Taxonomy

Dividing the world is fun, especially with a group of people. Extra especially with a group of people who have already had a horrible, knock-down, drag-out fight over taxonomy and you're the new guy and someone asks you a taxonomy question in a mass email.

When it comes to taxonomy, I prefer to class stuff by how you use it rather than its genesis. I'm a fan of binary systems in general, but specifically I think using a high-level division is better than having to repeat that divison lower down. I also think that people who are looking for news are more likely to be interested in other news and how-to people like all kinds of how-to.

Other people are type people. They want all their science stuff together and all their politics stuff together. Which is ok, except that when a how-to person is looking for something that doesn't fit well and they have to burrow into 3 or 4 high level catagories. You can have broader catagories if you break up the data higher up.

What I also know is that as you're reading this, you're probably not on the fence about it. If you care at all about how information is organized, you care a lot. A scary lot. If you lose that fight in the workplace, every time you go back to the taxonomy you'll have a little voice in the back of your head that says if only they'd listened to you the company would actually be making money by now. And you're right. They should have listened to you.

You've been waiting a while to hear that. Now, back to work.

New Job and I'm Moving

Great time to start a blog. It's 2009 and most blogrolls contain a series of dead links from people who gave up the ghost years ago realizing that blogs will never make money. Most of those people are on Twitter now talking about having a sandwich. Good for them. Me? I'm like government: counter cyclical. I just got a job working at a newspaper (actually my business now does business with a business that is owned by a newspaper, but whatever, I'm the one who has to show up to 8 am meetings). Newspapers are failing and I'm going in. Blogs are failing, or at least blog platforms are and I'm hitching my wagon to that horse too. Oh, and I'm looking at buying a house. In the middle of the meltdown. Awesome.

So why am I putting this together? Not just so poorly paid staffer has something to dig through for dirt in 10 years when I'm running for the sort of office where poorly paid staffers do that sort of thing. And not just because I'm embarking on a career as a web 2.0 consultant for a newspaper when web 2.0 and newspapers are falling from the sky with half of a ripcord in their teeth. I think I'm going to change the world with this blog. Yup. No point in starting small. We'll see how that works out.

Oh, and even though I'm not doing it "just" for the reasons above, I think those two will keep me laughing and motivated, so for those of you dedicated enough to keep reading all the way back to the first entry and to the bottom of the page: I am looking for work and I just ate a puppy.

There. It's all been worth it.