Microdata tries to improve on what we've already had in the past: providing a built-in mechanism that is as easy to grasp as microformats, but also allows data processing without needing to build your own parser. And you can of course build your own microdata processing functionality for non-supporting browsers using JavaScript, if needs be.

Microdata v Microformats and an exciting new era for moving from a web of docs to a web of data and information.

I recently tweeted that we build ontologies to create business value. I meant that we build Semantic Technology-based software to empower our customers to create business value (or to create it for them). In reply, a few people said they’d like to hear more.

What is business value?

As Coda Hale put it, business value is anything that makes it more likely that someone will give us their money. That’s what business value means to us at C&P. But we usually provide software (or services) to (or for) our customers, in which case we’re interested in creating business value for them.

Generally, business value is anything we do or build that lowers our customers' costs, increases their revenues, or increases their profit margins.

Information technology (IT) is conventionally thought to be tied to business value by way of worker productivity. (Read Hal Varian’s Economics of Information Technology—I’m just stealing bits from it.) That is, IT increases unit of economic output per unit of labor input. There are variants and corner cases; for example, using IT to identify new, high-value customers. But all of those cases can be (or so I’m assuming) expressed as productivity gains.

So my tweet the other day comes down to this:

We use semantic technologies to lower our customers' operational costs and raise their productivity. That directly creates business value for them, which indirectly creates it for us.

Semantic technology and business value

I suggest four reasons why semantic technology increases business value. In other words, semantic technology’s value proposition is based on (at least) these four competitive advantages.

Cooperation without coordination

Coordination costs are non-trivial in IT: there are a lot of fiddley details that have to be right or stuff just doesn’t work. Programmers complain about this all the time, but it hurts everyone in IT. You either know and are pissed about this; or you don’t know it, in which case, I don’t have much to say to you…

Semantic technology lowers IT costs because it enables cooperation without explicit, synchronous coordination. (I owe “cooperation without coordination” to David Wood; I’m deeply peeved that he said this before I did!)

There’s a hierarchy of costs: explicit, synchronous coordination is the most expensive; implicit, asynchronous is the least expensive. Packing “exchangable smarts” into the data—which is, more or less, all Semantic Technology does—pushes IT work down the hierarchy of cost.

Programmers like to pretend no other type of IT work (Q&A, testing, design, management, etc.) is as valuable as software development. More sympathetic with them, I could not be! But it’s still a fantasy: those other IT jobs matter, too. This is relevant here because pushing smarts into code tends to alienate, confuse, or silence non-programmers.

Pushing smarts into the data empowers everyone equally (or, more equally), since everyone is (or should be) a data stakeholder.

Appropriate abstractions

Another aspect of “exchangable smarts” to drive down IT costs is the standardized use of appropriate abstractions. Put the other way ‘round, inappropriate abstractions increase IT costs.

What is an appropriate abstraction? Some core, key abstractions in Semantic Technology include: the URI, URL, URN jumble of identification-naming-etc technologies; HTTP (especially when used restfully); and metadata as first-class entity. I won’t rehearse this story, since it’s been told a lot, but this chunk of tech is appropriately abstract from low-level, often physical and other implementational details that should be hidden from others as much as possible.

Abstractions are key to cost control in IT since, when done right, they act as firebreaks: a mechanism to manage chaotic, third party action. In other words, appropriate abstractions prevent third party changes from rippling through entire informational ecosystems. Those ripples are expensive; if we can avoid some or even many of them, we drive down the costs of otherwise unavoidable changes, which don’t necessarily increase business value.

In other words, appropriately abstract, that is, loosely coupled systems beat tightly coupled systems over large scales and long distances, largely by isolating consumers and producers from unnecessary changes.

Declarative is better than imperative

Same song, different verse…Declarative beats imperative because, in the end, it is often a more appropriate abstraction. Software build systems are declarative because who cares? Who wants to spend their life telling computers what to do, when it’s possible to build better systems by describing domains of interest using machine-understandable little languages, DSLs, ontologies, rules, etc.

Semantic Technology is all about declarativeness as evolutionarily superior to imperativeness.

Correctness when it matters; sloppiness when it doesn’t

This is the humane, pragmatic form of the eternal debate between so-called neats and scruffies. It just means that sometimes stuff has to be exactly right and, other times, it doesn’t.

The canonical example of the former is medical diagnosis systems. You don’t want those things to be…sloppy. You want them to be crisp and provably correct. On the flip side, some other use cases admit of a certain sloppiness, for a variety of reasons. The primary reason is that—as Google keeps demonstrating—if you have enough data, signal always beats noise (eh, you know what I mean).

