I posted a link to this on our company blog a few days ago but thought I should share it here as well: Peachpit.com has a short excerpt from my book called
Return on Investment: Seven Business Benefits of Tagging Systems.
The excerpt is taken from Chapter 2, which was the hardest chapter to write and, if I remember things correctly, the very last thing I submitted. I used Jess's value-centered design model to frame this chapter, so the excerpt is part of larger discussion on balancing users' needs and motivations with business benefits (a core concept of our consulting practice at nForm). Still, I think the article is a good roll-up of the concrete benefits tagging can bring to an organization.
(If you want to read more, you can buy the book on Amazon or read some of the supplementary on the book site.)
I'm shuttering Tweeterboard (Jun 30, with comments by drcrazy4, )
Last fall I built a site called Tweeterboard. Tweeterboard was an experiment in using conversation (specifically @username messages) to measure influence within Twitter. But this week I realized that I no longer have the time, energy, interest or technical...
Nashville! (Jun 19)
Last week I was in Nashville, Tennessee speaking at Voices That Matter, a fine web design conference hosted by the folks at Peachpit. The conference was great, of course. Some amazing people worked on (and around) my book and I...
links for 2008-06-19 (Jun 19)
What's in a Word - ip.Blog Nice, short review of my book. (tags: tagging book reviews)...
Debunking the Atheist's Nightmare (Jun 17)
If you haven't seen "The Atheist's Nightmare," it's a short video where Ron Comfort and former TV star Kirk Cameron use a banana to prove the existence of God. It's that ridiculous, but I'm posting it here since no one...
Explaining the Flip video camera (Jun 13)
Charles Wyke-Smith explains the appeal of the Flip video camera: Charles is the author of Stylin' with CSS. We were hanging out at VTM in Nashville. And I took the video with the engraved Flip camera that I got for...
The Boston Celtics on strategy vs. opportunity (Jun 5)
At work we often talk about opportunistic growth--when you're able to expand your company because you land a big project or a long-term contract. As a professional services firm your growth is pretty tightly bound to your opportunities; unless you...
My Webvisions Slides (May 27)
Last Friday I gave a talk on tagging at Webvisions in Portland. I thought the session went well--the audience was interested and had excellent questions. Here are my slides: | View | Upload your own I've spoken at Webvisions twice...
Brand Tags: the really effective tag cloud (May 14)
Back to Melonville (May 10)
Upcoming Appearances: WebVisions, VTM, ESS and more (May 8)
How to get a mouse in a beer bottle (Apr 26)
Power struggle (Apr 24, 4 comments)
links for 2008-04-21 (Apr 21)
links for 2008-04-18 (Apr 18)
links for 2008-04-17 (Apr 17)
My IA Summit Slides (Apr 16, 1 comments)
links for 2008-04-15 (Apr 15)
By day Gene Smith is a principal with nForm, one of Canada's leading user experience consulting firms. By night he writes about information architecture, interaction design, community, the web and other such topics. 
