Upcoming Speaking Events
“Taxonomy Design Fundamentals” half-day workshop
Organizer: Taxonomy Boot Camp London
Date: Monday, April 13, 2026, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Location: London, UK
Description: This workshop is a detailed introduction to what taxonomies are (and are not), why they are useful, and covers everything needed to develop a successful one, from standards, planning and design, populating with concepts, to business implementation, governance, and maintenance. Following an introduction to taxonomies, their types, and how they relate to other controlled vocabularies, the workshop focuses on methods and best practices for designing and building taxonomies, whether for website/marketing content, technical content, or internal enterprise content. These methods include stakeholder interviews, content analysis, text extraction, and selective use of generative AI in concept research. Best practices include following standards for hierarchical relationships, using suitable labels for concepts, and using the most suitable taxonomy structures. The workshop includes interactive exercises of hierarchical relationship and alternative label creation.
Further details
Registration is separate from the main conference. £234 or $319 (total, includes VAT)
Enhancing Taxonomies: “Thesaurus Standards for Taxonomies“
Organizer: Taxonomy Boot Camp London
Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2026
Location: London, UK
Description: The SKOS standard ensures that taxonomies are built on a standard data model that supports interoperability, but following SKOS does not ensure that you have a good and usable taxonomy. For guidelines and best practices for creating good taxonomies, we turn to thesaurus standards, namely ISO 25964-1 the international standard for thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies, which is also published by the British Standards Institution as BS ISO 25964-1. This presentation will explain the important components of ISO 25964-1, especially with respect to taxonomies, how it aligns with SKOS, and it what ways ISO 25964-1 has been most recently updated in 2026.
Conference registration. $1624 or £1194 (total, includes VAT). Use the code LONDON for a discount of £200.
“Taxonomy in the Age of AI” webinar
Organizer: Graphwise
Date: Tuesday, April 21, 10:00 – 11:00 am EDT; 4:00 – 5:00 pm CEST
Description: The first half is a conversation brings the practitioner’s perspective to the questions the taxonomy community is asking right now: How does AI change the role of taxonomists? Is AI more suitable for some taxonomies than others? Are AI-generated hierarchies compliant with standards, and where does human expertise remain essential?
The second half presents real challenges of taxonomy creation, where AI tools for building taxonomies make a difference, and what a human-in-the-loop workflow looks like: for both the seasoned taxonomist and the subject matter expert building a taxonomy for the first time.
Free registration to attend live and/or listen to the recording later.
“Taxonomy Design Best Practices“ 90-minute workshop
Organizer: Knowledge Graph Conference
Date: Tuesday, May 5, 2026, 1:30 – 3:00 pm EDT
Location: Cornell Tech campus, Roosevelt Island, New York, NY, and live stream online
Description: Ontologies form the semantic framework for knowledge graphs, but to serve the purpose of linking data, ontologies need to be based on taxonomies or other controlled vocabularies, whose concepts are linked to data and tagged to content. There has also been a trend of greater integration of taxonomies and ontologies: ontologies are being adopted for wider business use, and taxonomies have been included in the W3C standards with widespread adoption of SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System). While taxonomies are easier to design and create than ontologies, too often they are created without any skill or training, and poorly designed taxonomies yield poor results. This tutorial will cover the basics and best practices in taxonomy design, including: types of controlled vocabularies, standards, sources for topical concepts, wording of labels, alternative labels, hierarchical and associative relationships, and governance. This tutorial also explains the approach of semantically enriching an existing taxonomy to become an ontology by adding a semantic layer of an ontology or custom scheme.
Registration: $742 for two full days of workshops, May 4-5 in-person; or $1,199 for all access for five days, or $371 online live streaming for five days.
Book Sale and Signing Events
Heather Hedden signs copies of The Accidental Taxonomist, offered for sale at a conference discount at the conferences at which she speaks. Some conferences, such as KMWorld, have a book sale table. At other conferences Heather Hedden will have a few books along to sell and sign when meeting informally at the conference.
There will be a limited number of books for sale with author signing at KMWorld Europe/Taxonomy Boot Camp London, London, UK, Tuesday, April 14, 5:00 – 6:00 pm during the conference drinks reception in the sponsor showcase.
There will be a limited number of books for sale with author signing at the Knowledge Graph Conference, New York, May 5-6, 2026.