Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

March 9, 2012

Modesty as a Technology Elite attribute

Filed under: Design,Marketing,Programming — Patrick Durusau @ 8:44 pm

Modesty as a Technology Elite attribute by Vinnie Mirchandani.

From the post:

The core of my new book is about 12 attributes of what I describe as the industry’s elites. 12 adjectives – 3Es, 3Ms, 3Ps and 3Ss – made the cut: Elegant, Exponential, Efficient, Mobile, Maverick, Malleable, Physical, Paranoid, Pragmatic, Speedy, Social, Sustainable. (The TOC and links to excerpts are here). Each attribute has its own chapter – the first half has 5 to 7 cameo examples of that attribute, the second half is a fuller case study. So the Elegant chapter focuses on Human Centered Design, Google’s Doodles, Jonathan Ive of Apple, John Lasseter of Pixar and others, and the case study is Virgin America and how it has redefined the flying experience with technology.

One attribute I had on my long list was “Modest”. I had a case study identified, but struggled to find 5 to 7 cameos for the first half of the chapter. Let’s face it, it’s an elusive attribute in our industry where vendors send you press releases for every obscure award they qualify for:)

Curious, when was the last time you advised a client your product or approach wasn’t the best solution for their problem?

Isn’t that part of being modest?

If you are a customer, when was the last time you asked a vendor or even consultant to suggest an alternative solution, one that did not involve their product or services? If you have ever asked that question, how would you evaluate the answer you got?

March 2, 2012

How Big Data Shapes Business Results

Filed under: BigData,Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 8:04 pm

How Big Data Shapes Business Results by Timo Elliott.

From the post:

At this week’s SAP BI2012 conference, I had the honor of co-presenting the keynote, “How Big Data Shapes Business Results” with Steve Lucas, SAP EVP Business Analytics, Database & Technology, and with demo support from Fred Samson.

The big theme of the last year has been big data. There was a lot of innovation in many areas, but big data has had a huge impact on both how organizations plan their overall technology strategy as well as affecting other specific strategies such as analytics, cloud, mobile, social, and collaboration.

Steve kicked off by addressing the confusion (and cynicism) about the definition of “big data” — noting that people had supplied at least twenty different definitions in response to his question on Twitter. The popularity of the term has been driven by the rise of new open-source technology technology such as Hadoop, but it is now typically used to refer to what Gartner calls “extreme data”.

Extreme data is on the high end of one or more of the ‘3Vs’: Volume, Velocity, and Variety (and some note that there’s a fourth V, validity, that must be taken account of: data quality remains the #1 struggle for organizations trying to implement successful analytic projects).

To address all of these effectively, any “big data solution” has to encompass a wide range of different technologies. SAP is proposing a new “Big Data Processing Framework” that includes integration to new tools such as Hadoop, but also addresses the need for the other ‘V’s for a global approach to ingesting, storing, processing, and presenting data from both structured and less-structured sources. Many more details about this framework will be available in the coming months. (emphasis added)

Twenty different definitions of “big data?” No wonder I have been confused. Well, that’s one explanation anyway. 😉

There is another confusion, one that Timo the promotion of SAP solutions doesn’t address.

That confusion is whether “big data,” by any definition, is relevant for a project and/or enterprise.

Digital data is doubly every eighteen months, but that doesn’t mean that every project has to cope with the four V’s (Volume, Velocity, Variety, Validity).

Rather, every project has to cope with relevant big data and the relevant four V’s.

For acronym hounds, RBD (Relevant Big Data) and RVVVV (Relevant Volume, Velocity, Variety, Validity).

Unless and until you specify your RBD and RV4, you can’t meaningfully evaluate the solutions offered by SAP or anyone else for “big data.”

Their products work for their vision of “big data.”

Your project needs to work for your vision of “big data.”

Now there is a topic map project that the Economist or some similar group could undertake. Create a topic map to cut across the product hype around applications to deal with “big data” so consumers (even enterprises) can find products for their relevant big data.

February 19, 2012

Selling Data Mining to Management

Filed under: Data Management,Data Mining,Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 8:36 pm

Selling Data Mining to Management by Sandro Saitta.

From the post:

Preparing data and building data mining models are two very well documented steps of analytics projects. However, whatever interesting your results are, they are useless if no action is taken. Thus, the step from analytics to action is a crucial one in any analytics project. Imagine you have the best data and found the best model of all time. You need to industrialize the data mining solution to make your company benefits from them. Often, you will first need to sell your project to the management.

Sandro references three very good articles on pitching data management/mining/analytics to management.

I would rephrase Sandra’s opening line to read: “Preparing data [for a topic map] and building [a topic map] are two very well documented steps of [topic map projects]. However, whatever interesting your results are, [there is no revenue if no one buys the map].”

OK, maybe I am being generous on the preparing data and building a topic map points but you can see where the argument is going.

And there are successful topic map merchants with active clients, just not enough of either one.

These papers maybe the push in the right direction to get more of them.

February 13, 2012

Be Careful When Comparing AWS Costs… (Truth Squad)

Filed under: Amazon Web Services AWS,Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 8:18 pm

Be Careful When Comparing AWS Costs… (Truth Squad)

Jeff Barr writes:

Earlier today, GigaOM published a cost comparison of self-hosting vs. hosting on AWS. I wanted to bring to your attention a few quick issues that we saw with this analysis:

….

[and concludes]

We did our own calculations taking in to account only the first four issues listed above and came up with a monthly cost for AWS of $56,043 (vs. the \$70,854 quoted in the article). Obviously each workload differs based on the nature of what resources are utilized most.

These analyses are always tricky to do and you always need to make apples-to-apples cost comparisons and the benefits associated with each approach. We’re always happy to work with those wanting to get in to the details of these analyses; we continue to focus on lowering infrastructure costs and we’re far from being done.

Although I applaud Jeff’s efforts to insure we have accurate cost information for AWS, that isn’t why I am following up on his post.

Jeff is following a “truth squad” approach. A “truth squad” knows the correct information and uses it in great detail to correct errors made by others.

To anyone not on the “truth squad” the explanation offered is jargon riddled to the point of being completely opaque. All I really know is that Jeff disagrees with GigaOM. OK, but that’s not real helpful.

More than a few of my topic map posts, past, present and no doubt future, follow a similar approach. With about as much success.

I have a suggestion for myself and Jeff, one that I won’t follow all the time but will try.

If you can’t explain AWS pricing (or topic maps) on the back of a regulation size business card, either you don’t have a clear idea and/or you are explaining it poorly.

Remember that part of Einstein’s theory of relativity can be expressed as: e = mc2.

Within lies a vast amount of detail but it can be expressed very simply.

Something for AWS pricing experts and topic map writers to consider.

