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Re: [ontology-summit] [Strategy] Disruptive Applications

To: ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: Tim Wilson <twilson92@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:38:41 -0400
Message-id: <4D8A6861.5010101@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
I agree with you, Phil.  Ontology is but one tool in the Knowledge Management toolbox, along with other methods of converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, such as developing Communities of Practice, improving workflow through adaptive case management concepts and using the knowledge audit to identify and mitigate knowledge bottlenecks in the organization. 

It also involves being involved with the people who do the work, understanding what drives them crazy and developing initiatives that can ease the load and improve knowledge worker satisfaction, while adhering to an upper management strategy and associated business rules.

Tim Wilson

On 3/23/2011 3:53 PM, Phil Murray wrote:
Matthew West wrote:
How do we convince policy makers and visionaries that Ontology can enable a whole range of disruptive applications.
First of all, don't start with the ontologies as a technology. Instead, start by identifying the problem to be solved.

Of course, you can apply ontologies to a range of known requirements, as members of this forum have -- for example, integrating databases. But do you really want to focus solely on known, isolated requirements in which ontologies may provide only marginal improvements ... often at great cost of implementation?

Some of the members of this forum will answer a resounding Yes! And that's a perfectly acceptable, practical response, because pioneers ("first movers") are often described as the ones with arrows in their backs.

But if you really want to get the attention of visionaries, part of the message must be both visionary and eminently practical at the same time. IMHO, the primary need is staring us in the face; it is a pervasive and growing part of what every participant in this and similar forums does. See, for example, my simple graphic, "The role of meaning in the enterprise" at  http://www.semanticadvantage.com/privatedir/Role%20of%20meaning%20in%20the%20enterprise_v1_02-sep-2009.pdf

Yet this message rarely appears in discussions of knowledge representation: Making knowledge work more effective.

What do we actually do in "knowledge work"? What is the tangible -- or at least describable -- stuff of those activities? Aside from the very specific information-processing and knowledge-application tasks that most of us perform as part of our formal job descriptions (for example, designing a telescope body, writing an iPhone application, or building an ontology), as knowledge workers we are all deeply engaged in ...
  • Describing problems, challenges, and opportunities -- at increasing levels of detailed analysis. In this process we negotiate meaning and attempt to abstract the essential characteristics of these problems and challenges.
  • Identifying as explicitly as possible the circumstances or conditions in which those problems, challenges, and opportunities apply to our work or to our business goals.
  • Identifying and expressing the ideas (solutions) which respond to those problems, challenges, and opportunities -- again, at increasing levels of detailed analysis and with negotiation of precise meaning.
  • Explicitly or by implication identifying the relationships between solutions and problems. 
  • Evaluating and ranking those problems and solutions -- and the relationships among them -- for relevance (Are they applicable in these circumstances?) and quality (Does this solution really respond to the stated problem ... and if so, how well?).
As we move toward making an explicit record of such activities, we also do our best to .... 
  • Record these activities in a variety of ways, from business plans to meeting notes.
  • Make that record accessible and easily understood to stakeholders.
  • Integrate that record with other information to create a more complete understanding of the challenges, solutions, and the choices made among them.
  • Deconstruct the agreed-upon resolution into forms that are most useful in creating products and services -- for example, the object names and orthogonal relationships required for implementation of a relational database or a description of the sub-assemblies of a physical product.
Even without consideration for how we apply our individual expertise in our work, we now spend a huge amount of time in these common activities of knowledge work, and we waste effort unconscionably on the assumption that such waste is just one of the costs of knowledge work.

But --especially for activities that will not result in production of an enterprise application -- we don't follow a formal model for these activities and how they are represented as information. As a result, we have few practices and little technology for supporting them -- at least not in a coherent way. (Requirement analysts are the rare exception.) And these activities desperately need such support. In fact, supporting these activities directly is the single greatest opportunity for improving the performance and competitiveness of organizations, precisely because these activities are pervasive. What they produce should become infrastructure -- a well-defined asset, not a cost of knowledge work!

Ontologies themselves are essential to defining and improving what happens in knowledge work. But they are only part of the solution, and they are not the natural starting point in making the case for ontology-based solutions.


Phil Murray
-- 
---------------------

The Semantic Advantage
Turning Information into Assets
phil.murray@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
401-247-7899

Blog: http://semanticadvantage.wordpress.com
Web site: http://www.semanticadvantage.com
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