Avoiding the Pain of Data

Welcome to the Semantic Web

Allowing individuals and organisations to interact, collaborate and learn has many obvious benefits.

The Semantic Web transforms how users can access and interact with knowledge. And changes how they experience and analyse information. Organisations collect masses of data, and semantic enhancement can make the content very useful; converting this into a strategic resource.

This requires tools and services to transform how we view, select and interact with information; changing how we experience and analyse knowledge. And, for data to be re-purposed through machine-based processes. This has many benefits within organisations and across the internet.

Efficiency and Costs

Business Data Growth

The Aberdeen Group surveyed 173 organisations of which 99% indicated that their volume of data is growing on average at 30% per year.

Since the advent of modern computing the cost of storage has been a problem. From 1999 there costs of storage reduced but as the volume of data being stored increases there are emerging pressures on costs. It was estimated in 2010 that the annual consumption of data was 9.57 zettabytes. (one zettabyte is 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes!)

It is currently estimated that the volume of data is doubling every two years and that this growth will struggle against supply. This will place real pressures on costs and for technologies which make better use of data.

Within enterprises the cost of data storage is generally seen as a cost. Depending on the characteristics of an organisation the growth of data iis mainly driven by the growth in un-structured data which includes images, emails and texts.) This creates additional pressures as the skills, experience and resources to manage and use this data will become scarcer. And, pressure will be put on existing infrastructure unless alternative solutions are sought.

Semantic Data, Personal Search Agents and Discovery

Assuming that organisations collect data to make use of it (rather than simply store it), then there are many improvements available by creating different descriptions of data and widening the opportunities to use this data. This comes from understanding its relevancy and context; and, using this to convert it into useful knowledge.

On the other hand, it is very likely to be the case than many bits of data are not relevant and are not required. But, how do you know the difference and what costs are associated with storing this data?

The fear is that the data may be useful and so it is kept. But as the costs rise of storing data then some evaluation is required. Again, this is about relevancy and describing a method for automating the process for Discovery which is effective.

Alternatively, it may also be the case that understanding the value of data is only possible by making this available across the whole enterprise and equipping individuals with the tools and insights to find their own 'relevancy' with the data owned by the organisation.

This is a conversion process. Knowledge becomes an enabler and data a strategic asset. The alternative is that data becomes a liability.

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