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2007 Semantic Technology Conference:Finding and Building the Relationships for

a US Federal Government CoP

Tuesday, May 22, 2007, 7:15 - 8:15 a.m.Tuesday, May 22, 2007, 2 - 3 p.m.

Thursday, May 23, 2007, 8:30 - 9:30 a.m.Thursday, May 23, 2007, 11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

Brand Niemann, Senior Enterprise Architect, US EPA, Best Practices Committee Secretariat, Federal CIO Council, and

Co-Chair, Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice

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My Roles in the Conference

• 1. Community of Practice Session:– U.S. Federal Government (Open to All).

• Slides 1-12.

• 2. Conference Session (Panel of 3):– Spectrum of Reasoning and Applications.

• See http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/2007-05-22/SICoPSTC05222007.ppt

• 3. Conference Session (Team of 2):– Advanced Intelligence Community R&D Meets the Semantic Web!

• See http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/2007-05-22/LRussel05242007.ppt

• 4. Keynote (Panel of 7):– Accelerating the Deployment of Semantic Technology.

• Slides 13-22.

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Community of Practice

• What's the purpose?– To develop members' capabilities; to build and

exchange knowledge.

• Who belongs?– Members who select themselves.

• What holds it together?– Passion, commitment, and identification with the

group's expertise.

• How long does it last?– As long as there is an interest in maintaining the

group.William Snyder, Building Communities of Practice. Excerpted from the article "Communities of Practice: TheOrganizational Frontier" in the Harvard Business Review, January-February 2000. http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/1317.html

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Finding the Relationships

• The Four Presentations:– To each other.– To this conference.– To the world at large.

• The Answer in Slide 12.• Note:

– “The Semantic Web isn’t inherently complex. The Semantic Web Language, at its heart, is very, very simple. It’s just about the relationships between things.”

• Q&A with Tim Berners-Lee, Business Week, April 9, 2007.

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The Big Questions

• 1. Why Are We Here?

• 2. Where Have We Come From?

• 3. Where Are We Going?

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The Answers• These questions are answered in the schematic

diagrams of the conference brochure by Mills Davis* as part of his Semantic Wave 2007:– Internet Evolution (page 3):

• Semantic Technologies Support Web 3.0 and Beyond.

– From Search to Knowing (page 13):• See “Google 2.0 Embraces Semantic Web,” GCN, May 18,

2007 (Ra Guha said in error at SDForum, May 22, 2007).• Supports CIO Council Strategic Plan Goal 2 (see slide 10).

– From IT Stack to Planes (Knowledge, Document, and Policy) (page 30):

• The Work of the OMB Federal Enterprise Architecture Program and the Chief Information Officer Council.

* SICoP Co-chair

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Semantic Wikis: The Role of Techno-Social Collaboration in Building DRM 3.0 and Web 3.0 for Managing Context Across Multiple Documents and Organizations, SICOP Special Conference, February 6, 2007, Mills Davis, Project10X. See http://www.semantic-conference.com/2007/semtech2007_brochure_WEB.pdf

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From Search to Knowing

See http://www.semantic-conference.com/2007/semtech2007_brochure_WEB.pdf

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From IT Stack to Planes

See http://www.semantic-conference.com/2007/semtech2007_brochure_WEB.pdf

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Goal 2: Information securely, rapidly, and reliably delivered to our stakeholders

Tool Program Purpose

Web Search Federal SitemapsGoogle: Federal Sitemaps

LocateMost searches start with Google, Yahoo, and MSN

Wikis COLABGoogle: COLAB Wiki

CollaborateNeed to Share

Semantic Wikis KnowledgebasesGoogle: DRM 3.0 and Web 3.0

IntegrateResponsibility to Provide Trusted Reference Knowledge

The Federal Enterprise Architecture Data Reference Model 2.0 was written in the COLAB Wiki and is being implemented in Semantic Wikis! (see next slide)

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SOA CoP and SICoP Support for the CIOC Strategic Plan

• SICoP and SOA CoP Special Recognitions:– Outstanding Contributions to the SICoP Special

Conference 2, April 25th; and– Best Presentation at the 3rd SOA for E-Government

Conference, May 1-2nd:• “Semantic Technology is the first fundamental change in

Information Management since the RDBMS was developed in the early 1980’s”:

– Michael Lang, Revelytix, Co-Founder and Director, and Co-Chair, SICoP Vocabulary Management WG.

– Demonstration at the June 18-19, 2007, W3C Workshop on eGovernment and the Web, National Academy of Sciences.

http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SOACoP/2007_05_0102/MLang05022007.ppt

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Building the Relationships• 1. Community of Practice Sessions:

– U.S. Federal Government.• See SICoP Fact Sheet.

• 2. Conference Session:– Spectrum of Reasoning and Applications.

• Knowledgebases that classify and document what’s been done (SICoP, Ontolog Forum, SemTech 2007 in process)

• 3. Conference Session:– Advanced Intelligence Community R&D Meets the Semantic

Web!• Knowledgebases built from the new semantics & tools from

the ARDA/AQUAINT Program (WordNet, LCC, & CYC).• 4. Keynote:

– Accelerating the Deployment of Semantic Technology.• Join in doing 1-3 above as an Open Community with MetaLand, etc.

