The Transition from Learning to Implementation: Some Thoughts

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The Transition from Learning to Implementation
Some Thoughts

• Brand Niemann
• Chair, Semantic Interoperability Community of
  Practice (SICoP)
• Best Practices Committee (BPC), CIO Council, and
• Enterprise Architecture Team, Office of
  Environmental Information
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• April 20, 2005

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Overview

• 1. Transition
• 2. Mind Maps
• 3. Principles for Use Cases

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1. Transition

• In enterprise architecture we talk about the
  baseline and the target and the transition to get
  from the baseline to the target.
• For NICS the "transition" should include
• Activities - an ongoing schedule of CoP
  meetings to address technical subjects and
  community building.
• Projects - a wise selection of technical and
  community building tasks that CoP members will
  support financially.
• Development - a marketing plan for cultivating
  the "NICS clients" (KNII, CIC-both, etc.) and
  getting the resources needed to get to the
  "target".

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1. Transition

• Kent Greenes who is considered to be an
  unparalleled CoP practitioner, says
• "An idea that emerged earlier this year in a
  conversation I had with the CompanyCommand team
  is that conversation, content, and context need
  to be tightly coupled and integrated. They feed
  off each other. You create content from
  meaningful conversation. Content attracts more
  people. The people engage in more conversation,
  often about existing content, generating more
  context and new content. The most powerful use of
  content is to spark more informed conversations,
  because that is what gets people actually
  transferring knowledge so they can use it right
  now."

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1. Transition

• Suggested Resources
• Harvard University, Communities of Practice A
  New Tool for Government Managers)
• This was distributed to NICS.
• CompanyCommand Unleashing the Power of the Army
  Profession)
• To be presented and discussed at the April 21st
  KM.Gov All Hands Meeting at the KM Conference
  (3-4 p.m.).

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2. Mind Maps

• The Mind Map Book How to Use Radiant Thinking to
  Maximize Your Brains Untapped Potential (Tony
  Buzan)
• Before the web came hypertext. And before
  hypertext came mind maps.
• A mind map consists of a central word or concept,
  around the central word you draw the 5 to 10 main
  ideas that relate to that word. You then take
  each of those child words and again draw the 5 to
  10 main ideas.
• Mind maps allow associations and links to be
  recorded and reinforced.
• The non-linear nature of mind maps makes it easy
  to link and cross-reference different elements of
  the map.
• See next slide for examples from the Explorers
  Guide to the Semantic Web, Thomas Passin,
  Manning Publications, 2004, pages 106 and 141.

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2. Mind Maps for Searching and Ontologies
informal formal distinctions multiple trees hierar
chies taxonomies vocabularies
adhoc categories internet
hugh changing growing inconsistent
predefined
ENVIRONMENT
CLASSIFICATION
KINDS
Searching
Ontologies
ONTOLOGIES
keywords ontologies classification metadata semant
ic Focusing social Analysis multiple
Passes clustering
combining specifying committment
NAMES
STRATEGIES
LANGUAGES
properties relationships constraints identifiers
RDFS OWL DAML Description Logics
Note These are not complete.
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2. Mind Maps for the National Health Information
Network
standards governance privacy regionalization finan
cing architecture regulation
organizational technical semantic
general organizational business management
operational standards policies financial,
regulatory, legal other
DR. BRAILER
RFI
FRAMEWORKS
STANDARDS ORGANIZATIONS
NHIN
WORK GROUPS
NCVHS CCHIT Etc.
technical architecture organization
business financial, regulatory, legal
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
OTHER
other
STRATEGIC PLAN GOALS
regional initiatives clinical practice population
health health interoperability Federal Health
Architecture
Possible/probable interrelationships
Inform Clinical Practice Interconnect
Clinicians Personalize Care Improve Population
Health
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2. Mind Maps for the National Infrastructure for
Community Statistics
Reno Conference Initial Convening Charter
Executive Committee Operations Group
Program Group
Formation
Transition Organization
Local Organizations State organizations Federal
Organizations National Non-Profit Commercial
Core Operating Committee Staff Market
Place Tools Resources Sustainability
NICS
Learning Phase
Implement- ation
The Community
Clients
Use Cases
KNII CIC (2) ICFS FEA-DRM Etc.
Data Intermediaries Community Data
Users Foundations/Investors State
Agencies Federal Agencies Non-profit Commercial
Identity
Projects Pittsburgh Twin
Cities Affiliates NEPH EPA Region 4
NICS Ready NICS Services NICS Products
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3. Principles for Use Cases

• Principle 1 All NICS CoP Members should work
  towards becoming NICS Ready
• E.g., everyone has a Use Case.
• This helps the Program Group with the agendas for
  the CoP Meetings and the needs of the Operations
  Group for best practice examples for marketing
  NICS.
• Principle 2 NICS CoP Members that need help with
  Principle 1 should partner with other NICS CoP
  Members that can help them.
• E.g., everyone finds a win-win relationship in
  the CoP.
• This helps the CoP deals with resource
  constraints during startup.
• Principle 3 The NICS Operations should help
  those NICS CoP Members that need resources find
  those resources.
• E,g, everyone can get help with their business
  case and marketing.

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3. Principles for Use Cases

• NICS Ready means data tables that have metadata
  that address at least the following
• Title, Explanation, Row and Column Labels
  Defined, Footnotes, and Source.
• Note This follows the Statistical Abstract of
  the U.S. format.
• NICS Services means those NICS Ready data
  tables are available in an interoperable format
  (e.g. RDF/XML).
• NICS Products are those that have been vetted
  within and outside the NICS CoP by a Peer Review
  Process to be defined.
• All NICS Community Statistics need to be place
  in a broader context (see next slide).

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3. Principles for Use Cases

• Context for Community Statistics
• National Statistics at the State Level
• Statistical Abstract of the U.S.
• National Statistics at the County Level
• Census County Quick Facts
• National Statistics at the City and Town Level
• Census City and Town (gt25,000) Facts
• NICS Community Statistics
• NICS CoP Member Sponsor and Host

See http//quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html