“Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim o…

“I have been so long master that I would be master still, or at least that none other should be master of me.” – Bram Stoker, Dracula In preparation for my presentation, “What’s the Scenario?…

“Our little lives get complicated / It’s a simple thing / Simple as a flower / And that’s a complicated thing.” – Love and Rockets, No New Tale to Tell The W3C SKOS standard is de…

“Indecision clouds my vision / No one listens” – Faith no More, Falling to Pieces A foundational tenet of taxonomy work is documenting decisions, including what the decision was, when it was …

“Beware of allowing a tactless word, a rebuttal, a rejection to obliterate the whole sky” – Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin There is no better way to gain trust and buy-in for enterprise ta…

“And history was the reason why she would never go to London. She saw it as dominated by the Bloody Tower, Fleet Street full of demon barbers, as well as dangerous escalators everywhere.” – A…

“I know not how it was–but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.” – Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher I consider well-…

“But it’s always been a smoke and mirrors game / Anyone would do the same.” – Gotye, Smoke and Mirrors It’s pretty common for organizations to have many software systems and platforms. Some a…

“Me, I disconnect from you.” – Gary Numan, Me! I Disconnect from You I have seen a significant decline in the number of taxonomist positions available. Wondering if I was in a myopic bubble b…

“With the greatest of ease / I stay on track like the greatest of skis.” – Stress Eater, Czarface, Kool Keith, Rocket Science In all my years working in taxonomy, there have been few times I …

“But I’m a creep / I’m a weirdo / What the hell am I doin’ here? / I don’t belong here.” – Radiohead, Creep I attended the KMWorld Conference and two of the four co-lo…

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“Trust in me, just in me / Shut your eyes and trust in me” – The Jungle Book I attended the Henry Steward Semantic Data Conference co-located with HS DAM in New York City a few weeks ago. As …

“A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” – Isaac Asimov, I, Robot Someday in the distant future, automated artificial intelligence bot…

“The purpose of a scrum is to restart play with a contest for possession after a minor infringement or stoppage.” – World Rugby, Law 19 In 2010, I worked as a taxonomist (and content and reco…

“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” – Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation The art and science of taxonomy, developed by Carl Linna…

“I got to keep movin’, I got to keep movin’/Blues fallin’ down like hail, blues fallin’ down like hail/Hmm-mmm, blues fallin’ down like hail, blues fallin’ down …

“Without culture there can be no growth; without exertion, no acquisition; without friction, no polish; without labor, no knowledge; without action, no progress and without conflict, no victory.” &…

“A good ruler has to learn his world’s language, and that’s different for every world, the language you don’t hear just with your ears.” – Frank Herbert, Dune Synonymy Synon…

“Have you sped through fleeting customs, popularities?” – Walt Whitman, As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario’s Shores Taxonomists and ontologists are, quite reasonably, obsessed with the is-ness of…

“Ownership is not a vice, not something to be ashamed of, but rather a commitment, and an instrument by which the general good can be served.” – Václav Havel In my experience, when a business…

“And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?” – The Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime When people ask me what I do for a living, I usually say something like “information manag…

“In any given culture and at any given moment, there is always only one ‘episteme’ that defines the conditions of possibility of all knowledge, whether expressed in theory or silently i…

“At a certain level of machine-ness, of immersion in virtual machinery, there is no more distinction between man and machine.” – Jean Baudrillard, Violence of the Virtual and Integral Reality…

The $7,500 tax credit for buyers of electric vehicles could be vanishing early in the new Trump administration, but that might actually be good news for Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk, one of President-e...

“The Cube is, at the same time, a symbol of simplicity and complexity.” – Ernő Rubik Taxonomists and ontologists–sometimes separate but more often one and the same role I’ll simply call a “ta…

“Like a wave in the physical world, in the infinite ocean of the medium which pervades all, so in the world of organisms, in life, an impulse started proceeds onward, at times, may be, with the speed ...

The author at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, Greece, the site of the first modern Olympic Games. “If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because eve...

“Hello, is it me you’re looking for? / ‘Cause I wonder where you are / And I wonder what you do / Are you somewhere feeling lonely?” - Lionel Richie, Hello One of the most challenging activities in ta...

“Do what they say / Say what they mean / One thing leads to another.” - One Thing Leads to Another, The Fixx Are your consumers overwhelmed by a barrage of terms and phrases coming at them from your t...

“Before I built a wall I’d ask to know/ What I was walling in or walling out,/ And to whom I was like to give offense.” - Robert Frost, Mending Wall What data should be included in taxonomy models can...

“I knew I shoulda’ taken that left turn at Albuquerque.” - Bugs Bunny For better or worse, much of my childhood was informed by Looney Tunes, Monty Python, and a diet of science fiction ranging from t...

“There are no facts, only interpretations.” - Friedrich Nietzsche Behind every creation–a work of art, musical composition, outstanding sporting performance–there is a creator. Behind a creator’s crea...