Thanks, Tim.
BTW, the illustration link is broken.
It's actually http://www.semanticadvantage.com/Map1/Resources/putting_meaning_to_work.html
Phil
Tim Wilson wrote:
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
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Web site: http://www.semanticadvantage.com
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