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For the 7th time, I-SEMANTICS, the International Conference on Semantic Systems, took place in Graz, presenting latest research outcomes and industry-ready applications to the wider public. Co-located with I-KNOW, the 11th International Conference on Knowledge Technologies, the event proved once again that the interest in semantic information processing is high and of increasing practical relevance.

A new report from the Institute for Global Futures, Global Futures Forecast 2012, lays out the top trends that it believes will shape the coming year. It's looking ahead to a future that it says may be characterized by complex trends, accelerated change, hyper-competition, disruption, innovation and uncertainty, and that will demand a new way of operating. It recommends continuing investment in innovation in the U.S., as that is the central driver of US and global competitive advantage, and a requirement for achieving more stable growth. And it advises that organizations' leaders need to do a better job becoming long-range thinkers given that the accelerated pace of change means that the future is coming at us faster than ever before, and with change comes risk. What do such things have to do with the Semantic Web and semantic technologies? Apparently, quite a lot.

Semantic technologies are fundamentally about knowledge representation, not data transfer. The current concept of linked data attempts to place these burdens mostly on the way data is published. While apparently "simpler" than earlier versions of the semantic Web (since linked data de-emphasizes shared vocabularies and nuanced associations), linked data places onerous burdens on how publishers express their data. Though many in the advocacy community point to the "billions" of RDF triples expressed as a success, actual consumers of linked data are rare. I know of no meaningful application or example where the consumption of linked data is an essential component. However, there are a few areas of success in linked data. DBpedia, Freebase (now owned by Google), and GeoNames have been notable in providing identifiers (URIs) for common concepts, things, entities and places. There has also been success in the biomedical community with linked data.

hough they're not specifically branded as such, services such as Apple's Siri , the Wolfram Alpha answer engine, and Google's new Knowledge Graph all use semantics under the hood. The Semantic Web is a movement that aims to add value and utility to online information by structuring data in a way that both computers and humans can understand. The goal: computer systems that can understand and infer meaning - for instance, a computer system that knows the difference between an "organ" that is a musical instrument, and an "organ" that lives inside your body.

Frequently customers ask me why semantic technologies should be used instead of conventional information technologies. In the areas of knowledge representation (KR) and knowledge management (KM), there are compelling reasons and benefits for selecting semantic technologies over conventional approaches. This article attempts to summarize these rationales from a layperson perspective.

Mike Bergman presents an overview geared to laypersons for why semantic technologies make the best choice for knowledge applications

"Virtually everywhere one looks we are in the midst of a transition for how we organize and manage information, indeed even relationships. Social networks and online communities are changing how we live and interact. NoSQL and graph databases - married to their near cousin Big Data - are changing how we organize and store information and data. Semantic technologies, backed by their ontologies and RDF data model, are showing the way for how we can connect and interoperate disparate information in ways only dreamed about a decade ago. And all of this, of course, is being built upon the infrastructure of the Internet and the Web, a global, distributed network of devices and information that is undoubtedly one of the most important technological developments in human history. There is a shared structure across all of these developments - the graph. Graphs are proving to be the new universal paradigm for how we organize and manage information. Graphs have an inherently expandable nature, and one which can also capture any existing structure. So, as we see all of the networks, connections, relationships and links - both physical and informational - grow around us, it is useful to step back a bit and contemplate the universal graph structure at the core of these developments. Understanding that we now live in the Age of the Graph means we can begin studying and using the concept of the graph itself to better analyze and manage our interconnected world. Whether we are trying to understand the physical networks of supply chains and infrastructure or the information relationships within ontologies or knowledge graphs, the various concepts underlying graphs and graph theory, themselves expressed through a rich vocabulary of terms, provide the keys for unlocking still further treasures hidden in the structure of graphs."