by Michael Uschold | May 5, 2014 | The Whiteboard
In recent posts, we stated that while terms are less important than concepts, and they mean nothing from a formal semantics perspective, they are very important for socializing the ontology. The same is true for text definitions, but even more so. Just like terms, the...
by Michael Uschold | May 4, 2014 | The Whiteboard
It frequently happens that a group of experts use a term so differently that they just cannot agree on a single meaning or definition. This problem arises in spades in the area of ‘risk’. For example, in traditional operational risk management (ORM), when...
by Dave McComb | May 2, 2014 | Development
The scope of an application is one of those topics that seems to be quite important and yet frustratingly slippery. There are several very good reasons for its seeming importance. One, the scope of an application eventually determines its size and, therefore, the cost...
by Michael Uschold | Apr 28, 2014 | The Whiteboard
In my previous post, I explained why, when building an enterprise ontology, it is a good idea to focus on concepts first and to decide on terms later. Today, we will discuss what to do when ‘later’ arrives. But first, if terms don’t matter from a...
by Michael Uschold | Apr 22, 2014 | The Whiteboard
aIn the previous posts in the series, we discussed how it is important to focus on the concepts first and then the terms. Today we discuss identifying what the central concepts are in the enterprise. Every enterprise typically has a small handful of core concepts that...
by Michael Uschold | Apr 15, 2014 | The Whiteboard
In my previous blog, I described how for very broad and general terms, it can be nearly impossible to get a roomful of experts to agree on a definition of the term. However, it can be relatively easy to identify a small set of core concepts that everyone agrees are...
by Dave McComb | Mar 18, 2014 | The Whiteboard
Last night at the EDM Council meeting, Dave Newman from Wells Fargo used spectroscopy as an analogy to the process used to decompose business concepts into their constituent parts. The more I’ve been thinking about it the more I like it. Spectrograph Last week I...
by Dave McComb | Sep 12, 2013 | The Whiteboard
Jan Voskuil, of Taxonic, recently sent me this white paper. It is excellent. It’s so good I put it in the taxonomic category, “I wish I would have written this”. But since I didn’t, I did the next best thing. Jan has agreed to let us host a...
by Dave McComb | Aug 26, 2013 | The Whiteboard
Is it just me, or is the news that the NSA is getting off the hook on its surveillance of us because it’s just “metadata” more than a bit duplicitous? Somehow the general public is being sold this idea that if the NSA is not looking at the content of...
by Michael Uschold | Aug 22, 2013 | The Whiteboard
Michael Uschold, Semantic Arts Senior Ontologist, will share a six part series on the importance of distinguishing terms from concepts when building enterprise ontologies for corporate clients. This first article summarizes five key points; each is elaborated in...