Some Sem Tech peeps want to leverage their sacred cows by arguing that the other part of the spectrum is rubbish. My point is and has always been, simply, that only Semantic Technology spans the entire scruffy-neat spectrum, running from the Linked Data Web to hard-core, formal OWL ontologies, respectively. Only Sem Tech lets you roll, naturally, from no schema, to some schema, to super, hard-core formal schema—all in the same, compatible family of languages.

This flexible complexity is the semantic juice; the people who keep trying to shorten this spectrum should…just stop doing that. It’s a boneheaded strategery! Live and let live and we will all win.

Conclusion

That’s the basic argument in general form. Next week I’ll post another article with details and examples from the C&P technology stack.

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Putting logic on the Web has seemed like an intellectual one-way street: the logic was all worked out a century ago or more, the technology is 20 years old, and we are simply dealing with the dirty practical business of putting it into XML and getting it onto the Web. But there needs to be some intellectual traffic in the other direction. When logic meets the Web we have to re-think several of the basic assumptions of logic itself, to the point that it should be seen as a new subject, with a new name: blogic. This talk surveys several foundational issues in blogic that either never arose previously in logic, or have to now be reconsidered, focussing particularly on issues arising from linked data and the need for an 'intimatelyRelatedButMaybeNotActuallySameAs' relation.

PH discusses the weaknesses in RDF and proposes a Peircian approach that could incorporate full FOL - hence making it ISO24707 compliant... could lead to a true shift in the SWEB and release its potential?

Although Foote does not expect hiring to really pick up until the end of 2010, beginning of 2011, several SAP related skills made it to the "2010 IT Skills Hot List". Some of the skills listed include SAP Supplier Relationship Mgmt, SAP Supply Chain Mgmt, SAP ERP, SAP NetWeaver, Business Process Mgmt, and Others.  Not surprisingly, these are also the areas where we have a lot of partner and customer activity, including right here on SCN.  This info might be useful for those of you trying to figure out where to take your career, what fields to get trained in or what path to choose as a new graduate.

I am one of only…err…two I know…who thinks BYD is going to be a market killer. I make no secret of my liking the service despite being critical in other areas.

Howletts opinion on ByD runs contrary to the opinion of one respected consultant who thinks it was a mistake... next yr will be interesting

and the extension of ByDesign to Microsoft’s development community (a step towards a Platform-as-a-Service) capability.

An interesting overview of the SAP Influencer Summit findings. Quote shows another example of SAP's closer collaborations with MS... expect more rumours about a buy-out developing over the foreseeable future....

Memorable quote: "Consultants who can add "intelligence" to Business Intelligence are the ones who are going to succeed"

Memorable quote #2 "I've spent 14 of my 35 years in IT as an independent consultant. I've never once been hired for my technical skills." 

Memorable quote #3: "There's enough SAP resource out there that is under-employed at the moment, this is the time for you to dig in."

Memorable quote #4: "Don't just sit in a room and configure. Get out in front of the client and address their issues. You may be wonderful at SAP configuration, but totally lose the client because you haven't addressed their issues."

Some very interesting quotes that confirm what the lecturers on my course pointed out; very little of our future careers will be technical.

This point needs driving home to many students and would-be consultants; some of the best value I got from my MSc was based on the consulting skills we were involved with, the business insight we were provided and the concept of learning beyond the curriculum.

The times ahead are getting tougher and the technical knowledge will not be a 'unique selling point'.

The Web 2.0 world may seem at times like a glamorous, hip place. Services get wild attention. The names are something out of the space age. The companies work out of coffee shops and lofts.

But the money has a way of running out before the entrepreneur can find a way to make a profit. No wonder the enterprise world can look so enticing to a Web 2.0 company.

So, we thought it might provide some perspective by looking at companies that are showing signs of reaching into the business market or have made the big switch.

tie in with mashups that have moved from web to ent already, eg jackbe

Examples of Enterprise Micro Application  Example of a stand alone Google Gadget Example of the Gadget imbedded in the Google Sites   Enterprise Micro Application on Mobile To see an example of Enterprise Micro Applications on all the mobile platforms and how they can be developed on the iPhone, click here Full Screen View What are Micro Applications? Micro Applications are small applications designed to extend a defined set of enterprise application functionality and transactions that is specific to a users role and requirements. Developers of Enterprise Micro Applications leverage SAP NetWeaver enterprise and web services to securely deliver enterprise system functionality on desktops, within browsers,  mobile devices, and within cloud environments using gadgets, widgets, mobile applications, and other. In order to consume Micro Applications, business users simply pick and select Micro Applications from a Micro Application gallery space and add them on any container supported by the IT department. For example, a portal in the browser, a widget engine on the desktop, or a application container on the mobile device. Micro Application gallery spaces are managed by the IT administrator; therefore the permission and usage of Micro Applications is completely under the control of IT department. Micro Applications can be built using any language of choice by any developer, consuming either newly developed backend data services or already existing services, for example, enterprise services registered in SAP Enterprise Service Repository (SAP ESR). More Information Enterprise Micro Applications Technical Users Guide for Netweaver 7.0 Enterprise Micro Applications Technical Users Guide for Netweaver 7.1 User Lookup Web Application - Sample Code Enterprise Micro Applications UI Guideliness Contact Contact imagineering@sap.com for more information

