Re: [ontology-summit] [Ontology Application Framework] How to connect on

[Ron Wheeler <rwheeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 01/04/2011 11:04 AM, Mills Davis wrote:

John,

You raise more than a good point. I think it is a wake-up call. There's no paradigm shift unless we can all play, and all gain benefits.  

A key theme should be empowering  business users, subject matter experts, knowledge workers, consumers etc. to model knowledge (semantics, business rules, etc.) in a ways that are natural to them. (e.g., as a by-product of something they already know how to do).  Companies that I am seeing gaining traction in the market (two illustrations are Cambridge Semantics and BeInformed) are doing so because they've focused on user empowerment as a foundation for their knowledge-driven solution capabilities. A corollary is the need for software that these people can can help with the process of extracting (transforming & curating) such knowledge from (and to) documents, informational graphics, code, and other information forms.  

Meanwhile for IT solution engineering, why shouldn't all requirements be deeply traceable from RFP to proposal to its fulfillment in a design, that also executes directly, and can be explored through simulation, and documents itself, and explains its reasoning, etc.? In such an environment  cost and time to solution can be significantly reduced, along with development risk.  Total cost of ownership can be driven down by quantum steps.

But wait, there's more.  Let's assume SME's, business users, and IT can build something sustainably that's ontology driven, will anyone come?  User experience is always a  key battleground for technology adoption.  For some clue as to a perspective that many ontologists are missing, we have only to look at what Apple and Tom Gruber are doing with SIRI and imagine how user experience in iOS, Android, RIM mobile ecosystems will evolve as Tablet PCs grow to a $100B+ market over the next couple of years. Then think how this is a game changer for enterprises.

Isn't that the promise and premise of IBM's technology used to construct Watson.
It is supposed to integrate the "definiteness" of ontology with the insight drawn from conflicting and ambiguous knowledge floating loose in academic papers and popular media.

At the moment it is difficult to know how this is going to arrive on the desktop of a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic but it is coming to Healthcare first.
There will certainly be a need in each organization to integrate the proprietary knowledge that the organization has in its various systems, with the "Watson" package.

"Training a Watson" will become a job fought over by SME's, ontologists and IT people.

There will also be a need to get everyone to understand the way answers are presented and to appreciate the change from systems that are 100% definite about a result and ones that are more nuanced in their pronouncements.
We have much different expectations currently. We like our machines 100% correct but insist on overriding their pronouncements based on human judgment.
It will be fun to see the "my Watson says buy, your Watson is wrong to want to sell." arguments in the boardrooms of financial institutions!

Ron 

Mills

On Apr 1, 2011, at 9:10 AM, John F. Sowa wrote:

Folks,

I realize that it is rather late in the day to suggest new ideas,
but there is one that has bothered me for a long time.  Perhaps it
might suggest some thoughts to anyone who is writing this weekend.

The idea came from a member of the audience who came up to me
during the coffee break in a tutorial I presented at the 2010
Semantic Technology conference in San Francisco.

He was a member of the IT staff at the Cleveland Clinic, where
consultants from Cyc had installed Cyc and were working with the
IT staff.  Following is an article written by the Cyclers:

http://www.cyc.com/technology/whitepapers_dir/Harnessing_Cyc_to_Answer_Clincal_Researchers_ad_hoc_Queries.pdf

But the man who was talking with me said that there was
"a basic disconnect" between the Cyclers and the IT staff.
The Cyc software, the way it works, and they way that the
Cyclers described it was foreign to what the IT staff does.

The Cyclers got it installed and working, but the IT staff
didn't know how to maintain it, modify it, extend it, or use
it in any way other than what was set up for them.

That "basic disconnect" is the fundamental barrier that is
blocking the adoption of ontology:  the IT people have no clue
about what to do with it.  And I am not blaming the IT personnel
-- I blame the ontologists who develop software without having
any idea of how it could, would, or should be used by IT staff.

If we want to sell ontology, we have to make that connection.
If anybody has any good ideas about how to do that, it would
be helpful to mention them.

John Sowa



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