Bob Kasenchak – Factor

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Requirements and Foundations for Taxonomy Integration for a Fortune 500 Software Company

October 22, 2025 / Case Studies / By Bob Kasenchak and John Tulinsky

About the Project Following previous engagements focused on assessment of foundational taxonomy and metadata capabilities, the client, a Fortune 500 publisher of business and finance software, engaged Factor to develop requirements for consumption of centrally managed enterprise taxonomies by its internal intranet platform. This project was one of a series of projects with the goal …

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On Term Formation: Consistency, Standards, and Exceptions

November 18, 2024 / Perspectives / By Bob Kasenchak

As taxonomy consultants at Factor, we are frequently engaged to help our clients clean up and improve existing taxonomies; these have often developed ad hoc and, often, have not been constructed or managed by taxonomists. This is fine! Having controlled lists of tags is better than not…having controlled lists of tags, and it’s a great …

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On Limitations of Systems Consuming Taxonomies

August 26, 2024 / Perspectives / By Bob Kasenchak

Taxonomy management is crucial for large organizations with diverse content, yet many systems struggle with modern taxonomy structures. Common issues include: Manual Updates, Limited Functionality, Flattened Taxonomies, Inadequate Support. These limitations hinder productivity and the effective use of taxonomies. I’m interested in learning about other challenges and effective platforms for managing taxonomies.

On the Classification of Pipes

July 1, 2024 / Perspectives / By Bob Kasenchak

The classification of pipes, like most classification systems, turns out to be complex, messy, and interesting.

Reinventing the Wheel: On Generative AI for Search and Knowledge Management

May 10, 2024 / Perspectives / By Bob Kasenchak

In this two-part series, I will be borrowing from the presentation I gave at the Information Architecture Conference earlier this year: Moving Information Across Boundaries, Information Theory for Information Architecture. (1 of 2)

When Is a Holiday Not a Holiday?

December 15, 2023 / Perspectives / By Bob Kasenchak

If you’re building a list of holidays for your local business – to celebrate events, or plan which days to be closed, or temporarily change your website banner accordingly, or promote a seasonal sale – a list of local culturally recognized holidays is probably fine. No one will care if mom and pop’s central Iowa …

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Everyone Is in the Information Business

August 17, 2023 / Perspectives / By Bob Kasenchak

Every organization is in the information business; most work centers around organizing , governing, and distributing information. Sometimes the information itself is the end product: content, whether streaming videos or articles on a website, needs to be organized so that people can find what they’re looking for. The same applies to products: digital environments have …

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A Taxonomy of Taxonomy Governance

July 26, 2023 / Perspectives / By Bob Kasenchak

On Taxonomy Governance I believe most taxonomists would agree that building taxonomies is fun. Most taxonomists also do not spend most of their time building taxonomies. Rather, after a taxonomy program is up and running most of a taxonomist’s effort is spent on taxonomy governance. Many words have been spilled on taxonomy governance; a Google …

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On Content Graphs

June 12, 2023 / Perspectives / By Bob Kasenchak

What is a Content Graph?