Tag clouds as evaluation tools
Jeff De Cagna recently posted two tag clouds comparing an article he wrote for the August Associations Now on “ungovernance” with a more standard article on association governance. The two tag clouds, side by side, show distinct differences in the terminology that each article uses and emphasizes.
Setting aside the subject matter of the tag clouds Jeff created, I think he’s on to something that could be an interesting or even enlightening way to evaluate your association’s communications or publications. What if you created tag clouds based on your last few months’ worth of press releases, or your last newsletter? What would it show you about the words you use frequently and the words you downplay?
We’re going to try creating tag clouds with stories from the last few issues of Associations Now. I’m curious to see what we can learn from the exercise.
(Wondering what a tag cloud is? Wikipedia has a basic explanation. Wondering how to create them? Jeff created his through Many Eyes, a free website sponsored by IBM.)
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Comments
Lisa, thanks for pointing people to the tag clouds post and for sparking a discussion about their value as a way to better understand and make sense of our use of language. I have created a few different tag clouds in the last few months, and I have found them a rather compelling way to share information that might otherwise fail to communicate real meaning.
For example, in preparation for the Innovation Boot Camp I facilitated at the Annual Meeting, I asked my participants to offer their definitions of innovation. I took all of those submissions and created a tag cloud. It was easy to see which words were used repeatedly and which words were used less frequently. It also made it much easier to discern the words you might expect to see that were not included. Rather than simply provide the raw definitions, the tag cloud gave the Boot Camp participants a snapshot of their collective thinking about the issue of innovation that challenged their assumptions and enriched their conversations.
One word of caution about the Many Eyes site. The data you post their cannot be made private, so if you're going to use it, be sure that you're comfortable with the material you upload being publicly accessible. Thanks again Lisa!
Posted by: Jeff De Cagna | August 22, 2007 10:26 AM