Monthly Archives: January 2009

Tassilo Pellegrini

Issues on the Corporate Semantic Web

by , Category: Conferences & Events, Corporate Semantic Web, Enterprise 2.0

Prof. Adrian Paschke, head of the Corporate Semantic Web Working Group at the Free University of Berlin, gave an extensive interview on promises and challenges of the Corporate Semantic Web addressing methodological, technological and economic aspects. He says:

Corporate Semantic Web addresses both the consumer and the produce side, where consumers and producers might be humans as well as automated services, e.g. in business processes and enterprise service networks. This also includes the adequate engineering, modelling, negotiation and controlling of the use of the (meta)data and meaning representations in a (collaborating) community of users or services in enterprise settings where the individual meanings as elements of the internal cognitive structures of the members become attuned to each others’ view in a communicative process. This allows dealing with issues like ambiguity of information and semantic choices, relevance of information, information overload, information hiding and strategic information selection, as well as positive and negative consequences of actions (e.g. in a decision making process).

But, CSW does not only address the technological aspect but also the pragmatic aspect of actually using Semantic Web technologies in enterprises, which includes learning and training aspects as well as economical considerations. Incentives need to be provided to encourage in-house adoption and integration of these new Corporate Semantic Web technologies into the existing IT infrastructures, services and business processes. Decision makers on the operation, tactical and strategic IT management level need to understand the impact of this new technological approach and its adoption costs and return on investment. Therefore, companies will have in mind the economical justifiability of the deployment of new technologies.

I think he addresses some really crucial aspects of this emerging application field. Read the full interview here.

Corporate Semantic Web will also be a major topic at this year’s I-Semantics Conference from Sept. 2 – 4, 2009 in Graz/Austria. Also check out the forthcoming Semantic Web Meetup in Berlin on March 20, 2009, which is organized by Adrian Paschke’s team and the Semantic Web Company.

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Marion Fuglewicz-Bren

The Times They Are A-Changin … yes, we can

by , Category: Internet & Media, Politics
President Obama
Image by William WM via Flickr

One of the many ways that the election of Barack Obama as president has echoed that of John F. Kennedy is his use of a new medium that will forever change politics. For Mr. Kennedy, it was television. For Mr. Obama, it is the Internet. Obama´s Internet Campaign Changed Politics. “Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee,” said Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of The Huffington Post.

America´s new president Barack Obama didn’t go out and recruit on facebook, they came to him at first. Did the internet make Obama’s natural “viralness” quicker and more transparent? Obama’s huge victory on Tuesday night was celebrated in Austria and Germany, as it was around the world: German Press on Obama Victory: “The Dream is Alive“. Der Spiegel‘s Gabor Steingart – who for months dismissed the notion that Obama had a real chance for the White House – writes about the Resurrection of the American Dream: “His base note is conciliatory, his overtone is exalted and the harmony is finely balanced. If anyone out there still doubted that the American dream was alive, he called out to his supporters in Chicago, “tonight is your answer.”

However things will happen or not and however the „Change has come to America“: The president´s new official website is online www.whitehouse.gov. And here users are really being involved. We all are involved. Obama means change. Let´s see in what ways this will concern the future of the internet.

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Thomas Thurner

corporate wiki: more than a software

by , Category: Enterprise 2.0
Soviet WWII graves, Saaremaa, Estonia. July 27...
Image via Wikipedia

It’s fashionable to have a corporate wiki installed at the own company. But often – to speak a word of truth – this wikis are not more than a burial ground of vague project memos. This isn’t a big surprise, because often corporate strategy on innovate wikis into company’s every day life, comes in a simple triple jump: (1) buy some software, (2) get a one-day workshop, (3) write a binding memo to employees to use that wiki. Leaving the process in such a kind, wikis are developing the way that is inherent for them: run riot (optimistic case) or run dry (normal case).

But wikis are extensive and powerful instruments in corporate life. You can plan, communicate, document and control everyday corporate processes with them – within a common environment. So wikis are less a chunk of software, they are more the potential future working environment, where employees are “living in”. So, as careful as we are furnish our offices, we should also setup our virtual working place: The corporate wiki.

Andreas Heilwagen points out some tips on innovate corporate wikis right at “Computerwoche”

  • clear rules and responsibilities
  • do not start with empty wikis
  • so called “champions” have to smooth the way
  • change your mind on information processing
  • be careful with vendor-specific plugins
  • do not outsource to professional information brokers
  • everybody should be able to edit (nearby) every page
  • get your pages connected intern and extern
  • always create useful information which others can reuse

Following my statement at the beginning, I would add:

  • get a clear definition about the fields you want to use the wiki for
  • identify company’s surplus in having a wiki
  • see which tools and services bring some very personnel benefit for the employees

It’s the preparation phase which is essential in the quaetion on how effective the work with a future corporate wiki can be. Vienna based Semantic Web Company exemplary runs through such a preparation phase this days. Getting data, using tools like storytelling, personas and usage scenarios, this may end in a “well equipped working environment of the future” – the corporate wiki.

Retated:

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Thomas Thurner

New course announcement: Knowledge on semantics for your company, May 6th and 7th / Vienna

by , Category: Conferences & Events

seminar

Our open workshops on basics and practices in semantic web technologies are free to book in single or combined. Focused on the question how synergies between web2.0, semantic web and text mining can lead us to new approches at search engines, experts search, knowledge management, recommendation systems and e-business within a corporate framework .

All cources are held in german. English speaking groups ask for extra arrangements.

Book today. Limited attendance.

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