Meta-Ween: The Key to Staying Afloat

Gasping for air she struggled to remember how she found herself nearly drowning in a sea of useless keywords. When did this happen? It started off great, the keywords helped. They helped, didn’t they? Maybe they only helped when you knew exactly the right keywords. But then what’s the difference between knowing the perfect keyword and knowing a file name? None. 

But now every search is labored. Every action takes more effort than it should, like trying to run in water, there is so much resistance to what should be simple movements. 

“Don’t our designers know how to describe their own work?” she thought. “Why would this be tagged as political, is it because the person is wearing white and red against a blue sky? But there are no words and no flag!” 

Each search brought ten useless results to every helpful one.  She’s getting deeper under water. Minutes, hours, days of her life were fading away to this lost cause of searching for assets someone remembered they once saw. 

If only the deep breaths she’s taking now just to stay afloat were taken at the beginning. If only her team had taken the time to establish governance around their metadata and keyword management… then these keywords would be saving her instead of drowning her.