Tagging Systems in Schools/Businesses

Many organizations waste time and money researching answers to questions already answered or creating content that may already have been done by others within the organization. What shortfalls of social tagging does Trant identify that might prohibit a searchable tagging system to be a successful aid within an organization such as a business or school?

One point that Trant made that I thought was interesting was that folksonomy is often criticized for not having a controlled vocabulary. While tagging keywords can be helpful to link information together, different people have different ideas of what the keyword should be for a certain piece of information. This inconsistency in tagging keywords could make running a school system or a business based on uncontrolled tags hard. Although content may have already been done by others, if the tagging system is not consistent it would be useless. For example, different people in different areas of a business would perceive information completely differently. As a communication studies major I tend to focus on language and relationship interaction. A member of my business that is in accounting may never even think to search for words I use in my communication studies language. When a school or a business have so many different jargons based on their area of expertise or department, it makes having a common system of tagging harder. Also, language changes constantly. Things that were tagged as one thing months ago may be called something different. Or at least typically referred to as something different. It is hard to keep up with the tagging of keywords when language changes so frequently.