content Home Projects Live Enterprise No Hands SAP Enterprise Widgets MicroApplications Harmony Spotlight latest imagineering news Closing the gap between both worlds Enterprise Widgets

SAP's take on Mashups. SAP continues to go independent of the Open Mashup Alliance....

UK’s Carbon reduction commitment legislation – the shape of things to come globally!

by Tom Raftery on December 4, 2009 · 4 comments

in Legislation

Screenshot credit Tom Raftery – data from NASA

The world is getting warmer. 2008 was the 9th warmest year on record. 2009, barring a sudden, severe, global cold snap, will end up being the 4th or 5th warmest year on record and with El Niño coming on in the Pacific, 2010 looks likely to set a new temperature record for the hottest year in recorded history.

Climate change is real and it is here, now. So what you say, what does that have to do with me? Or more to the point, what does that have to do with my work?

Well, if you are based in the UK, there is a strong chance that next April, it will have a very direct impact on your job, company, or business. This is because the UK has passed legislation called the Carbon Reduction Committment (CRC).

The CRC is a groundbreaking piece of legislation designed to help the UK meet its carbon reduction targets by 2020. Basically, the CRC scheme will apply to organisations that had a half-hourly metered electricity consumption greater than 6,000 MWh per year in 2008. Organisations qualifying for CRC would have all their energy use covered by the scheme, this includes emissions from direct energy use as well as electricity purchased. Initially, it is estimated, around 5,000 organisations will qualify, including supermarkets, water companies, banks, local authorities and all central Government Departments. Qualifying organisations mostly fall below the threshold for the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, but account for around 10% of the UK carbon emissions.

The organisations involved will need to register or make an information disclosure by 30 September 2010. A financial penalty (£5,000 plus a per diem charge for each subsequent working day an organisation fails to submit a report) will be imposed on organisations who fail to meet the deadline.

The first year of the scheme (April 2010-2011) is called the footprint year. Companies are required to submit an audited report of their emissions during the footprint year by 29 July 2011. Again financial penalties will be imposed for failing to meet the deadline.

In the second year, (2011-2012) participants will have to purchase emissions allowances to cover their forecast emissions for 2011/12. And in 2013 auctioning of carbon allowances begins, with all the income from the auctions recycled back to participants by the means of an annual payment based on participants’ average annual emissions since the start of the scheme.

There will be a bonus or penalty according to the organisation’s position in a CRC league table. The league table will be made public thereby enhancing the transparency of companies carbon reporting and hopefully shaming any egregious emitters into reducing their carbon footprint.

I have gone in to a bit of detail about the CRC here because it is difficult enough to find out information about the scheme and most UK business appear to be wholly unprepared for its implementation. The UK Department of Climate Change (I think it is interesting that the UK has a government department of climate change in the first place – how many other governments do?) has an easy to follow guide to the CRC [PDF] available for download which will help.

The CRC is going to be closely watched by other countries and you can be sure it will be used as a model by many to reduce their carbon emissions.

As I mentioned at the outset of this piece, climate change is here, it is real. Increasingly we are going to see bills like the CRC enacted so we can try to mitigate its effects.

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Tagged as: carbon reduction commitment, climate change, crc, emissions trading

1 Comment 4 Tweets

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

1 NaturalStepNews December 4, 2009 at 7:09 pm

GreenMonk: UK’s Carbon reduction commitment legislation http://bit.ly/8HNf6I

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

2 TomRaftery December 4, 2009 at 7:20 pm

UK’s Carbon reduction commitment legislation – the shape of things to come globally? http://j.mp/8iFsGy

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

3 Jon Reed December 5, 2009 at 11:14 am

Tom Raftery (@tomraftery on Twitter) with info on UK legislation on carbon reduction and how this will likely be a global trend.

This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed

4 jonerpnewsfeed December 5, 2009 at 11:24 am

#news UK’s Carbon reduction commitment legislation – the shape of things to come globally! http://bit.ly/6tqVgA (via @jonerp)

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

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UK legislation to reduce emissions may be a global trendsettter