Twitter Blog
cbuck@echotechnology.com 425.246.2823 @buckleyplanet http://buckleyplanet.net

20. • Name
• Account Number
• Mileage to date
• Home town
• Travel dates
• City visiting
• Flight number
• GPS position
• Friend’s Name
• City visiting
• GPS position
• Distance to friend
• Avoidance Flag = Yes

21. The Role of Metadata
Scott Singleton, Managed Metadata in SharePoint 2010 http://www.slideshare.net/scottsingleton/managed-metadata-insharepoint2010

22. Asset Type
Company
Asset Number
Color code
(by department)
Barcode Tracking
Number

23. ID Type
State License Number
Class
Expiration
Address
Date of Birth
Emergency
Contact
Donor
Email Cell Twitter Blog
cbuck@echotechnology.com 425.246.2823 @buckleyplanet http://buckleyplanet.net

24. The role of metadata
• Metadata is the lifeblood of SharePoint
• Taxonomy and metadata drive the tools and
processes that make the world go round
• Metadata powers search,
it powers social media,
and it powers SharePoint

25. Taxonomy

26. In Biology, taxonomy is the science dealing with the
description, identification, naming, and
classification of organisms. “however, the term is
now applied in a wider, more general sense and
now may refer to a classification of things, as well as
to the principles underlying such a classification.”
~Wikipedia.org

27. Your Current Taxonomy

28. Top level portal
Tier 1 site collections
based on business units
or product areas
Tier 2 sites that follow
specific structure

32. This is your
metadata

33. A great example
of taxonomy by
Ruven Gotz, MVP
(@ruveng)

34. Animal
Taxonomy Kingdom
Superclass
Invertebrates Vertebrates
Mammals Fish Amphibians Reptiles Birds Class
Predators Primates Whales Rodents Order
Squirrels Mice Porcupines Guinea Pigs Suborder
Hamsters and Family
Mice and Rats
Voles
A great example
Real Hamsters Voles Gerbils Subfamily
of taxonomy by
Ruven Gotz, MVP
(@ruveng) Short-tailed Long-tailed
Genus
dwarf hamsters dwarf hamsters
Djungarian Roborovski
dwarf hamsters Hamster

35. But it gets easy from here
Right?

36. Um…..

37. Managing your metadata

38. Uploading Content

39. Content Type
• It’s basically a definition of an artifact that can be stored in a
SharePoint site. For example:
– A project document, including
• File type
• Date created
• Author
• Last modified
– It is part of a workflow, including
• Who needs to approve
• Date of approval
– It includes information management policies that
• Cannot be edited once approved

40. Multiple Content Types

41. Content types may be
applied for each site
collection
…or for certain sites

42. The Role of Services
• SharePoint offers many services OOTB
– Search
– Excel Services
– BCS
– Project Server
– Web Analytics
– Access
– Performance Point
– Visio
– Word
– Office Web Apps
– People
• These centrally managed services allow for greater control across the enterprise

43. What is Behind Managed Metadata
• It is a service application created by a Farm Administrator
• It is added to a farm’s default list
• Allows you to centrally manage your content types,
subscribe to them as a service
• You can also create a content type hub, which is a URL to
a site collection

44. Scott Singleton, Managed Metadata in SharePoint 2010 http://slidesha.re/hNPeAQ

45. Syndication
• Content types can be shared
• Create a content type hub, which is an blank site
collection used to publish content types
• Publish the content types
• Consume them
• Content types become visible in subscriber’s
content type galleries

46. About Folksonomy

47. What is folksonomy?
• End user-generated keywords
• Personally applied tags of pages and objects
to content you discover and consume
• Generally applied through social interactions

48. Why use folksonomy?
• The primary value of a folksonomy is that it uses
your own vocabulary
• May come from your intimate knowledge of a subject
• A way to correlate discovered content (through search
or social interactions) to your understanding

49. Taxonomy Folksonomy
• Vinyl • Vinyl
• Record • 12”
• Blue label • Extended play
• Audio • Record
• Rare
• Blue label
• Audio
• Duran Duran
• Autographed
• No scratches

50. taxonomy
folksonomy
Opportunity to improve global search

51. Adding Metadata through Social

53. What is the role of governance?

54. In SharePoint…
Governance is about taking action to help
your organization organize, optimize, and
manage your systems and resources.

55. Corporate
IT
Project
SharePoint

56. Email Cell Twitter Blog
cbuck@echotechnology.com 425.246.2823 @buckleyplanet http://buckleyplanet.net

57. Corporate
IT
Project
SharePoint
Taxonomy
Management

58. Search will not improve if you are not actively managing your taxonomy

59. Governance
Compliance,
Regulations, End User Activity
Standards
Bridges the gap
Note: what is a best practice for me
may not be a best practice for you,
so do what makes sense

60. Your governance activities may include:
Weekly keyword review
and optimization Your end users
Your organization
employ social
has two content
tagging, add
types, and uses
comments, ratings,
Best Bets
Monthly governance Likes to content
review, including
Best Bets review

61. Lessons Learned

62. Lessons learned, at a high level
1. Understand your metadata and taxonomy model
2. Have a strategy for Managed Metadata – structured taxonomy
3. Involve your end users through Folksonomy and feedback
4. Make governance a priority – define it, document it, promote it
5. Create a governance site, publish it, and keep it fresh
6. Iterate, iterate, iterate

63. Getting tactical – First Steps
• Map out your high level taxonomy
• Web applications
• Site collections
• Content Types
• Constantly optimize
• Consolidate your content types
• Clean up your folder structures
• Refine your keyword taxonomy
• Standardize your site structure and templates
• Build a consistent navigation

64. Thank you!
Christian Buckley
cbuck@axceler.com
+1 425-246-2823
@buckleyPLANET
www.buckleyPLANET.com
and http://info.axceler.com
Order your copy at http://oreil.ly/qC4loT
Additional Resources
On The Importance of Metadata, Craig Mullins http://bit.ly/cOWp2F
Enabling Social Media through Metadata http://slidesha.re/gdjoaz
Understanding Metadata: Practical SP Information Architecture, Ruven Gotz http://amzn.to/JnxlcC
The Battle for Metadata in SharePoint 2010, Michal Pisarek http://bit.ly/g7vFWN
5 Steps of a Successful SharePoint Site Transformation http://bit.ly/eB6qbN
Creating Passionate Users, Kathy Sierra http://headrush.typepad.com/