Everything You Wanted to Know About Data Mining but Were Afraid to Ask by Alexander Furnas.
Interesting piece from the Atlantic that you can use to introduce a client to the concepts of data mining. And at the same time, use as the basis for discussing topic maps.
For example, Furnas says:
For the most part, data mining tells us about very large and complex data sets, the kinds of information that would be readily apparent about small and simple things. For example, it can tell us that “one of these things is not like the other” a la Sesame Street or it can show us categories and then sort things into pre-determined categories. But what’s simple with 5 datapoints is not so simple with 5 billion datapoints.
Topic maps being more about things that are “like the other” so that we can have them all in one place. Or at least all the information about them in one place.
See, that wasn’t hard.
The editorial and technical side of it, how information is gathered for useful presentation to a user, is hard.
But the client, like someone watching cable TV, is more concerned with the result than how it arrived.
Perhaps a different marketing strategy, results first.
Thoughts?