February 12, 2012

New mapping tools bring public health surveillance to the masses

Filed under: Collation,Health care,Mapping,Maps,Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 5:13 pm

New mapping tools bring public health surveillance to the masses by Kim Krisberg.

From the post:

Many of us probably look into cyberspace and are overwhelmed with its unwieldy amounts of never-ending information. John Brownstein, on the other hand, sees points on a map.

Brownstein is the co-founder of HealthMap, a team of researchers, epidemiologists and software developers at Children’s Hospital Boston who use online sources to track disease outbreaks and deliver real-time surveillance on emerging public health threats. But instead of depending wholly on traditional methods of public health data collection and official reports to create maps, HealthMap enlists helps from, well, just about everybody.

“We recognized that collecting data in more traditional ways can sometimes be difficult and the flow of information can take a while,” said Brownstein, also an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. “So, the question was how to collect data outside the health care structure to serve public health and the general public.”

HealthMap, which debuted in 2006, scours the Internet for relevant information, aggregating data from online news services, eyewitness reports, professional discussion rooms and official sources. The result? The possibility to map disease trends in places where no public health or health care infrastructures even exist, Brownstein told me. And because HealthMap works non-stop, continually monitoring, sorting and visualizing online information, the system can also serve as an early warning system for disease outbreaks.

You need to read this post and then visit HealthMap.

Collating information from diverse sources is a mainstay of epidemiology.

Topic maps are an effort to bring the benefits of collating information from diverse sources to other fields.

(I first saw this on Beyond Search.)

February 11, 2012

Turning government data into private sector products is complicated business

Filed under: Government Data,Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 7:51 pm

Turning government data into private sector products is complicated business by Joseph Marks.

From the post:

The government launched its massive data set trove Data.gov in 2009 with a clear mission: to put information the government was gathering anyway into the hands of private sector and nonprofit Web and mobile app developers.

Once that data was out, the White House imagined, developers would set about turning it into useful products–optimizing Census Bureau statistics for marketers; Commerce Department data for exporters; and Housing and Urban Development Department information for building contractors, mortgage brokers and insurance adjusters.

When necessary, the government also would be able to prime the pump with agency-sponsored code-a-thons and app development competitions sponsored through Challenge.gov, a White House initiative that paid out $38 million to prize-winning developers during its first year, which ended in September.

But turning government data into private sector products has proved more complicated in practice.

Good article about some niche uses of data that have succeeded. Like anything else, you can only repackage and re-sell data that is of interest to some customer.

Question: Is anyone taking published agency data and re-selling it to the agencies releasing the data? Perhaps combined with data from other agencies? With the push on to cut costs, that might be an interesting approach.

February 8, 2012

Suffering-Oriented Programming

Filed under: Marketing,Programming,Use Cases — Patrick Durusau @ 5:14 pm

Suffering-Oriented Programming by Nathan Marz.

From the post:

Someone asked me an interesting question the other day: “How did you justify taking such a huge risk on building Storm while working on a startup?” (Storm is a realtime computation system). I can see how from an outsider’s perspective investing in such a massive project seems extremely risky for a startup. From my perspective, though, building Storm wasn’t risky at all. It was challenging, but not risky.

I follow a style of development that greatly reduces the risk of big projects like Storm. I call this style “suffering-oriented programming.” Suffering-oriented programming can be summarized like so: don’t build technology unless you feel the pain of not having it. It applies to the big, architectural decisions as well as the smaller everyday programming decisions. Suffering-oriented programming greatly reduces risk by ensuring that you’re always working on something important, and it ensures that you are well-versed in a problem space before attempting a large investment.

I have a mantra for suffering-oriented programming: “First make it possible. Then make it beautiful. Then make it fast.”

First make it possible

When encountering a problem domain with which you’re unfamiliar, it’s a mistake to try to build a “general” or “extensible” solution right off the bat. You just don’t understand the problem domain well enough to anticipate what your needs will be in the future. You’ll make things generic that needn’t be, adding complexity and wasting time.

Different perspective than Semantic Web proposals for problems that users don’t realize they have. (Topic maps have the same issue.)

I was going on, probably tiresomely, to my wife about a paper on transient hypernodes/hyperedges and she asked: “Is anyone using it now?” I had to admit 22 years after publication, it had not swept the field of IR.

She continued: “If it was so good, why isn’t everyone using it?” A question to which I don’t have a good answer.

RDF and OWL interest the W3C and funders of research projects but few others. There is no ground swell demand for an ontologically enabled WWW. Never has been.

At least not to compare to the demand for iPads, iPhones, photos of Madonna/Lady Gaga, NoSQL databases, etc. All of those do quite well without public support.

But then there is real demand for those goods/services.

Contrast that with the Semantic Web which started off by constructing universal and rigid (read fragile) solutions to semantic issues that are in a constant process of dynamic evolution. Does anyone see a problem here?

Not to excuse my stream of writing about topic maps. Which posits that everyone would be better off with mappings between representatives for subjects and their relationships to other subjects. Maybe, maybe not. And maybe if they would be better off, they have no interest.

For example, for sufficient investment, the World Bank could enforce transparency down to the level of national banks or lower for its disbursements. That begs the question whether anyone would accept funding without the usual and customary opportunities for graft and corruption? I suspect the answer both within and without the World Bank would be no.

A little bit closer to home, a topic map that maps “equivalent” terms in a foreign language to subject headings in a library catalog. Composed by local members of a minority language community. Not technically difficult, albeit it would require web interfaces for the editing and updating. How many libraries would welcome non-librarians making LC Subject Classifications accessible to a minority language community?

Here’s a question for suffering-oriented programming: How do we discover the suffering of others? So our programming doesn’t satisfy the suffering of an audience of one?

The Lord of the Rings Project

Filed under: Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 5:11 pm

The Lord of the Rings Project

From the website:

The Lord of the Rings project is a project and initiative started by Emil Johansson. It is an attempt to place every character in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional universe in a family tree. With time, the project will expand to include other things.

I mention this as an example of a project that could profit from the use of topic maps technology but also to illustrate that it is possible to obtain world wide news coverage (CNN) with just a bit of imagination.

February 6, 2012

Implementing Electronic Lab Notebooks – Update

Filed under: ELN Integration,Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 6:57 pm

Just a quick note to point out that Bennett Lass, PhD, has completed his six-part series on implementing electronic lab notebooks.

My original post: Implementing Electronic Lab Notebooks has been updated with links to all six parts but I don’t know how many of you would see the update.

As in any collaborative environment, subject identity issues arise both in contemporary exchanges as well as using/mining historical data.

You don’t want to ignore/throw out old research nor do you want to become a fossil more suited for the anthropology or history of science departments. Topic maps can help you avoid those fates.

January 30, 2012

Big Data is More Than Hadoop

Filed under: BigData,Hadoop,Marketing,Topic Maps — Patrick Durusau @ 8:01 pm

Big Data is More Than Hadoop by David Menninger.