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Accelerating the Deployment ofSemantic Technologies

• A panel of experts summarizes the conference and provides a roadmap for semantic adoption:– Eric Miller, Zephiera, (Moderator)– Dave McComb, Semantic Arts– Susie Stephens, Eli Lilly– Josh Knauer, MAYA Design, Inc.– Ralph Hodgson, TopQuadrant– Brand Niemann, Environmental Protection Agency– Kevin J. Lynch, Raytheon

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Accelerating the Deployment ofSemantic Technologies

• For most organizations thus far, semantic technologies have been considered a "future" technology. In other words, it was considered either too cutting edge and risky, or too immature to be of value. Hopefully by the end of SemTech 2007 most of those impressions will have been dispelled, but the stories and successes shared at the conference can only be a part of the solution. To gain faster and more widespread adoption, especially within mainstream corporate development environments, there needs to be a clearer definition of the benefits and opportunities of semantic technology. This panel will discuss how exactly this will be accomplished.

• Four questions for each panel member:– 1. Why are we here?– 2. What are the drivers/pain points for adoption?– 3. What were the highlights of the conference?– 4. What are the gaps?

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1. Why Am I Here?• First, thank you:

– To Tony Shaw and Dave McComb for the opportunity to be part of the 2007 Program Advisory Board. I am proud to be associate with such an excellent conference!

• Second because in my 25+ year government career I have been asked by senior government leadership to:– Chair the CIO Council’s Web Services Working Group.– Co-Chair the CIO Council’s Semantic Interoperability Community

of Practice (SICoP).– Co-Chair the SOA CoP.– Serve as the Secretariat of the CIO Council’s Best Practices

Committee.• Third, because SICoP has been asked to do four things

at this conference:– See slide 2. There are also a number of presentations on

Semantic Wikis, etc. by those that have participated in SICoP at this conference.

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2. What are the Drivers / Pain Points for Adoption?

• SICoP White Papers:– 1. Vision (by the SICoP in 2005).– 2. Business Value (by Mills Davis at SemTech 2006 and updated at

SemTech 2007!)– 3. Implementation (by Lucian Russell at SemTech 2007!).

• Where will the semantics for the Semantic Web come from?:– The Trusted Reference Knowledge Sources of Semantics (Intellipedia

sits on top of these).– The “Concept Checker” in Wikis and Semantic Wikis (WordNet could be

that).– The “Gold Standard” for Ontologies (NCOR is working on that).

• Ontologies that are not build by a community of practice for a business need (in support of a knowledgebase for a service system) and shared openly on the Web in OWL are of limited value.– This doesn’t mean that everyone has to build an ontology in OWL, just

convert it (folksonomy to upper ontology) to OWL and publish it openly on the Web so we can learn from it and reuse it.

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3. What Were the Highlights of the Conference?

Who What Example

Shaw Large-Scale Data Management & Integration Conferences

Hay (“Medici Effect”-slides 18-19)

McComb Architect (Federal Enterprise

Architecture: Architect, Invest, and Implement)

Mirhaji ($50M)

Shimp Oracle Others?

Soley Standards SOA Consortium (Semantic SOA!)

Beckett Search Google 2.0?

Ilube Venture Capitalist “Medici Effect”

Shain Government DRM 3.0 and Web 3.0 (see slide 20)

Missing? Vendors & Universities Lessons Learned!

Tuesday, May 22, 2007: Semantic Technology: Here and Now

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The Medici Effect

• “The Medicis were a banking family in Florence who funded creators from a wide range of disciplines. Thanks to this family and a few others like it, sculptors, scientists, poets, philosophers, financiers, painters, and architects converged on the city of Florence. There they found each other, learned from one another, and broke down barriers and cultures. Together they forged a new world based on new ideas – what became known as the Renaissance.”– Frans Johansson, The Medici Effect, Harvard

Business School Press, 2006, pages 2-3.

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The Medici Effect

• “When you step into an intersection of fields, disciplines, or cultures, you can combine existing concepts into a large number of extraordinary ideas.”

• “We have met teams and individuals who have searched for, and found, intersections between disciplines, cultures, concepts, and domains. Once there, they have the opportunity to innovate as never before, creating the Medici Effect.”– Frans Johansson, The Medici Effect, Harvard

Business School Press, 2006, page 186.

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Information Sharing Environment

Tool Program Purpose

Web Search Federal SitemapsGoogle: Federal Sitemaps

LocateMost searches start with Google, Yahoo, and MSN

Wikis COLABGoogle: COLAB Wiki

CollaborateNeed to Share*

Semantic Wikis KnowledgebasesGoogle: DRM 3.0 and Web 3.0

IntegrateResponsibility to Provide*

Goal 2: Information securely, rapidly, and reliably delivered to our stakeholders

* Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence: Move the intelligence community beyond the "need to share" philosophy toward a "responsibility to provide" model (March 6, 2007).

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4. What Are the Gaps?• This conference follows our Best Practice Committee guidelines for

best practices:– Request Best Practices.– Present and Discuss the Best Practices Presentations.– Capture These Presentations (including audio/video files).– Facilitate Access to and Awareness of These Best Practices.

• Maybe this can be done as a semantic technology application for the 2008 conference!– See next slide for recent Web 2.0 technology pilot by KZO Networks.

• Build Knowledgebases for Service Systems:– A semantic model = ontology(s) + the database of instances built as a

social contract between those the know how to build them and those that need them (business partners).

– See Dr. James Spohrer, Towards a Science of Service Systems, CIOC Best Practices Committee, March 19, 2007, and Service Research & Innovation Initiative (SRII), Technology Services Research & Innovation Symposium, May 30th, Santa Clara Convention Center, http://www.thesrii.org.

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Best Practices CommitteeApril 16, 2007, Pilot with KZO Networks

People

Information TechnologyBusiness

Information

http://campustechnology.com/articles/46250/