Investing in Semantics: Making the Business Case (An ROI-based Argument)

Semantic technologies - such as taxonomies, document classification systems, and other subject metadata-based systems - are widely recognized as effective and practical. However, securing approval for an initial investment in semantics can be challenging; it's hard to demonstrate how better search will save money.

This short talk draws on industry research (all cited) to bring together a short argument for investing in semantics, including:

How much time information workers spend searching
How much time information workers spend re-creating documents they can't find
How you can save money by enabling information workers to be more effective
How to drastically improve e-commerce based on good metadata
How the cost of semantic systems drops dramatically after an initial investment

Bob Kasenchak leads business development at Access Innovations, a leading semantic-oriented metadata firm. Current research areas include Linked Data, named entity disambiguation, and document classification. Bob has led taxonomy development and other projects for JSTOR, McGraw-Hill, Wolters Kluwer, the American Society for Civil Engineering (ASCE), Engineering Research Education (ERE), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Thesaurus (MSHT). Bob attended St. John’s College, the New England Conservatory of Music, and the University of Texas at Austin, completing his master’s in theoretical studies and doctoral work in music theory.