While it’s easier than ever to keep tabs on your industry and competitors, the sheer volume of data collected can make it hard to organize what you’ve found – never mind finding it again later! A controlled vocabulary is one way to improve your CI-related monitoring, collecting and organizing efforts, especially when you use software to handle or augment these processes.
Join two information specialists with experience in both Competitive Intelligence and Taxonomy development as they introduce you to controlled vocabularies, show you how to create a basic controlled vocabulary that could be implemented in a centralized portal (like Sharepoint or Drupal) and share their insights and best practices.
Learning objectives:
- What a controlled vocabulary is and the different types of CVs.
- Why creating a CV is important for CI.
- How to develop a basic CI taxonomy using Excel (or Google Sheets).
- Best practices and lessons learned in CV development for CI.
Justin Soles is an experienced CI analyst (and sometimes CI programmer, instructor and evangelist), as well as a seasoned knowledge taxonomist and information architect. Justin’s CI-related work has included patent and IP analysis, competitor profiling/tracking and dashboard development for senior management, among other projects. During his Masters in Library & Information Studies at McGill University, Justin participated in the consolidation of several Astronomy vocabularies into a single thesaurus along with experts from Harvard University, the Smithsonian, the University of Edinburgh and various prestigious scientific journal publishers.
Lisa Coady has more than 10 years of experience as a strategic development officer in the non-profit sector. Having recently completed a Masters in Library & Information Studies, she is setting up an information management consultancy specializing in developing controlled vocabularies, taxonomies and thesaurii to drive and enhance CI efforts in both commercial and non-profit organizations.