From the post:

We recently published the results of our benchmark research on Big Data to complement the previously published benchmark research on Hadoop and Information Management. Ventana Research undertook this research to acquire real-world information about levels of maturity, trends and best practices in organizations’ use of large-scale data management systems now commonly called Big Data. The results are illuminating.

Volume, velocity and variety of data (the so-called three V’s) are often cited as characteristics of big data. Our research offers insight into each of these three categories. Regarding volume, over half the participating organizations process more than 10 terabytes of data, and 10% process more than 1 petabyte of data. In terms of velocity, 30% are producing more than 100 gigabytes of data per day. In terms of the variety of data, the most common types of big data are structured, containing information about customers and transactions.

However, one-third (31%) of participants are working with large amounts of unstructured data. Of the three V’s, nine out of 10 participants rate scalability and performance as the most important evaluation criteria, suggesting that volume and velocity of big data are more important concerns than variety.

This research shows that big data is not a single thing with one uniform set of requirements. Hadoop, a well-publicized technology for dealing with big data, gets a lot of attention (including from me), but there are other technologies being used to store and analyze big data.

Interesting work but especially for what the enterprises surveyed are missing about Big Data.

When I read “Volume, velocity and variety of data (the so-called three V’s) are often cited as characteristics of big data.” I was thinking that “variety” meant the varying semantics of the data. As is natural when collecting data from a variety of sources.

Nope. Completely off-base. “Variety” in the three V’s, at least for Ventura Research means:

The data being analyzed consists of a variety of data types. Rapidly increasing unstructured data and social media receive much of the attention in the big-data market, and the research shows these types of data are common among Hadoop users.

While the Ventura work is useful, at least for the variety leg of the Big Data stool, you will be better off with Ed Dumbill’s What is Big Data? where he points out for variety:

A common use of big data processing is to take unstructured data and extract ordered meaning, for consumption either by humans or as a structured input to an application. One such example is entity resolution, the process of determining exactly what a name refers to. Is this city London, England, or London, Texas? By the time your business logic gets to it, you don’t want to be guessing.

While data type variety is an issue, it isn’t one that is difficult to solve. Semantic variety on the other hand, is an issue that keeps on giving.

I think the promotional question for topic maps with regard to Big Data is: Do you still like the answer you got yesterday?

Topic maps can not only keep the question you asked yesterday and its answer, but the new question you want to ask today (and its answer). (Try that with fixed schemas.)

Google Analytics Tutorial: 8 Valuable Tips To Hustle With Data!

Filed under: Dashboard,Data Analysis,Google Analytics,Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 8:00 pm

Google Analytics Tutorial: 8 Valuable Tips To Hustle With Data! by Avinash Kaushik.

This is simply awesome! For several reasons.

I started to say because it’s an excellent guide to Google Analytics!

I started to say because it has so many useful outlinks to other resources and software.

And all that is very true, but not my “take away” from the post.

My “take away” from the post is that to succeed, “Analysis Ninjas” need to delivery useful results to users.

That means both information they are interested in seeing and delivered in a way that works for them.

The corollary is that data of no interest to users or delivered in ways users can’t understand or easily use, are losing strategies.

That means you don’t create web interfaces that mimic interfaces that failed for applications.

That means given the choice of doing a demo with Sumerian (something I would like to see) or something with the interest level of American Idol, you choose the American Idol type project.

Avinash has outlined some of the tools for data analysis. What you make of them is limited only by your imagination.

January 26, 2012

Employee productivity: 21 critical minutes (no-line-item (nli) in the budget?)

Filed under: Marketing,Search Engines,Searching — Patrick Durusau @ 6:54 pm

Employee productivity: 21 critical minutes by Gilles ANDRE.

From the post:

Twenty-one minutes a day. That’s how long employees spend each day searching for information they know exists but is hard to find. These 21 minutes cost their company the equivalent of €1,500 per year per employee. That’s an average of two whole working weeks. This particular Mindjet study is, of course, somewhat anecdotal and some research firms such as IDC put the figure as high as €10,000 per year. These findings signal a new challenge facing businesses: employees know that the information is there, but they cannot find it. This stalemate can become extremely costly and, in some cases, can even kill off a business. Are companies really aware of this problem?

(paragraph and graphic omitted)

So far, companies have responded to this rising tide of data by spending money. They have invested large, even enormous sums in solutions to store, secure and access their information – one of the key assets of their business. They have also invested heavily in a range of different applications to meet their operational needs. Yet these same applications have created vast information silos spanning their entire organisation. Interdepartmental communication is stifled and information travels like vehicles on the M25 during rush hour.

The link to Mindjet is to their corporate website and not to the study. Ironically I did search at the Mindjet site, the solution Polyspot suggests and came up empty for “21 minutes.” You would think that would be in the report somewhere as a string.

I suspect 21 minutes would be on the low side of lost employee productivity on a daily basis.

But it isn’t hard to discover why businesses have failed to address that loss in employee productivity.

Take out the latest annual report for your business with a line item budget in it. Examine it carefully and then answer the following question:

At what line item is lost employee productivity reported?

Now imagine that your CIO proposes to make information once found, found for all employees. A mixture of a search engine, indexing, topic map, with a process to keep it updated.

You don’t know the exact figures but do you think there would be a line item in the budget from such a project?

And, would there be metrics to determine if the project succeeded or failed?

Ah, so, if the business continues to lose employee productivity there is no metric for success or failure and it never shows up as a line item in the budget.

That is the safe position.

At least until the business collapses and/or is overtaken by other companies.

If you are interested in over taking no-line-item (nli) companies consider evolving search applications that incorporate topic maps.

Topic maps: Information once found, stays found.

January 23, 2012

DoD Lists Key Needed Capabilities

Filed under: Marketing,Military — Patrick Durusau @ 7:46 pm

DoD Lists Key Needed Capabilities

From the post:

The Pentagon has released a list of 30 war-fighting capabilities it says it needs to fight anywhere on the globe in the future.

The 75-page document — officially called the Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC) — lays out how the services must work together to defeat anti-access threats. It also will help shape development of future weapons and equipment.

“It’s a way to look at whether we’re correctly developing joint capabilities, not just service capabilities, to be able to get to where we need,” Lt. Gen. George Flynn, director of joint force development on the Joint Staff, said of the document during a Jan. 20 briefing at the Pentagon.

The document goes a step beyond the traditional fighting spaces — air, land and sea — to include space and cyberspace.

Interesting document that should give you the opportunity to learn something about the military view of the world and find potential areas for discussion of semantic integration.

January 22, 2012

Big Data Success in Government (Are you a “boutique” organization?)

Filed under: BigData,Government,Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 7:42 pm

Big Data Success in Government by Alex Olesker.

