On Dec 8, 2010, at 11:39 AM, Jack Ring wrote:
Dr. Ray,
Unfortunately I will not be able to attend the 12/16 session. I do have recommendations for Summit consideration. Please accept them in this email because I have not been sufficiently involved to be sure this is the best way to communicate them.
Making the case ---
One focus should be on the Value Proposition for any person, group or enterprise not currently pursuing an ontology-based activity. ROI is only one metric in a Value Proposition. Another, Return on Equity (especially intellectual capital) is probably more important. Further, the economist's Learning Curve and Technology Diffusion curves are also positively influenced by an appropriate ontology. Underneath it all is enthusiasm, the ingredient present in all champions and absent in all losers. Enthusiasm fosters foresight, the main habit of exemplary enterprises. Foresight fosters innovation, he main interest of CEO's today.
All this may seem too touchy-feely for ontologists but it is the language of CEO's so we better speak their language instead of expecting them to learn ours.
The Value Proposition highlights not only the benefits of having an ontology and using ontology-based systems but also the benefits from the act of formulating an ontology. That act typically reveals a spectrum of conflicting mental models that are the root of dismal productivity and innovation. This is especially evident in groups involving more than 150 persons. Similarly, the initiation and management of supply chains, knowledge chains and value webs across enterprises is largely paced by evolution of common mental models so ontology development is a key.
Groups ----
There will be domain-specific groups (healthcare, cyberphysical systems, government, manufacturing, etc.) and service-type groups (software engineering, traditional engineering, human activity systems engineering, knowledge exchange and choice making, etc.). A key service-type is systems engineering, I.e.,
www.incose.org,
http://www.iienet2.org/,
http://www.ieeesmc.org/, etc. These are the people who envision and articulate models of products, larger scale systems and even enterprises. Most have not yet come to appreciate ontologies but as they do they realize that the models they strive to produce are, in fact, situated ontologies. Further, they begin to see that the massive cost and schedule overruns (trillion dollar scale) in systems projects are largely due to the fact that their system models were not full ontologies.
Investments ---
You don't have to make a case for investing. Most prospective investors have the money and are already highly motivated to bet on a good horse. The missing ingredient is the Opportunities Profile. It consists of the technologies, concepts, trials, etc. that need to be advanced in order for ontology development, use and evolution to become common.
Foresight ---
One facet of the Summit should address non-von Neumann platforms or engines. The current ontology community I have observed implicitly presumes computers and data base managers therefore structures ontologies for that environment. Meanwhile, the advent of other machine and system architectures promise orders of magnitude increase in throughput and decrease in cost. Similar to the advent of graphics co-processors and signal co-processors in use today pattern discovery co-processors that are not "complexified" by combinatorics are becoming available. An example is the General Purpose Set Theoretic Architecture and Process. I submitted a paper on this to the intelligence community ontology workshop a couple of years ago. It was declined. One of the reviewer comments was approximately "...we are too busy with important work to be distracted by new ideas.' I suggest that the 2011 Ontology Summit have a section for non-von Neumann platforms.
Regardless, thanks for your good efforts and Keep It Up.
Jack Ring
Fellow, international Council on System Engineering
OntoPilot LLC
Educe LLC
Kennen Technologies LLC
602-818-3248