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december 12, 2016

Tags versus folders

To organize files you need to think of some sort of categorization.

Picture Sam, who needs to structure his departments files. His department could have the need to organize files by year, by customer and by project.

In a 'folder kind of way' Sam now needs to decide which is the sub-level structure of these folders. Does he start with Year, then Customer, then Project? Or should he start with Customer, then Project, and then Year?
Whichever he chooses, he has to create a rigid form. When trying to find information you need to be more flexible in your options. Tags allow you to do just that!

Using folders

  • Each file MUST be in a folder
  • A file can not be in more than one folder, without making duplicates (copies)
 afbeelding





 

What is my folder structure?

Should I organize files by year first, then, customer, then project? Or is it better to organize files by customer first, then project, and then year?
afbeelding










Choose where the file goes

Once Sam has decided for a structure for his department, the folder structure is rigid. He can only put the file in one folder, without making copies (which is also not desirable).
But what if the file is interesting for both Project B and Project C ?

Find the file I need

Once Sam has decided for a structure for his department, he can only find files either by searching for the file name, or a word in the content by using a full-text search, or by browsing through the folder structure.
All of these options have their disadvantages. None of them help him search for something a bit more ‘unknown’.
The folder structure is rigid. He can only look into one of them at a time, making it a ‘tunneled vision’.


Show me a cross-section

The folder structure is rigid. He can only look into one of them at a time, making it a ‘tunneled vision’.
But what if Sam needs to find all related fills to all years, all projects, for just customer A, but then narrowed down to only files of the type product sheet, and about the topic ‘Evergreen’?

He cannot do that with folders!
Because of the ‘tunneled vision’ he can’t do that with folders!


What if we used tags instead?

Sam shares the file in his department Community, which is like the top-level folder on the network drive for his department.
Sam adds the following tags to this file:
But what if the file is interesting for both Project B and Project C ?

Sam simply adds one more tag: Project C.


Category
Type
Form
Content
Project B
product sheet
document
Evergreen
Customer A
2015

But what if the file is interesting for both Project B and Project C ?
Sam simply
adds one more tag: Project C.

When adding tags think of 4 types:

  1. Content
    What is it about? What words describe the content best?
  2. Type
    What type of content is it? Add keywords for types: product sheet, demo, regulation, meeting, report, issue
  3. Form
    What form is it? This describes more the application used for it or the type of output (for videos and images)
    Think of:
    video, presentation, document, photo or image, or even more specific: mp4, gif, jpeg, 120x120 (size), colour, b/w, etc.
  4. Categorization
    What would you use to categorize it? It is how you structure things.
    These are very much like what you would regularly choose as (sub-) folder names!
    Think of: Country, BU, department, team, year, project name, client, etc.

Find the file I need using tags

Once Sam has decided for a structure for his department, he can only find files either by searching for the file name, or a word in the content by using a full-text search, or by browsing through the folder structure.
All of these options have their disadvantages. None of them help him search for something a bit more ‘unknown’. The folder structure is rigid. He can only look into one of them at a time, making it a ‘tunneled vision’.

His options with tags:
  1. Search on any keyword in the search bar in his department community.
    The word could be a tag, could be in the title or in the text itself!
  2. Search by using the tag cloud in his department community
    The tag cloud shows most used tags, and multiple tag combinations can be used!
  3. Browse through the files list and click on any of the tags shown there to filter out all files with that tag.

Tags for anything

Maybe you still think folders are ‘better’. But what about all the other content in Conenctions?
•        What about Communities, Wikis, Blogs, Forums, etcetera? How do you put this in a folder?
•        You can not put a Community in a folder. In fact, a Community is like your top-level folder!
•        You can not put wikis, forum topics or blog items in a folder.
•        But you CAN add tags to all this.


Tags are the glue that keeps it all together together.
You can find any content by searching for a tag.

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