From the post:

On January 19, Carahsoft hosted a webinar on Big Data success in government with Bob Gourley and Omer Trajman of Cloudera. Bob began by explaining the current state of Big Data in the government. There are 4 areas of significant activity in Big Data. Federal integrators are making large investments in research and development of solutions. Large firms like Lockhead Martin as well as boutique organizations have made major contributions. The Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community have been major adopters of Big Data solutions to handle intelligence and information overload. Typically, they use Big Data technology to help analysts “connect the dots” and “find a needle in a haystack.” The national labs under the Department of Energy have been developing and implementing Big Data solutions for research as well, primarily in the field of bioinformatics, the application of computer science to biology. This ranges from organizing millions of short reads to sequence a genome to better tracking of patients and treatments. The last element in government use of Big Data are the Office of Management and Budget and the General Service Administration, which primarily ensure the sharing of lessons and solutions.

Just background reading that may give you some ideas on where in government to pitch semantic integration using topic maps or other technologies, such as graph databases.

Remember that no matter how the elections turn out this year, the wheels are turning for “consolidation” of government offices and IT is going to be in demand to make that “consolidation” work.

You may be a “boutique organization,” and unable to afford a member of Congress but most agencies have small contractor officers (I don’t think they call them boutique officers) who are supposed to parcel out some work to smaller firms. Doesn’t hurt to call.

January 18, 2012

Spreadsheet -> Topic Maps: Wrong Direction?

Filed under: Marketing,Spreadsheets,Topic Maps — Patrick Durusau @ 8:01 pm

After reading BI’s Dirty Secrets – Why Business People are Addicted to Spreadsheets and the post it points to, I started to wonder if the spreadsheet -> topic maps path was in the wrong direction?

For example, Spreadsheet Data Connector Released bills itself:

This project contains an abstract layer on top of the Apache POI library. This abstraction layer provides the Spreadsheet Query Language – eXql and additional method to access spreadsheets. The current version is designed to support the XLS and XLSX format of Microsoft© Excel® files.

The Spreadsheet Data Connector is well suited for all use cases where you have to access data in Excel sheets and you need a sophisticated language to address and query the data.

Do you remember “Capt. Wrongway Peachfuzz” from Bullwinkel? That is what this sounds like to me.

You are much more likely to be in Excel and need the subject identity/merging capabilities of topic maps. I won’t say the ratio of going to Excel versus going to topic maps, it’s too embarrassing.

If the right direction is topic maps -> spreadsheet, where should we locate the subject identity/merging capabilities?

What about configurable connectors that accept specification of data sources and subject identity/merging tests?

The BI user sees the spreadsheet just as they always have, as a UI.

Sounds plausible to me. How does it sound to you?

BI’s Dirty Secrets – Why Business People are Addicted to Spreadsheets

Filed under: Business Intelligence,Marketing,Spreadsheets — Patrick Durusau @ 7:51 pm

BI’s Dirty Secrets – Why Business People are Addicted to Spreadsheets by Rick Sherman.

SecretMicrosoft Excel spreadsheets are the top BI tool of choice. That choking sound you hear is vendors and IT people reacting viscerally when they confront this fact. Their responses include:

  • Business people are averse to change; they don’t want to invest time in learning a new tool
  • Business people don’t understand that BI tools such as dashboards are more powerful than spreadsheets; they’re foolish not to use them
  • Spreadsheets are filled with errors
  • Spreadsheets are from hell

IDC estimated that the worldwide spend on business analytics in 2011 was $90 billion. Studies have found that many firms have more than one BI tool in use, and often more than six BI tools. Yet a recent study found that enterprises have been “stuck” at about a 25% adoption rate of BI tools by business people for a few years.

So why have adoption rates flatlined in enterprises that have had these tools for a while? Are the pundits correct in saying that business people are averse to change, lazy or just ignorant of how wonderful BI tools are?

The answers are very different if you put yourself in the business person’s position.

Read Rick’s blog to see what business people think about changing from spreadsheets.

Have you ever heard the saying: If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em?

There have been a number of presentations/papers on going from spreadsheets to XTM topic maps.

I don’t recall any papers that address adding topic map capabilities to spreadsheets. Do you?

Seems to me the question is:

Should topic maps try for a percentage of the 25% slice of the BI pie (against other competing tools) or, try for a percentage of the 75% of the BI pie owed by spreadsheets?

To avoid the dreaded pie chart, I make images of the respective market shares, one three times the size of the other:

BI Market Shares

Question: If you could only have 3% of a market, which market would you pick?*

See, you are on your way to being a topic map maven and a successful entrepreneur.

* Any resemblance to a question on any MBA exam is purely coincidental.

January 17, 2012

NIST CC Business Use Cases Working Group

Filed under: Cloud Computing,Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 8:19 pm

NIST CC Business Use Cases Working Group

From the description:

NIST will lead interested USG agencies and industry to define target USG Cloud Computing business use cases (set of candidate deployments to be used as examples) for Cloud Computing model options, to identify specific risks, concerns and constraints.

Not about topic maps per se but certainly about opportunities to apply topic maps! USG agencies, to say nothing of industry, are a hot-bed of semantic diversity.

The more agencies move towards “cloud” computing, the more likely they are to encounter “foreign” or “rogue” data.

Someone is going to have to assist with their assimilation or understanding of that data. May as well be you!

January 15, 2012

RFI: Public Access to Digital Data Resulting From Federally Funded Scientific Research

Filed under: Government Data,Marketing,RFI-RFP,Topic Maps — Patrick Durusau @ 9:14 pm

RFI: Public Access to Digital Data Resulting From Federally Funded Scientific Research

Summary:

In accordance with Section 103(b)(6) of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (ACRA; Pub. L. 111-358), this Request for Information (RFI) offers the opportunity for interested individuals and organizations to provide recommendations on approaches for ensuring long-term stewardship and encouraging broad public access to unclassified digital data that result from federally funded scientific research. The public input provided through this Notice will inform deliberations of the National Science and Technology Council’s Interagency Working Group on Digital Data.

I responded to the questions on: Standards for Interoperability, Re-Use and Re-Purposing

(10) What digital data standards would enable interoperability, reuse, and repurposing of digital scientific data? For example, MIAME (minimum information about a microarray experiment; see Brazma et al., 2001, Nature Genetics 29, 371) is an example of a community-driven data standards effort.Show citation box

(11) What are other examples of standards development processes that were successful in producing effective standards and what characteristics of the process made these efforts successful?Show citation box

(12) How could Federal agencies promote effective coordination on digital data standards with other nations and international communities?Show citation box

(13) What policies, practices, and standards are needed to support linking between publications and associated data?

The deadline was 12 January 2012 so what I have written below is my final submission.

I am tracking the Federal Register for other opportunities to comment, particularly those that bring topic maps to the attention of agencies and other applicants.

