Just one caveat with the two paragraphs I quote below. Working with the Army
and the automation community I hear a concern with those involved in knowledge
management of the tendency to "throw technology" at a problem and thereby
confusing knowledge management itself with the technology that is used to
assess, maintain and manipulate it among people. I just wanted to make clear
that knowledge management should not be confused with the tools used for it. (01)
You said: (02)
That's unfortunate. Assertions and the evaluations of those assertions can be
represented explicitly. They can be known -- expressed as structured objects.
They can be supported directly by technology, management practices, and
education of workers in semantic principles. Decisions can be traced back to
the conditions/assertions that influence those decisions. (03)
Objects of this type and relationships among those objects can also be
visualized easily. I am aware that software applications for specifying,
visualizing, and evaluating assertions do exist. But those I have seen (like
the Compendium Institute's Compendium hypermedia tool) seem fundamentally
disconnected from goals of precise representation of the meaning in natural
language. They lack methods of formally representing assertions as objects that
can be addressed with multiple tools, or they simply don't scale well. Others
simply don't make the distinction between assertion and evaluation of
assertions at all. (04)
Paul Villano
Knowledge Management Officer
US Army Chaplain Center and School (USACHCS)
"Pro Deo et Patria!...For God and Country!" (05)
----- Original Message -----
From: Phil Murray <pcmurray2000@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Monday, December 10, 2007 16:11
Subject: [okmds-convene] Re-centering the discussion
To: okmds-convene@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (06)
> As a relative newbie to formal ontologies, I apologize in advance for
> imprecise terminology. You did ask for input from the KM community,
> right?
> The Ontolog forum recently featured a wonderful discussion between
> JohnSowa, Leo Obrst and others on standards for ontologies and the
> utility of
> ontologies in enterprises. (Ontolog forum, 17-nov-2007) The two
> distinguished experts disagreed gently on the topic, but it appears
> thatthey agree ontologies are important for solving enterprise
> problems.I have to object ... also gently ... and with
> qualifications. The
> distinguished members of the ontology community have demonstrated that
> ontologies and other technologies that have evolved from the study
> of logic
> and language can be applied successfully to data-mining,
> interpretation of
> natural language, and even situation awareness requirements in
> militaryscenarios, but the recent buzz about ontologies is -- like
> the recent buzz
> about metadata in general -- largely a *reaction *to the
> superabundance of
> unstructured information. From the perspective of what enterprises
> need in
> general, this emphasis seems to be an *over*reaction.
>
> I do believe that ontologies in general and the Semantic Web in
> particularwill play huge roles in "semantic" aspects of business
> activities. However,
> overemphasizing ontologies and metadata distracts us from the most
> commonenterprise activities: the core processes of building an
> opportunity (or a
> domain) and successfully managing the enterprise. In the knowledge-
> basedenterprise, those processes consist primarily of identifying
> and evaluating
> facts and conditions -- statements about market and physical
> realities. An
> enterprise or domain -- for example, the extended NASA community --
> is the
> sum of all the conditions and responses for that enterprise.
>
> Stated in a somewhat different way, decisions and and implementation
> particulars grow out of *evaluation and acceptance (or rejection) of
> ad hocassertions
> *. By *ad hoc* assertions I mean statements that identify an
> opportunity or
> situation -- for example, "The presence of Chinese and Japanese
> satellitesaround the Moon is a threat to our pre-eminence in space
> exploration." Or
> "Nanotubes based on composites are the best choice for building a
> spaceelevator."
>
> By evaluation of those assertions, I mean such statements as, "This
> assertion is relevant (or valid)." Or, "This assertion must be
> expressedmore precisely." Other evaluations may consist of
> identifying (and
> quantifying) the impact of a set of assertions A on assertion B --
> an analog
> to applying If ... andIf ... Then logic to conditions in
> programming. But
> I'm not talking about precise programming statements. Evaluations
> are (or
> can be) collective, quantitative, "fuzzy," qualitative, and/or
> arbitrary.
