[topicmaps] Change the name?
During the end session, the moderator asked the panel why topic maps have not been catching on as quickly as they should. I suggested that one reason was that people think they’re graphical representations, when in fact they’re a data representation that can be displayed any way that makes sense.
I hit some resistance among the panelists, however. Some maintained that maps themselves are abstractions. Sure, but when you say you’re going to give someone a subway map, they expect a piece of paper with colored lines on it, not an abstract representation of the relationships among the stations.
If I were in the business of selling software that implements topic maps, I’d come up with another name, and at some point mention that underneath is an ISO standard called “topic maps.” Some people at the conference talk about “subject-centric computing,” which is still pretty techie but I find much less confusing than “topic maps.”
Categories: conference coverage, marketing
You’re lucky they didn’t call them Topic Graphs, or even Topic DAGs, although maybe that would have been a greater spur to a decent name.
To get something out of the ivory tower you have to change a descriptor designed to impress academics into a name that “Does what it says on the tin”.
There are three other buzzterms I’ve recently come across that could do with a little clarity. Can’t say my suggestions for improvement are that good, but they’re a start.
1) VRM - Vendor Relationship Management
How about ‘CustomerTalk’ as in “The Customer is Talking”?
2) VCL - Voluntary Collective Licensing
How about ‘CopyTax’? After all, it’s a just a misleading way of saying ‘An Internet tax to subsidise publishers’.
3) Network Neutrality
How about ‘Network Regulation’?
Regulation is the last thing the Internet needs, and it’s an inferior solution to the removal of incumbent hurdles to market competition. One might almost think the incumbents are being deliberately, unfairly discriminatory precisely to open the door to state regulation.
I guess this is not so much about changing the name of the technology as it is about coming up with a better umbrella term to market the technology under.
I agree very much with the panelist who said that Topic Maps is at least a name, instead of some obscure acronym like XML or SQL. Still, I also think you have a point, and one term that has been gaining traction is “Semantic Technologies”. The trouble is that that’s also confusiong. In fact, I think probably the best that can be achieved here is some vague term that has to be explained, but which gives people a nice warm feeling.
If it matters at all. Which I think it probably doesn’t, in the end. Relational databases didn’t do as well as they have because of the name. The same goes for XML.
if topic maps were the ultimate, then metaphors and similes wouldn’t be at the heart of poetry. Sometimes the obvious topics are not at all interesting (an obama/clinton article is about Politcs). Sometimes the interesting topics are not obvious, or at least not yet in the conventional discourse. And sometimes the creation of a topic is the heart of insight and wisdom.
I have experienced misunderstandings myself when trying to explain what Topic Maps are, so to some extent it does matter. Marketing people will definitely say it matters.
Maybe a slogan could be helpful:
“Topic Maps - semantics with a human face”
“Topic Maps - semantics for the rest of us”
IDEOGRAPHS is a dictionary word ripe for the hijacking…
Thus ideographology, ideographics, ideographical, etc.
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