Meanings Matter: The Semantic Web Enriches Data Management And Fuels Processes

Semantics is just a fancy word for what things truly mean. Historically, semantics has been the realm of geeky information management specialists. But for business process pros, process integration depends on data integration, which in turn requires agreement on common data definitions and glossaries to drive full-fidelity interoperability. The Semantic Web describes an increasingly standardized approach for discovering, querying, browsing, analyzing, visualizing, and modeling semantic constructs for many process, application, and system integration projects. As semantics moves into the mainstream, business process pros will increasingly require data integration tools to help them work with semantics as expressed in domain-specific ontologies, taxonomies, thesauri, topic maps, and other constructs.