Please comment on this response so I can sharpen the language for the next opportunity. Examples would be very helpful, from different fields. For example, if it is a police type RFI, examples of use of topic maps in law enforcement would be very useful.

In the future I will try to rough out responses (with no references) early so I can ask for your assistance in refining the response.

BTW, it was a good thing I asked about the response format (the RFI didn’t say) b/c I was about to send in five (5) separate formats, OOo, MS Word, PDF, RTF, text. Suspect that would have annoyed them. 😉 Oh, they wanted plain email format. Just remember to ask!

Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net

Patrick Durusau (consultant)

Covington, Georgia 30014

Comments on questions (10) – (13), under “Standards for Interoperability, Re-Use and Re-Purposing.”

(10) What digital data standards would enable interoperability, reuse, and repurposing of digital scientific data?

The goals of interoperability, reuse, and repurposing of digital scientific data are not usually addressed by a single standard on digital data.

For example, in astronomy, the FITS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FITS) format is routinely used to ensure digital data interoperability. In some absolute sense, if the data is in a proper FITS format, it can be “read” by FITS conforming software.

But being in FITS format is no guarantee of reuse or repurposing. Many projects adopt “local” extensions to FITS and their FITS files can be reused or repurposed, if and only if the local extensions are understood. (Local FITS Conventions (http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_local_conventions.html), FITS Keyword Dictionaries (http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_dictionary.html))

That is not to fault projects for having “local” conventions but to illustrate that scientific research can require customization of digital data standards and reuse and repurposing will depend upon documentation of those extensions.

Reuse and repurposing would be enhanced by the use of a mapping standard, such as ISO/IEC 13250, Topic Maps (http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=38068). Briefly stated, topic maps enable the creation of mapping/navigational structures over digital (and analog) scientific data, furthering the goals of reuse and repurposing.

To return to the “local” conventions for FITS, it isn’t hard to imagine future solar research missions that develop different “local” conventions from the SDAC FITS Keyword Conventions (http://www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/ssw_standards.html). Interoperable to be sure because of the conformant FITS format, but reuse and repurposing become problematic with files from both data sets.

Topic maps enable experts to map the “local” conventions of the projects, one to the other, without any prior limitation on the basis for that mapping. It is important that experts be able to use their “present day” reasons to map data sets together, not just reasons from the dusty past.

Some data may go unmapped. Or should we say that not all data will be found equally useful? Mapping can and will make it easier to reuse and repurpose data but that is not without cost. The participants in a field should be allowed to make the decision if mappings to legacy data are needed.

Some Babylonian astronomical texts(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_astronomy) have survived but they haven’t been translated into modern astronomical digital format. The point being that no rule for mapping between data sets will fit all occasions.

When mapping is appropriate, topic maps offer the capacity to reuse data across shifting practices of nomenclature and styles. Twenty years ago asking about “Dublin Core” would have evoked a puzzled look. Asking about a current feature in “Dublin Core” twenty years from now, is likely to have the same response.

Planning on change and mapping it when useful, is a better response than pretending change stops with the current generation.

(11) What are other examples of standards development processes that were successful in producing effective standards and what characteristics of the process made these efforts successful?

The work of the IAU (International Astronomical Union (http://www.iau.org/)) and its maintenance of the FITS standard mentioned above is an example of a successful data standard effort.

Not formally part of the standards process but the most important factor was the people involved. They were dedicated to the development of data and placing that data in the hands of others engaged in the same enterprise.

To put a less glowing and perhaps repeatable explanation on their sharing, one could say members of the astronomical community had a mutual interest in sharing data.

Where gathering of data is dependent upon the vagaries of the weather, equipment, observing schedules and the like, data has to be taken from any available source. That being the case, there is an incentive to share data with others in like circumstances.

Funding decisions for research should depend not only on the use of standards that enable sharing but awarding heavy consideration on active sharing.

(12) How could Federal agencies promote effective coordination on digital data standards with other nations and international communities?

The answer here depends on what is meant by “effective coordination?” It wasn’t all that long ago that the debates were raging about whether both ODF (ISO/IEC 26300) and OOXML (ISO/IEC 29500) should both be ISO standards. Despite being (or perhaps because of) the ODF editor, I thought it would be to the advantage of both proposals to be ISO standards.

Several years later, I stand by that position. Progress has been slower than I would like at seeing the standards draw closer together but there are applications that support both so that is a start.

Different digital standards have and will develop for the same areas of research. Some for reasons that aren’t hard to see, some for historical accidents, others for reasons we may never know. Semantic diversity expressed in the existence of different standards is going to be with us always.

Attempting to force different communities (the source of different standards) together will have unhappy results all the way around. Instead, federal agencies should take the initiative to be the cross-walk as it were between diverse groups working in the same areas. As semantic brokers, who are familiar with two or three or perhaps more perspectives, federal agencies will offer a level of expertise that will be hard to match.

It will be a slow, evolutionary process but contributions based on understanding different perspectives will bring diverse efforts closer together. It won’t be quick or easy but federal agencies are uniquely positioned to bring the long term commitment to develop such expertise.

(13) What policies, practices, and standards are needed to support linking between publications and associated data?

Linking between publications and associated data presumes availability of the associated data. To recall the comments on incentives for sharing, making data available should be a requirement for present funding and a factor to be considered for future funding.

Applications for funding should also be judged on the extent to which they plan on incorporating existing data sets and/or provide reasons why that data should not be reused. Agencies can play an important “awareness” role by developing and maintaining resources that catalog data in given fields.

It isn’t clear that any particular type of linking between publication and associated data should be mandated. The “type” of linking is going to vary based on available technologies.

What is clear is that the publication its dependency on associated data should be clearly identified. Moreover, the data should be documented such that in the absence of the published article, a researcher in the field could use or reuse the data.

I added categories for RFI-RFP to make it easier to find this sort of analysis.

If you have any RFI-RFP responses that you feel like you can post, please do and send me links.

January 10, 2012

Another way to think about geeks and repetitive tasks

Filed under: Marketing,Semantic Diversity,Semantics — Patrick Durusau @ 8:09 pm

Another way to think about geeks and repetitive tasks

John Udell writes:

The other day Tim Bray tweeted a Google+ item entitled Geeks and repetitive tasks along with the comment: “Geeks win, eventually.”

…(material omitted)

In geek ideology the oppressors are pointy-haired bosses and clueless users. Geeks believe (correctly) that clueless users can’t imagine, never mind implement, automated improvements to repetitive manual chores. The chart divides the world into geeks and non-geeks, and it portrays software-assisted process improvement as a contest that geeks eventually win. This Manichean worldview is unhelpful.

I have no doubt that John’s conclusion:

Software-assisted automation of repetitive work isn’t an event, it’s a process. And if you see it as a contest with winners and losers you are, in my view, doing it wrong.

is the right one but I think it misses an important insight.

