populating the business domain

Hey, Ken. Great questions. I'm going to huddle up with the business admins and see if we can pull together some answers. Stay tuned.

Hi Ken, welcome to Freebase! The type system in Freebase is best suited for representing clearly defined "is a" relationships: Ken is a Person, Australia is a Country, etc. More loosely defined "tag" relationships are potentially useful, though, and we're currently thinking about the best way to facilitate that. Patterns noticed in these looser "tags" could then be evolved by the community into full type schemas. Is this the sort of thing you were thinking of? Also, you should feel very free to experiment with your own type creations in your user domain -- you can "publish" the ones you want to show to the world. I'm interested to know more about what you're envisaging, so please let me know what your thoughts are (we can continue the discussion on the Business domain page).

Thanks for you’re your replies Sarah and Alexander!
I should say up-front that I’m feeling a bit muddled in my thoughts on this, but let’s see where it goes…
First a simple question: Will it be possible for content served-up on a single Freebase page to wear a variety of types applied to discrete sections within the page, or will types (and/or tags) always apply to a whole page?
Okay the next bit is more complicated. I’ll use the example of CRM; I’m not sure how familiar you’ll be with the subject, so please forgive me if my dialog is a bit pedantic.
It is easy to imaging a range of pages that would use the type ‘CRM’. They might include content about:
1. Specific examples of CRM applications (software)
2. CRM applications generally, and sub-variants like SaaS, hosted and stand-alone, possibly for a range of user environment contexts (home office, SME, enterprise)
3. CRM as a business practice, concentrating on software and its use
4. CRM divided into separate types of discrete, software-centred business functions including operational, analytic and collaborative CRM (this dominating current Wikipedia content, as posted by META Group (a commercial IT & business consultancy))
5. CRM as a broader, organisation-spanning business function, and even a business attribute or ethos, tied to the concept of consumer orientation (this being a more objectively valid, contemporary interpretation in business and academic contexts)
Now, taking #1 above, a specific CRM application it is quite easy to imagine a likely set of appropriate types that could be applied to a single page detailing, for example, the CRM application (or service) sold by Salesforce.com: CRM, customer relationship management, software, CRM software, Salesforce, salesforce.com, on-demand CRM, SaaS CRM, etc.
On the other hand, #5 above is a harder case (for me) to relate to Freebase. Contributors to CRM content in this context might want to discuss CRM:
• in applied examples,
• with reference or academic research,
• as business practice or policy,
• with reference to related practices or concepts such as customer service, IMC or organisational consumer orientation,
• and so on.
From this list I find it particularly hard to envision how academic or theoretical perspectives and content will combine with, or be isolated from, applied business content or 'lay-persons' content.
A related and more concise question: Where content refers to a related but non-central area of theory, how will types or tags help people interested in researching that second subject find the bit of relevant content within the first? (ie: how will types or tags aid searches for ‘consumer orientation’ to locate relevant content existing under CRM types and tags? Will full-text search actually be the relevant tool in this instance, instead of types or tags?
Perhaps CRM is a poor example to discuss this confusion, because we might not often discuss CRM as a purely theoretical or experimental subject. The other example I mentioned previously, involvement theory, might be more clear.
As I mentioned, involvement theory might be associated with types such as 'attention', 'product interest', 'hierarchy of effects', 'brand awareness', and so on. But the main words are probably 'involvement' and 'theory'.
Freebase content about advertising might contain reference to involvement, for example re ad design targeting certain types of involvement identified in target audiences.
But involvement discussed in an academic context can be quite distant from the practice of advertising – and far more complex.
My confusion is, again, concerned with separating the academic from other uses of a concept. This might arise in any subject area or discipline; if I want to post complex research-based information, the appropriate place might not be on a page where the subject is discussed generally or is shown as a smaller element of another subject. If someone looks for ‘cognitive involvement’ they might ideally find reference to types including ‘advertising’ and ‘theory’, but where does the content meet for a user?
--> Perhaps, simply, ‘theory’ will be a useful type? A problem might exist here, though, because if academic and practical / general information tends to share the same pages, then virtually everything will bear the type ‘theory’ and all Freebase content might evolve as a muddle of the simple and the complex in content and perspectives.
Does that make any sense, or am I leading myself down a pointless maze of thinking?
If you are still with me, thanks!
Cheers,
Ken