thingamy

semantic web, documents and knowledge

Sam Sethi is on a roll regarding the semantic web these days.

I see "add semantics" to documents, I hear "add content"...

Actually I have an inkling that some "going down the wrong path" is afoot here.

Absolutely, microformats and RDF can be used for that, but I suspect it's not using the real upside of the semantic web concept.

I've been tinkering, still quite in the theoretical / philosophical sense, with N-triples for thingamy lately, so let me have a go at it. How I skew the situation so to speak. (BTW, here's another triples tutorial)

I see three levels of "information" bearers, or rather three ways to go about supplying information:

1) Documents and forms

This is where we are today, the classic event documentation, ideas summaries or collection of information.
As such they need much on the side to make real use of them. To find them and make use of them they need much knowledge added for which we use tree-structures, tags and links.

If we were to use the semantic web ideas for these invented-for-paper information bearers it would be as advanced tags, added-content-snippets. Neat for sure, but only neat.

Alchemy, no atoms yet.

2) Objects

Atomise a document or form and you can find objects.

This is were we stand with thingamy, cutting up the documents and forms into separate objects each representing a finite real world object. "Address" being a single object representing your house but linked to you and then to your bank account and life insurance.
A few objects can create many, many different documents. Patient object + all the different condition objects and x-ray objects and so forth can create a Patient Journal or some of them can be part of a specific research paper. And so forth.

Having thus one single object per real-world object there is much less need for additional knowledge about the object. Your address is a house. Your broken arm is a condition object.

But still not there, like early nuclear science.

3) (Semantic) Triples

Now, triples consisting of subject + predicate + object can sub-atomise the atomic object.

The beauty of these sub-atoms is that they in themselves are semantic (duh) thus requiring even less knowledge to be added for usefulness. In fact the semantics are much closer to human ways of knowledge transfer than anything else - stories, relationships.

In other words, to use the conceptual ideas stemming from the semantic web to add knowledge, content or semantics to documents or forms would be a waste of something intrinsically more valuable methinks.

Objects can be mashups of N-triples, documents and forms are mashups of objects.

Thus if all is built from bottom up - using say N-triples - then all the objects and documents could be built from fewer particles adding much knowledge enabling simpler finding and better use all in one go.

There is a reason why they invest so much at CERN these days, the days of alchemy should officially be over ;)

ideas, issues, solutions and Intellectual Capital

Dwell a bit upon the term "business process" - it does conjure up images of straight, rigid, very structured sequences of tasks and events does it not?

A bit like a cubicle based assembly line, "planned for" stuff.

Now think "creation, ideas, issues and solutions" and see doodling on blackboards, brainstorming, mind maps, dreamy looks and sometimes running down the corridor or repeatedly calling a chap over lunch.

Does not sound like "business processes", rather "unplanned for" stuff as it is.

How many calls or e-mails did you receive yesterday that evoked an immediate response along the lines of "ah shit, OK, I'll get down to it and get back to you"?

When was the last time you had an idea in the shower, made a note when dry, then did an impromptu pitch next to a water-cooler?

Thing is that in such "unplanned for" processes (or rather their lack of process) stuff tend to get lost.

• Lost in one of many available "cracks" when whoever you punted it to "forgot", or when you got swamped with yet another pressing issue.
• Lost in the fog of perfectly natural forgetfulness - what you did last time completely forgotten, that idea you once tinkered with now a vague memory.
• Lost as in "only you knew how it was solved" or what nuggets of good ideas you had.

Solutions never found, ideas forgotten and worst; Intellectual Capital lost.

Time to do something about all that! Create a process with no dead ends while leaving room for creative and spur-of-the moment tacks to the process.

Thus bridging the "cracks".

But, more importantly, capture the ideas, issues and solution for easy reuse so the Intellectual Capital of the firm, the basic value of the firm no less, becomes a snowball rolling down a hill, growing bigger by the day.

CRMs, PIMs and a dash of BPM in-between have a certain hope to solve some of the "crack" part of it, but the Intellectual Capital part of it... not that good.

This is precisely where I found "the spaghetti" getting stuck when "throwing spaghetti on the wall" - discussing thingamy in practical use with potential users.

This is quite perfect for thingamy, and it's way easy to implement without really replacing anything else. A cool starting point. Neat.

spaces, Montessori, wealth and Switzerland

Danger area: Utterly free associating forthwith, connecting dots randomly.

Zermatt has many things going for it, I love to come back and I've been doing that for about 30 years now. I feel at home.

In the car driving there on Saturday Jens Christian mentioned that his take-away from Lift, his connecting the dots, was

"Spaces. Spaces that allow certain things to happen. Spaces that foster people doing things."

When I cross the border to Switzerland, every time, it hits me that everything has it's place, the firewood stacks are perfectly aligned, the fields looks like well groomed golf courses, you know, the typical Swiss scenery. And I love it, it immediately puts me in a good "place". I feel at ease.

One evening in Zermatt we had a drink at the Vernissage, a gallery / bar / cinema created by a local chap, Heinz Julen. Then, stumbling out, we fell giggling through the next door which was his furniture shop / gallery.

