Semantic Web technologies were designed from the ground up for disparate information integration. Disparate data and its impact on data quality and consistency remain one of the most difficult challenges facing large enterprises today. Yet, there has been relatively little use of Semantic Web technologies in these organizations.

The adoption of new technology by large enterprises has always been challenging. Recently, SOA and Web service technologies have had some success in making inroads to large enterprises, mainly due to their seemingly direct addressing of business process automation problems, which business executives could readily appreciate. In contrast, the Semantic Web has been nicknamed the "Pedantic Web" due to its frequently esoteric explanations from academics, hindering its adoption.

What is required is the ability to teach business leaders the value of the technology in terms that they can understand. Our panel includes technical leaders that have taken on this challenge and have succeeded in getting these somewhat trailing edge enterprises to embrace the technology. They now wish to share that experience. Topics covered in the panel include:

• What advantages of using Semantic Technologies over existing data integration tools such as ETL and EAI that really resonated with business leaders?
• What objections to the technology has the panel experienced?
• How did the panel address these objections?
• How did members of the panel first introduce the technology?
• How did members of the panel socialize the use of ontologies without it turning into and explanation of the "Pedantic Web"?
• How did the panel address how Semantic Technologies fit in to the SOA strategies for the enterprise?

Note: This podcast is "Premium content", and requires Semantic Universe registration, which is free.

Attachment: Panel – How to Internally Market Semantic Web in Large Enterprises.MP3 (61.18 MB)

Presenters:

Matt Fisher
Progeny Systems

Matt Fisher is a Principal Systems Engineer at Progeny Systems who enjoys discussing the Semantic Web to the point that his wife hopes he gets a new hobby. 

John Gilman
Blue Shield of California

Dir. Architecture and Engineering

David Wood
Zepheira

David Wood is a partner with Zepheira and software engineer/entrepreneur specializing in disruptive technologies. He is a co-founder of the Kowari, Mulgara and PURLZ Open Source Software projects. Dr. Wood has been involved with Semantic Web research and standards efforts since 1999.

Rachel Lovinger
Razorfish

With a panel of leaders from the semantic technology industry, this session will give us the opportunity to reflect on the many discussions that have taken place during the week of SemTech 2008 and help us map the course as we prepare to extend those conversations back into our workplaces. We will touch on issues of ROI, making the case for semantic technologies in the enterprise, and what to expect in the coming year in the semantic tech space.

Note: This podcast is "Premium content", and requires Semantic Universe registration, which is free.

Attachment: Final Panel – Bringing SemTech Back to the Business.mp3 (49.7 MB)

Presenters:

Dave McComb
Semantic Arts
Dave is President of Semantic Arts, and author of “Semantics in Business Systems.” He has 30 years of experience applying leading edge technologies to enterprise level applications.

John Gilman
Blue Shield of California

Dir. Architecture and Engineering

Christine Connors

Stephen Hall
Vulcan Capital

Managing Director

Jeffrey T. Pollock

James Hendler
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Jim Hendler is the Tetherless World Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science at Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Assistant Dean for IT. Jim is former Director of the Joint Institute for Knowledge Discovery and co-director of the Maryland Information and Network Dynamics (MIND) Laboratory at the University of Maryland, and is widely recognized as one of the earliest visionaries of the Semantic Web.

Ivan Herman
World Wide Web Consortium
See http://www.ivan-herman.net

Jonathan Mack
Guardian Life

Senior Technical Architect

Executive Summary

As social tagging grows increasingly popular on the Web, organizations are curious to see how this trendy Web 2.0 approach can benefit the business world. Social tagging allows users to employ their own language to organize and retrieve content, and encourages social collaboration between peers by making those tags visible to others. Organizations are thus looking to social tagging as a potential solution for increased findability on intranets, news/blog monitoring and collaboration in workgroups. The enterprise context is different however, and many of the elements that make social tagging work on the Web make it a challenge behind the firewall.

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