We are consultants. We don’t write or sell software, rather we apply SOA and semantic technology to reduce complexity in systems. We are one of very few companies that can semantically model data, knowledge, and business entities and deliver formal ontologies (expressed in OWL). Most of our projects fit one of these patterns.
Assessment
Assessment ranges from high-level, experience-based interpretation to a detailed “as-is” inventory of systems and/or cost analysis, functional adequacy of systems, staff evaluation, etc.
Design
Design is our strong suit. It seems to be the high leverage point of systems implementation. Three areas of design that we feature are: “to-be architecture” (the design of a future state of the whole enterprise), “enterprise ontology” (the design of a semantic model that covers the maximum amount of information integration with an economy of shared concepts), and “service and message design” (the specific design of some of the shared services or messages needed to get reuse out of an SOA).
Plan
One of the reasons for the unnecessary popularity of “big bang” implementation projects is that planners haven’t worked out how to do things incrementally. (It should also be noted that many people in the equation are not interested in economy.) We help people convert a desired end state into a series of manageable projects that they can either do themselves or contract out with little risk.
Monitor
We’ve recently added a service to help clients stay the course. Most of our clients like the end state and plan we’ve created, but somewhere along the line, perhaps with the “help” of contractors or others not bought into the plan, they drift off course. We now offer a service we call “architectural assurance” which is analogous to quality assurance or even an audit function, but is focused on governance, metrics and review of initiatives with the purpose of tacking as closely as possible to the desired future state.
Train
All our engagement have a heavy educational component. As a result, we have a wealth of material that we can package into specific training classes. We offer the best course on OWL and Ontology building (Designing and Building Ontologies) and are available for keynotes and other presentations.