> No matter what our particular role in a knowledge-driven
> organization may
> be, we communicate and evaluate assertions on a daily basis -- in
> meetings,casual encounters, emails, personal note-taking, forums,
> and documentation
> of many types. These activities of the organization are frequent,
> pervasive,and vital to successful decision making and execution. In
> spite of that,
> there is no mandate to apply technology or business practices to
> makingthese activities more effective.
>
> That's unfortunate. Assertions and the evaluations of those
> assertions can
> be represented explicitly. They can be *known* -- expressed as
> structuredobjects. They can be supported directly by technology,
> management practices,
> and education of workers in semantic principles. Decisions can be
> tracedback to the conditions/assertions that influence those
> decisions.
> Objects of this type and relationships among those objects can also be
> visualized easily. I am aware that software applications for
> specifying,visualizing, and evaluating assertions do exist. But
> those I have seen (like
> the Compendium Institute's Compendium hypermedia tool) seem
> fundamentallydisconnected from goals of precise representation of
> the meaning in natural
> language. They lack methods of formally representing assertions as
> objectsthat can be addressed with *multiple *tools, or they simply
> don't scale
> well. Others simply don't make the distinction between assertion and
> evaluation of assertions at all.
>
> Supporting these core semantic activities of the organization
> should drive
> how knowledge-development, knowledge-representation, and
> information-management technologies are selected and implemented in
> enterprises -- not vice versa. Similarly, the goal of enterprise
> strategiesand personnel-management tactics should be, first and
> foremost, to make
> these core semantic activities as effective as possible.
>
> Re-centering our focus on assertions and evaluation of assertions
> providesseveral important advantages:
>
> - Participants in the enterprise can deal with such assertions
> directly. Average Joes and Janes have a fundamental grasp of what
> constitutes an assertion -- although they will need help in
> framing and
> evaluating assertions in a structured way. (It's a lot like
> parsing a
> sentence. Not everyone's favorite activity, but a lot easier
> than grasping
> subtleties of inheritance of semantic properties in ontologies.)
> - Participants can "see" the impact of their participation.
> Feedback is vital to participation. And a record of decision
> making can be kept and
> analyzed.
> - Evaluations can be weighted. An approximate sum of the
> evaluations of the quality of assertions -- evaluations
> contributed by multiple
> stakeholders in the enterprise -- should point to good
> decisions, especially
> as the number of relevant assertions and evaluations grows.
> - Participation in gathering and evaluation of assertions can be a
> source of objective information in performance evaluations.
> - Assertions become product. If you're a software developer, you
> can see specifications emerge from assertions. (Currently,
> implementers have to
> leap that great chasm between unstructured descriptions of
> functionality and
> structured modeling of processes.) If you're a tech writer, you
> can see that
> the rationale for features and functionality -- and sometimes
> the behavior
> of features themselves -- is captured in the
> assertion/evaluation process.
>
> I want to stress that I'm not dismissing the importance of
> ontologies. Among
> other things, ontologies should *support* interpretation and
> management of
> assertions and evaluations. But we need to take a step back and re-
> centerour pursuit of effective solutions for the challenges facing
> knowledge-based
> organizations. We have to ask,
>
> - *What matters most to the participants *in an organization?
> - What explicit information or "knowledge" most directly affects
> understanding and successful decision making?
> - What information is most directly relevant to a broad cross-
> section of people in the organization?
> - What information can people react to or evaluate with minimal
> education and effort?
> - How, in general, can participants most effectively contribute to
> improvement of the information that leads to success?
>
> If this is yet another spin on the issues, I hope it is at least a
> morepositive spin.
>
> Phil Murray
>
> The Semantic Advantage (www.semanticadvantage.com)
> Blog: semanticadvantage.wordpress.com
>
> Founding member, The Center for Semantic Excellence <
> http://www.semanticexcellence.org>
>
> -----------------
>
> Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this communication are those
> of the
> author. Other members of the Center for Semantic Excellence may
> think they
> are way off base.
> (07)
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