Podcast: Using Semantics to Make More Sense of BI

June 29, 2009

J. Brooke Aker Talks Semantics:

Semantics is the science of having a computer read and understand the context of words. This is far different than what we all experience today when we search the web. That is keyword technology and it cannot distinguish between a new set of clothes, legal matters, or the kind of cards you are playing in poker when you search using the word “suit.” But semantics can.

So why does this technology signal something new for business intelligence? Simple, 80% of the world’s information comes in a written, unstructured form, not a structured set of data. But with semantics you analyze for context every word, paragraph and document and save the (XML, RDF, etc.) markup in a database. What business intelligence could not use is now usable.

What do you get from semantics fused with BI? Now that is where aker the fun comes in. How about collecting, analyzing, tallying and displaying the sentiment consumers express on the web about your company’s products or services? Try this site from the 2,000 daily blogs post on automobiles to see how this works. How about analyzing the financial health, technology, partnerships and deals of your suppliers? How about tracking and understanding the ever changing regulatory or legal environment your company must navigate?

Semantics is the key to turning your sea of documents, email, spreadsheets, presentations and frankly the whole web into a BI accessible source. Now you can think about BI’s role in a web that answers questions directly and accurately - about the hours at the library, instructions for home repair, and how to operate one of your complicated electronic devices. Now you can think about BI’s role in a web that monitors and prevents fraud or helps solve crime, protects the homeland, saves energy, and discovers new medicine. BI just took a big leap forward.

–J. Brooke Aker, CEO, Expert System’s U.S. subsidiary

Posted by Carl · Filed Under Interviews