That “geeks” and their “oppressors” view the world with very different semantics. If neither one tries to communicate those semantics to the other, then software will continue to fail to meet the needs of its users. An unhappy picture for all concerned, geeks as well as their oppressors.

Being semantics, there is no “right” or “wrong” semantic.

True enough, the semantics of geeks works better with computers but if that fails to map in some meaningful way to the semantics of their oppressors, what’s the point?

Geeks can write highly efficient software for tasks but if the tasks aren’t something anyone is willing to pay for or even use, what’s the point?

Users and geeks need to both remember that communication is a two-way street. The only way for it to fail completely is for either side to stop trying to communicate with the other.

Have no doubt, I have experience the annoyance of trying to convince a geek that just because they have written software a particular way that has little to no bearing on some user request. (The case in point was a UI where the geek had decided on a “better” means of data entry. The users, who were going to be working with the data thought otherwise. I heard the refrain, “…if they would just use it they would get used to it.” Of course, the geek had written the interface without asking the users first.)

To be fair, users have to be willing to understand there are limitations on what can be requested.

And that users failing to complete written and detailed requirements for all aspects of a request, is almost a guarantee that the software result isn’t going to satisfy anyone.

Written requirements are where semantic understandings, mis-understandings and clashes can be made visible, resolved (hopefully) and documented. Burdensome, annoying, non-productive in the view of geeks who want to get to coding, but absolutely necessary in any sane software development environment.

That is to say any software environment that is going to represent a happy (well, workable) marriage of the semantics of geeks and users.

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity…

Filed under: Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 8:07 pm

Manning Publications has Big Data: Principles and best practices of scalable realtime data systems by Nathan Marz and Samuel E. Ritchie out in an EARLY ACCESS EDITION. The book is due out in the summer of 2012.

You can order today, either in paper or ebook formats + “MEAP” (Manning Early Access Program). And, for that you get early access to the content and are invited to provide feedback to the author.

Used to, publishers paid for editors. Now editors are paying for the privilege of commenting. That’s a pretty good trick.

Who among us isn’t vain enough to “need” early access to a new book in our field?

Who among us isn’t vain enough to have a “contribution” to make to a new book in our field?

Vanity has a cost, we pay ahead of time for the MEAP edition and we contribute our expertise to the final work.

I don’t object to this model, in fact I think other publishers, who will go nameless, could benefit from something quite similar.

If you think about it, this is quite similar to the motivational model used by Wikipedia to solicit contributions.

Except they have not stumbled upon the notion of paying to contribute to it. A yearly charge for the privilege of submitting (not necessarily accepted) edits and the ensuing competition as articles in Wikipedia improve would insure its existence for the foreseeable future. If you know anyone in the inner circle at Wikipedia, please feel free to make that suggestion.

I mention the Manning/Vanity model because I think it is one that topic maps, public ones at any rate, should consider. You are always going to need more editors than you can afford to pay for and a topic map of any size, see the example of Wikipedia, is going to need ongoing maintenance and support. Unless you are going to sell subscriptions or otherwise limit access, you need another income model.

Taking a page from the Manning book and starting from the presumption that people are vain enough to pay to contribute and/or see their names with “other” experts, I think a yearly editing/contribution fee might be the way to go. After all, someone with less expertise might say something wrong that needs correction, so there would be an incentive to keep up editing/contributing privileges.

I would not take on established prestige venues where publication counts for promotion, at least not just yet. Think of alternative delivery or subject areas.

Some quick examples:

  • Book Reviews to cellphones – Local reviews while you are in the stacks.
  • Citizen Crime Reports – The stories w/locations before it hits the local news. A 1-900 number possibility?
  • Restaurant Reviews – These are already appearing on cellphones but think of this as more of a filtered Craigslist.

The traditional information venues aren’t going anyway and it is better to take them on from a strong base. Think of NetFlix. Alternative delivery mechanism, convenience that traditional channels were slow to follow. Now, we’ll have to see what NetFlix decides to do with that power.

January 8, 2012

The war on infographics

Filed under: Graphics,Infographics,Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 7:21 pm

The war on infographics

Kaiser Fung writes:

Megan McArdle (The Atlantic) is starting a war on the infographics plague. (Here, infographics means infographics posters.) Excellent debunking, and absorbing reading.

It’s a long post. Her overriding complaint is that designers of these posters do not verify their data. The “information” shown on these charts is frequently inaccurate, and the interpretation is sloppy.

In the Trifecta checkup framework, this data deficiency breaks the link between the intent of the graphic and the (inappropriate) data being displayed. (Most infographics posters also fail to find the right chart type for the data being displayed.)

There are two reasons to read this post and then to follow up with Megan’s:

First, it may (no guarantees) sharpen your skills at detecting infographics that are misleading, fraudulent or simply wrong.

Second, if you want to learn how to make effective and misleading, fraudulent or simply wrong infographics, Megan’s article is a starting place with examples.

Nice article on predictive analytics in insurance

Filed under: Identity,Insurance,Marketing,Predictive Analytics — Patrick Durusau @ 7:11 pm

Nice article on predictive analytics in insurance

James Taylor writes:

Patrick Sugent wrote a nice article on A Predictive Analytics Arsenal in claims magazine recently. The article is worth a read and, if this is a topic that interests you check out our white paper on next generation claims systems or the series of blog posts on decision management in insurance that I wrote after I did a webinar with Deb Smallwood (an insurance industry expert quoted in the article).

The article is nice but I thought the white paper was better. Particularly this passage:

Next generation claims systems with Decision Management focus on the decisions in the claims process. These decisions are managed as reusable assets and made widely available to all channels, processes and systems via Decision Services. A decision-centric approach enables claims feedback and experience to be integrated into the whole product life cycle and brings the company’s know-how and expertise to bear at every step in the claims process.

At the heart of this new mindset is an approach for replacing decision points with Decision Services and improving business performance by identifying the key decisions that drive value in the business and improving on those decisions by leveraging a company’s expertise, data and existing systems.

Insurers are adopting Decision Management to build next generation claims systems that improve claims processes.

In topic map lingo, “next generation claims systems” are going to treat decisions as subjects that can be identified and re-used to improve the process.

Decisions are made everyday in claims processing but, current systems don’t identify them as subjects and so re-use simply isn’t possible.

True enough the proposal in the white paper does not allow for merging of decisions identified by others, but that doesn’t look like a requirement in their case. They need to be able to identify decisions they make and feed them back into their systems.

The other thing I liked about the white paper was the recognition that hard coding decision rules by IT is a bad idea. (full stop) You can take that one to the bank.

Of course, remember what James says about changes:

Most policies and regulations are written up as requirements and then hard-coded after waiting in the IT queue, making changes slow and costly.