 

He uses machine parts, plywood boxes and whatnot to create furniture. Like a lighted glass and steel dinner table complete with industrial hoisting mechanism to convert it into a lighting device floating under your roof. Or lower it all the way to become a lighted dance floor. Completely irrelevant. Pretty un-chalet-like.

In London or New York I would not be surprised, but in a secluded mountain village with groomed chalets, this kind of stuff? That's the best of it, the contrast, the openness to the good things, independent of being old or new. Allowing space to create, love it.

Take a look at current Swiss architecture and you know what I mean.

Another dot: Switzerland is and has been for a long time a very wealthy nation despite being landlocked and having little natural resources. Besides nice slopes and good cheese that is.

And another: Maria Montessori had as a main educational principle to "prepare the environment!", and who but a Swiss educator, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi had inspired her in her early years.
Today you'll find a "Pestalozzi" street or place in any Swiss town. Go to some neighbouring countries and you'll find the parallel places and avenues named after generals. Big difference in attitude somehow.

Switzerland, the Montessori environment for grown-ups?

Could there be lines between what Jens Christian is alluding to, the importance the Swiss puts on it's environment and their wealth?

I would not dismiss the notion off hand...

travel notes

Been off for a week, Lift conference in Geneva first of all - again a very interesting two days and as always grand to meet old friends and getting some wonderful new friends!

Do love being virtual but boy do those conferences liven up ones sorry not-second-life - extremely smart and nice people, discussions, laughter, fondue, wine, double ristrettos in the morning, ahhh...

Many thanks again to Laurent, John and all the others who made it possible!

Off I went to Zurich for Monday meetings with some of my old merchant banking chums doing some interesting planning for thingamy's corporate future... more later on that ;)

The little gap between Friday and Monday I conveniently filled up with some skiing in Zermatt... here's a small amateurish phone-shaking-in-hand video snippet from that:

Best part of Sunday skiing was when I decided to veer off into the woods for a much needed "pause" thus just missing the cablecar to Blauherd which got stuck seconds after my arrival. They started evacuating by helicopter after an hour... vertigo's my middle initial and dangling under helicopters in the alps, nah...

Drove to Switzerland this time, spent 19 hours behind the wheel - post on some semantic-expanded-tagging dreamt up while speeding on Italian motorways coming soon...

Swiss private bank

Sounds boring? And very safe I guess.

But not necessarily - I've got a friend who's partner at one of the oldest, based in St Gallen, a city even the Swiss think is old fashioned.

Otto is a partner at Wegelin & Co, and amongst his partners you will find Dr. Konrad Hummler who is the author of their frequently published news letter (In English, German, French and Italian - how's that's for service!).

At first glance a thoroughly dry Swiss private bank kind of discussion paper on financial matters of interest to the wealthy and conservative.

But read it and you'll be surprised! Why this man does not have a blog is beyond me! Not only well written but showing quite some lack of respect of the old ways and established truths when need be.

This morning, I enjoyed his "Literary award vs. poetry slam" which I cheekily took as support in questioning the phenomena of "Best practices" via poetry sessions no less (Yes, Thomas, I know, this is stretching it... :)

Not the typical theme you'd expect from a Swiss banker...

"I'm nobody's market"

Brad Feld used this absolutely excellent term in a post yesterday.

(He also used another the other day describing today's VCs as "combat fishing" for the same prey, but that's another story. Brad's now on my favourite list of terms suppliers!)

The background is the usual conundrum any start-up have. Here's this great product or service - "and I think those chaps will use it for that!"

Followed by a heated discussion raising useful arguments like "no, I do not believe that, I think it will be used by these for this!"

If consensus is reached the product will be tweaked and packaged accordingly. PR strategies hatched and advertising created for the "target" market.

Problem is that they're usually wrong.

It's "budgeting" all over again, but now even more dangerous.

But judging by the term, Brad and his friend knows it.

If a target is set and cement poured over the process and all the money is earmarked, well then, you're basically up... murky... creek with no more paddle to go.

That's why I'm fond of "extreme business planning". Focus on the controls and speed and agility and do not think you know where the next bend is. Just be prepared to handle that bend when it arrives.

And live to see the next bend.

Driving by looking over the bonnet instead of some fictitious map.

If you asked me a while ago what thingamy's market would be I would have replied "small companies" because "they have little invested in legacy systems, they need something cheap and wholesome and they need to change their Business Model every day!"

Then a funny thing happened - big firms contacted me, and not for legacy systems replacement, nope, use it to apply some order to those every day ad hoc processes that is using e-mail and phone technology today. Fix those process cracks and capture knowledge in one swat, a real-world need here and now.
And every organisation of some size have a drawer full of such, nope, they have a full warehouse of them!

Thus I'm thrilled; a specific and real problem not easy to fix by other systems, no head-on competition with legacy systems, ability to nibble our way through the organisation process by process. Instant problem solution with much upside (fix more processes, replace whatever legacy systems later) and almost no downside (some hours spent tinkering) for the customer. Perfect.

I'm not to "tell" the "market", the market will tell me. And I'll stick to Extreme Business Planning. Go down the hill, look for the river and go with the flow as it arrives.

Less planning, more doing as it were.