---
title: "Don't call it metadata call it \"stuff\""
date: 2006-11-28T02:43:42Z
modified: 2006-11-28T02:43:42Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/dont-call-it-metadata-call-it-stuff/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 797
categories:
  - Uncategorized
timestamp: 2006-11-28T02:43:42Z
tags:
  - Uncategorized
---

[Forthcoming: Jasper Johns](http://thingamy.typepad.com/sigs_blog/2006/11/jasper_johns.html "Jasper Johns")

When I see the word “metadata” I usually wince. I know what it means, but I also know that if I tried to use it with a “civilian” then the “sale” is lost before I get anywhere. No wonder line of people business dismiss IT folks when we start talking about things like “the importance of common metadata in enterprise applications”.

I have lately been thinking it might be far more useful to just call it stuff. Metadata is just

> “**Stuff about stuff, that allows you to do more stuff with the original stuff because you know how it might work with other stuff…**”

Language in my opinion is very important in technology distribution, and sometimes the simple (even daft) is powerful.

So its nice to know that I am not alone. Sig, in the post above, points to Jasper Johns, who apparently described “activity” thusly:

> **“Do something, do something to that, then do something to that.”**

Amen Jasper. Amen Sig. Sig has a startup called thingamy which is focused on building enterprise-class business systems by _not pre-defining them_. Its a very different model from traditional data model first development. Its nice to see that Sig is going to the hair-dresser to have some [highlights to stop his object roots showing](http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Forthcoming/~3/53566424/cheeky_thingamy.html). What is important now, he says, is the religion of the thing:

> “So string is text. Object is Thing. Container is Place. And Tara’s “String? That’s what the cat plays with” could be a thing of the past.”

Cats play with string. Solutions are what I find in test-tubes or cross word puzzles. Objects are something to do with subjects and verbs. And metadata: “its just stuff about stuff”.

Hey Sig here is 30 Meg. Go run stuff, in Germany or China!

![thingamycard002.jpg](http://www.gapingvoid.com/thingamycard002.jpg)

cartoon [courtesy of gapingvoid](http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/003217.html).