STASIS Semantics? Treat Me Gently A Users View Gash Bhullar – Director TANet (Technology Application Network Limited)

STASIS Semantics – A Users Viewpoint Semantics – All about interpretations Does the word mean the same thing when it comes into the computing domain? Managing expectations – users expect systems that can understand their terminology automatically How difficult can it be to write a bit of code to connect or map one system to another?

STASIS OK – So its not as simple as it looks We certainly take our brains for granted – LastName, SurnameName, FamilyName same thing right? Surely its obvious that Business Address is the same as Company Address? So what about a random term such as “ball joint” now you could have many interpretations depending on your viewpoint or even discipline How do you overcome these complexities and how many possible combinations are there to interpreting the same thing?

STASIS Getting to the specifics Businesses are always looking to trade electronically with each other and they expect to exchange all types of information ranging from Orders, Customer data, Addresses etc They expect systems that will understand their specific terminologies and link them to other systems with minimal effort They don’t want to understand the technical jargon and complexities of XML, EDI, Ontology stuff etc

STASIS So how is Semantics going to save the world? Users can understand the concepts behind the semantics approach but they don’t want to know how they work – just to take advantage of them Semantics is something that users just expect to be as part of all future applications, it will be taken for granted just like other technologies

STASIS Semantics – the gentle approach Users need to understand the difference between syntax based and semantic based systems in terms of market advantage and not technical excellence. The explosion of web services will throw up large amounts of data to be mapped and rationalised, its not obvious to users that behind the scenes, semantics will be playing its part Users need to be aware of semantics through gentle answers and not be blinded by science – so how do you sell semantics?

STASIS Semantics? Treat Me Gently – Thank you! A Users View Gash Bhullar – Director TANet (Technology Application Network Limited)