But he omits that hard-coding empowers IT because any changes have to come to IT for implementation.

Making changes possible by someone other than IT, will empower that someone else and diminish IT.

Who knows what and when do they get to know it is a question of power.

Topic maps and other means of documentation/disclosure, have the potential to shift balances of power in an organization.

May as well say that up front so we can start identifying the players, who will cooperate, who will resist. And experimenting with what might work as incentives to promote cooperation. Which can be measured just like you measure other processes in a business.

January 7, 2012

Statistical Rules of Thumb, Part III – Always Visualize the Data

Filed under: Data,Marketing,Statistics,Visualization — Patrick Durusau @ 4:05 pm

Statistical Rules of Thumb, Part III – Always Visualize the Data

From the post:

As I perused Statistical Rules of Thumb again, as I do from time to time, I came across this gem. (note: I live in CA, so get no money from these amazon links).

Van Belle uses the term “Graph” rather than “Visualize”, but it is the same idea. The point is to visualize in addition to computing summary statistics. Summaries are useful, but can be deceiving; any time you summarize data you will lose some information unless the distributions are well behaved. The scatterplot, histogram, box and whiskers plot, etc. can reveal ways the summaries can fool you. I’ve seen these as well, especially variables with outliers or that are bi- or tri-modal.

What techniques do you use in visualizing topic maps? Such as hiding topics or associations? Or coloring schemes that appear to work better than others? Or do you integrate the information delivered by the topic map with other visualizations? Such as street maps, blueprints or floor plans?

Post seen at: Data Mining and Predictive Analytics

Why Free Services Are Undervalued

Filed under: Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 3:59 pm

Why Free Services Are Undervalued

From the post:

Open source adherents take heed. I stumbled upon a interesting post where blogger Tyler Nichols lamented the way that customers mistreat and inherently devalue free services in the article “I am Done with the Freemium Business Model.”

According to the post, Nichols obtained this opinion after creating a free Letter from Santa site over this Christmas holiday. Despite the 1,000,000 page views and 50,000 free Santa letters created, Nichols noticed that his customers refused to follow simple directions and fagged his follow up thank you letter as spam.

I didn’t see the FAQ but user requests for help may reflect on the UI design.

I think users need to see “free” software or information (think blogs, ;-)) as previews of what awaits paying customers.

January 4, 2012

Big Brother’s Name is…

Filed under: Marketing,Networks,Social Media,Social Networks — Patrick Durusau @ 7:09 am

not the FBI, CIA, Interpol, Mossad, NSA or any other government agency.

Walmart all but claims that name at: Social Genome.

From the webpage:

In a sense, the social world — all the millions and billions of tweets, Facebook messages, blog postings, YouTube videos, and more – is a living organism itself, constantly pulsating and evolving. The Social Genome is the genome of this organism, distilling it to the most essential aspects.

At the labs, we have spent the past few years building and maintaining the Social Genome itself. We do this using public data on the Web, proprietary data, and a lot of social media. From such data we identify interesting entities and relationships, extract them, augment them with as much information as we can find, then add them to the Social Genome.

For example, when Susan Boyle was first mentioned on the Web, we quickly detected that she was becoming an interesting person in the world of social media. So we added her to the Social Genome, then monitored social media to collect more information about her. Her appearances became events, and the bigger events were added to the Social Genome as well. As another example, when a new coffee maker was mentioned on the Web, we detected and added it to the Social Genome. We strive to keep the Social Genome up to date. For example, we typically detect and add information from a tweet into the Social Genome within two seconds, from the moment the tweet arrives in our labs.

As a result of our effort, the Social Genome is a vast, constantly changing, up-to-date knowledge base, with hundreds of millions of entities and relationships. We then use the Social Genome to perform semantic analysis of social media, and to power a broad array of e-commerce applications. For example, if a user never uses the word “coffee”, but has mentioned many gourmet coffee brands (such as “Kopi Luwak”) in his tweets, we can use the Social Genome to detect the brands, and infer that he is interested in gourmet coffee. As another example, using the Social Genome, we may find that a user frequently mentions movies in her tweets. As a result, when she tweeted “I love salt!”, we can infer that she is probably talking about the movie “salt”, not the condiment (both of which appear as entities in the Social Genome).

Two seconds after you hit “send” on your tweet, it has been stripped, analyzed and added to the Social Genome at WalMart. For every tweet. Plus other data.

How should we respond to this news?

One response is to trust that WalMart and whoever it sells this data trove to, will use the information to enhance your shopping experience and achieve greater fulfilment by balancing shopping against your credit limit.

Another response is to ask for legislation to attempt regulation of a multi-national corporation that is larger than many governments.

Another response is to hold sit-ins and social consciousness raising events at WalMart locations.

My suggestion? One good turn deserves another.

WalMart is owned by someone. Walmart has a board of directors. Walmart has corporate officers. Walmart has managers, sales representatives, attorneys and advertising executives. All of who have information footprints. Perhaps not as public as ours, but they exist. Wny not gather up information on who is running Walmart? Fighting fire with fire as they say. Publish that information so that regulators, stock brokers, divorce lawyers and others can have access to it.

Let’s welcome WalMart as “Little Big Brothers.”

January 3, 2012

What the Sumerians can teach us about data

Filed under: Data,Data Management,Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 5:08 pm

What the Sumerians can teach us about data

Pete Warden writes:

I spent this afternoon wandering the British Museum’s Mesopotamian collection, and I was struck by what the humanities graduates in charge of the displays missed. The way they told the story, the Sumerian’s biggest contribution to the world was written language, but I think their greatest achievement was the invention of data.

Writing grew out of pictograms that were used to tally up objects or animals. Historians and other people who write for a living treat that as a primitive transitional use, a boring stepping-stone to the final goal of transcribing speech and transmitting stories. As a data guy, I’m fascinated by the power that being able to capture and transfer descriptions of the world must have given the Sumerians. Why did they invent data, and what can we learn from them?

Although Pete uses the term “Sumerians” to cover a very wide span of peoples, languages and history, I think his comment:

Gathering data is not a neutral act, it will alter the power balance, usually in favor of the people collecting the information.

is right on the mark.

There aspect of data management that we can learn from the Ancient Near East (not just the Sumerians).

Preservation of access.

It isn’t enough to simply preserve data. You can ask NASA preservation of data. (Houston, We Erased The Apollo 11 Tapes)

Particularly with this attitude:

“We’re all saddened that they’re not there. We all wish we had 20-20 hindsight,” says Dick Nafzger, a TV specialist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, who helped lead the search team.

“I don’t think anyone in the NASA organization did anything wrong,” Nafzger says. “I think it slipped through the cracks, and nobody’s happy about it.”

Didn’t do anything wrong?

You do know the leading cause for firing of sysadmins is failure to maintain proper backups? I would hold everyone standing near a crack responsible. Would not bring the missing tapes back but it would make future generations more careful.

