The Why. Perhaps?

To get from "data" to "knowledge" in a meaningful manner, there's one aspect of all that falls under "Knowledge Management" that matters above all else: organisation.

When dealing with Knowledge Management matters, one aspect gets disregarded above all others: organisation.

Much of that can be explained by the very simple fact that most don't adopt a unified—or holistic—approach to all that relates to an organisation's data and information input and output needs in a manner that would actually qualify as Knowledge Management, the importance of said area to any company or project rarely fully recognized by those who devise and implement procedures and workflows, these usually doing so in an ad hoc and, more often than not, in an uninformed manner—hence why it's an issue.

Far too much time is wasted looking for that one file, sending 'that link' again, answering the same questions, again and again, or dealing with the same knowledge void in a cyclical way. Only after being fed up do most acknowledge the importance of what should have been done long ago, before all that relates to data capture and info sharing, i.e. productivity, turned into time-sucking chaos that imposes serious limitations and costs, to boot.    

It's an aspect that's always puzzled and bugged the hell out of me: companies fuss over all sorts of expenses and frown over personal habits perceived to encroach on "company time", etc., yet so few actually place emphasis on core, unavoidable aspects that are actual determinants of efficiency across an entire entity, represent massive savings over the long term, and provide additional sources of revenue or open up new market possibilities, doing so by, simply, doing what needs to be done, but doing so within a shared mindset and by adopting minor procedural shifts.

That mindset is one I categorize as "data culture", a facet that companies have widely acknowledged to matter in recent years whilst few seem to truly understand the implications despite the vast sums spent on jumping on the data bandwagon that was sparked by the popularization of Big Data just over a decade ago.

You can read more about data-related issues and siloed woes here; although the above doesn't directly apply to the aims of this site, it lays the ground for the type of approach that's to be understood to be at the heart of DMS&UY, and why tremendous time has been devoted to structural elements that aren't visible to users.

The taxonomy and tagging strategy that's employed are the fruits of careful consideration made along several lines, frustration with the ad hoc attitude I myself had applied when tagging entries made in the previous version of DMS&UY being a part of that. Focus on news ingestion and on content production having dominated much of my time in the past three years, it's safe to assume that the structural hierarchy that's been devised could not have been applied three years ago, this being true no matter how much thought would have gone into creating it. The reason for that: knowledge acquired with experience.

The previous version was built off of a portion of an info hub that had been created for particular business needs, and it required a dedicated server space—not a shared one—which is much more expensive, and why I had to downgrade my hosting service at some point, hence why I was re-doing the structure of the previous version. The spaghettied mess that the whole had become had me confused and swearing in all sorts of colours, the frustration of dealing with that amplified by a slew of related 'news field' frustrations.

The decision to let go of the DMS&UY you may have come to know and start afresh was a difficult one to make, the value of putting any efforts into this project often being tested, but I'm glad I did so.  

Already, benefits of having made that change can be seen on this page alone, the dynamic 'molecular' header presenting an early step in regard to the direction that this street's info presentation is taking, the visual representation of easily-missed links and patterns being a top aim.

Further, the glossary module that was dead weight to the previous version is now working properly; the underlined terms, above, should provide a tooltip-like definition         

What's What?

Saying that the focus is on "media" and on "politics" is true but inaccurate, and saying that it's "media politics" or  "political media" or "mediatized politicalisation" or any such variant that's DMS&UY's focus could potentially be accurate while being very false most of the time. Certainly, media is inseparable from all that's discussed and explored on our streets, ditto politics.

As can be seen in the Categorically Important section, at the highest level, all subjects can be divided into politically-related categories or news-related ones. However, a closer look will reveal media-focused subcategories located within political categories.

"And where are all the other topic labels?" you'll surely want to ask. "Where's 'Entertainment' and 'Sports'?"

Well, more on that within that section, but do know that the "politics" of everything and anything is what's of concern, people and entities are what's involved.  

That said, perhaps saying that "narrative" is really what the focus is on is the best way to phrase it, but, for some reason, I have the feeling that that would require many caveats and clarifications.

Nonetheless: "narrative". It's a humongous part of what's going down on our street. Yours too.

 

Next: Categorically Important