Thanks Alan for the explanation- helps those of us not engaged in the phone
conferences to understand, which is of course necessary in order to add
value.
value of component research? (not sure what you mean)
Making an argument for more research investment in this particular area.
Some food for thought, for what it's worth.
- Highest rating was for universal standards (which I can appreciate),
however the audience is expected to consist of semantic web enthusiasts, so
it would seem to be singing to the choir a bit, which means to me a high
potential for peer acknowledgement, but low potential for impact where it's
needed for adoption..... unless the goal is to gain traction with developers
(expect to be likely), and/or decision makers for investments (somewhat less
likely).
- Appears to be highly influenced by intrinsic motivation, which is good for
reaching consensus with others similarly motivated (scientists), but not
with those who are extrinsically motivated (and/or charged with fiduciary
financial responsibility that allows very little in the way of emotions in
decision making). This could use some light perhaps.
One thing I've learned all these years in observing computing standards
versus any other type of industry standard is that the platforms and budgets
are controlled by those with extrinsic motivation, and in order for adoption
to gain traction alignment of interests must take place.
It's sometimes helpful particularly for those intrinsically motivated (I am
both btw on this topic) is to remember that the largest and most influential
universal standard that affects every organization is the simple math in
finance, and because of that the CIO and CFO usually have veto type power
relating to adoption of technologies. Realize this is not always necessarily
the case in R&D organizations where early adoption and experimentation is
appropriate, but in order to address many of the goals that are obviously
shared by nearly everyone, the technology must be adopted outside of the
individual disciplines. I think that's clearly one of the biggest impacts
universal standards can bring, but we've yet to see in a significant manner
in healthcare.
The interests by virtually everyone outside of healthcare now is primarily
about reduction of inefficiencies and lowering of costs (soon to be 20% of
GDP in U.S. and still growing rapidly), and think it's fair to say that most
are looking to IT investments in general and the Web (standards) to a less
extent in providing a solution. In other words, from a broader context of
benefiting society, focus on the cost side is without a doubt a priority for
society.
So for example showing how much more productive a scientist can be in a very
specific case, or better yet an MD in the field (sorry if this is redundant
with previous brainstorming). For example, I recently saw a TV interview of
an MD raving about Allen's Brain Atlas, paraphrasing: "it saves us months of
work and provides a better result". That's the sort of result that appeals
to scientist and administrator alike.....
.02 MM
Mark Montgomery
Founder, Kyield
http://kyield.com
The audience for the next demo is the WWW conference, who are expected to
be semantic web enthusiasts. Our goal is to show them how semantic web
technologies can be realistically be used, at scale, in an area of
importance to our society, namely science. The submitted title of the
presentation is "Harnessing the Semantic Web to Answer Scientific
Questions". Much of our audience will not be familiar with the domain,
but some might. On our side we want the questions to be interesting, and
the answers to be plausible, even if the majority of the audience might
not be able to assess that, since that's what gives us the confidence to
got out there and say this stuff is useful and workable. For the audience
we will want to expose what technologies we are using, and how, why we
like them, what issues we have, what developments we want to see, and
where we are going next. I expect that we will be contrasting what we
have with other methods of getting to answers, such as google or pubmed
searches, and showing that our results are more specific, more
comprehensive, and easier to absorb, than the alternatives. The audience
will want to see our work as template for how other areas of societal
importance (and they themselves) could benefit from the technology. For
some reason I keep having that quote from Blade Runner in my head: "if
only you could see what I've seen with your eyes".
That make sense?
Do others who are working on the demo have anything to add (or disagree
with any of this?)
-Alan
ps. here's what you asked for (all my views, without deep thought)
functionality and value of languages/OWL? (5)
informatics? (0 - given)
universal standards? (8)
value of component research? (not sure what you mean)
specific tools? (3)
And relative to- patient care? (5)
lowering healthcare costs? (I'll say 2, since the route is indirect, via
better science)
more accurate/faster diagnosis? (3, same reason)
fewer errors? (6)
And/or? (Less wasted effort; more informed scientists: unlocking
knowledge for computational exploration; more value for your research tax
dollar)