Considering that was only a few decades ago, how do we read ancient texts for which we have no key in English?

The ancients preserved access to their data by way of triliteral inscriptions. Inscriptions in three different languages but all saying the same thing. If you know only one of the languages you can work towards understanding the other two.

A couple of examples:

Van Fortress, with an inscription of Xerxes the Great.

Behistun Inscription, with an inscription in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian.

BTW, the final image in Pete’s post is much later than the Sumerians and is one of the first cuneiform artifacts to be found. (Taylor’s Prism) It describes King Sennacherib’s military victories and dates from about 691 B.C. It is written in Neo-Assyrian cuneiform script. That script is used in primers and introductions to Akkadian.

Can I guess how many mappings you have of your ontologies or database schemas? I suppose the first question should be if they are documented at all? Then follow up with the question of about mapping to other ontologies or schemas. Such as an industry standard schema or set of terms.

If that sounds costly, consider the cost of migration/integration without documentation/mapping. Topic maps can help with the mapping aspects of such a project.

January 2, 2012

Teaching is about conveying a way of thinking

Filed under: Marketing,Teaching,Topic Maps — Patrick Durusau @ 6:33 pm

Teaching is about conveying a way of thinking by Jon Udell.

From the post:

As I build out the elmcity network, launching calendar hubs in towns and cities around the country, I’ve been gathering examples of excellent web thinking. In Ann Arbor’s public schools are thinking like the web I noted that the schools in that town — and most particularly the Slauson Middle School — are Doing It Right with respect to online calendars. How, I wondered, does that happen? How does a middle school figure out a solution that eludes most universities, theaters, city governments, nightclubs, museums, and other organizations with calendars of interest to the public?

[The Slauson Middle School principal, Chris Curtis, replied to Udell.]

I agree with the notion that the basic principles of computer science should be generalized more broadly across the curriculum. In many ways, teaching computer and technology skills courses absent a meaningful application of them is ineffective and silly. We wouldn’t teach driver’s education and not let students drive. We don’t teach a “pencil skills class” in which we learn the skills for using this technology tool without an immediate opportunity to apply the skills and then begin to consider and explore the many ways that the pencil and writing change how we organize, perceive, and interact with our world.

I really like the “pencils skills class” example, even though I can think of several readers who may say it applies to some of my writing. 😉 And they are probably right, at least in part. I have a definite preference for the theoretical side of things.

To usefully combine theory with praxis is the act of teaching.

December 31, 2011

High-Quality Images from the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum

Filed under: Marketing,Museums — Patrick Durusau @ 7:29 pm

High-Quality Images from the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum

From the post:

The Amsterdam Rijksmuseum has made images from its “basic collection” – a little over 103,000 objects – available under a Creative Commons BY 3.0 license which allows you to:

  • Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • Remix — to adapt the work
  • Make commercial use of the work

These images may be used not only for classroom study and research but also for publishing, as long as the museum receives proper attribution. The collections database, in Dutch, is available here. Over 70,000 objects are also cataloged using ICONCLASS subject headings in English; this interface is available here. Click here for an example of the scan quality.

Geertje Jacobs posted a response:

Geertje Jacobs says:
December 14, 2011 at 1:16 am

Thank you for the post on our new API service!

I’d like to add an extra link to the API page. On this page http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/api, you’ll find information about our service (very soon also in English). This is also the place to ask for the key to make use of our data and images!
If there are any questions please contact api@rijksmuseum.nl.

Enjoy our collection!

A very promising resource for use in European history, historical theology and the intellectual history of Europe studies. Coupled with a topic map, geographic, written and other resources can be combined together with the visual resources from the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum.

Handling Criticism the Michelangelo Way

Filed under: Humor,Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 7:24 pm

Handling Criticism the Michelangelo Way

From the post:

I had a chance to visit Florence, Italy earlier this month and visited the Galleria dell’Accademia Museum, the home of Michelangelo’s David. The presentation of David was captivating and awe-inspiring. The famous sculpture contained such incredible detail and every chisel and angle contributed to the exact message that the artist wanted to convey. It just worked on so many levels.

As I sat there, I remembered some of the backstory of David. The piece of marble was deemed of very high quality and for a long time awaited its artist and its ultimate use. Eventually, the job landed with Michelangelo and the target was determined to be a young, naked David from the Bible about to go into battle.

Michelangelo preferred to do his work in private and even shielded himself during David to avoid any would-be onlookers. Then one day well into the final product, along came Piero Soderini, an official of some sort who was a sponsor of the work. Soderini, the story goes, commented that the “nose was too thick.” We’d like to think Michelangelo would know better than Soderini about this and that the nose was not really “too thick.” However, it put Michelangelo in a dilemma.

Have you ever had this dilemma?

What was your response? (write it down here)

Now read the post for how Michelangelo responded….original post.

I am going to try to use the Michelangelo response to criticism in 2012!

How about you?

December 27, 2011

How Important Are Names?

Filed under: Marketing — Patrick Durusau @ 7:12 pm

In some cases, very important:

Medication Errors Injure 1.5 Million People and Cost Billions of Dollars Annually; Report Offers Comprehensive Strategies for Reducing Drug-Related Mistakes

Medication errors are among the most common medical errors, harming at least 1.5 million people every year, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. The extra medical costs of treating drug-related injuries occurring in hospitals alone conservatively amount to $3.5 billion a year, and this estimate does not take into account lost wages and productivity or additional health care costs, the report says.

One of the causes?:

Confusion caused by similar drug names accounts for up to 25 percent of all errors reported to the Medication Error Reporting Program operated cooperatively by U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP). In addition, labeling and packaging issues were cited as the cause of 33 percent of errors, including 30 percent of fatalities, reported to the program. Drug naming terms should be standardized as much as possible, and all companies should be required to use the standardized terms, the report urges. FDA, AHRQ, and the pharmaceutical industry should collaborate with USP, ISMP, and other appropriate organizations to develop a plan to address the problems associated with drug naming, labeling, and packaging by the end of 2007.

Similar drug names?

Before you jump to the conclusion that I am going to recommend topic maps as a solution, let me assure you I’m not. Nor would I recommend RDF or any other “semantic” technology that I am aware of.

In part because the naming/identification issue here, as in many places, is only part of a very complex social and economic set of issues. To focus on the “easy” part, ;-), that is identification, is to lose sight of many other requirements.

To be effective, a solution can’t only address the issue that your technology or product is good at addressing but it must address other issues as well.

I have written to the National Academies to see if there is an update on this report. This report rather optimistically suggests a number of actions that I find unlikely to occur without government intervention.

PS: Products that incorporate topic maps or RDF based technologies may form a part of a larger solution to medication errors but that isn’t the same thing as being “the” answer.

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