23 Chromosomes | Knoxville, TN News | Entertainment | Randomness

Semantics: Human v. Computer 2009

Posted on 11. Apr, 2009 by John McCulley in Technology

Wow, how do you start with a word like that and get anyone to follow? I’ll give you a brief synopsis of why this is important to me, and then we’ll proceed. Sound fair?

Semantics in its raw form is simply the way we interpret words. Words, phrases, symbols.. whatever. Forms of spoken and written communication if you must.

Why’s that important?

Well, to some it’s not. Until yesterday, I was one of them. We’re going to talk about two types in the blog today, Web and Human. I’ll start with Human.

There have been several occurrences lately I’m told where I can come off a bit condescending and maybe a bit brash. I spend a lot of time defending this stance usually, but after some soul searching, I believe I’ve come to a realization that may change my life. That realization is that no matter what I say, it’s not my interpretation that counts. Write that down, cause you’ll be using it later.

It’s really not my view of the semantics that defines the conversation; it’s the receiver’s view, and henceforth, I realize now that one must control the conversation with less power, more listening, and an injection of reverence ever so often. If I can master this, then I can use the character traits that make me strong in the meeting to overcome the objections that I simply argue away now. When in a conversation before, I would simply look the end user in the eye and tell them that they were wrong… and that was it. No more glimmer in their eye. No more interest. No more Christmas euphoria. No more customer. Now, that’s not to say I haven’t been successful with customers.

I love my customers. I have a few that are unique challenges, but all in all, my customers are pretty cool.

So, let me try to bring this all together and state my purpose. This week, I’m trying something new. I’m going to try to let the customer talk more. I’m going to try to let them tell me what they feel and think, and not object to their lack of information. Because usually, that’s all it is. Either they’ve gotten bad info, or they just don’t know. That’s ok, though. We as human beings deserve a little exaggeration in our lives to spice up the moment.

So, I say to you, let your customer speak, because their voice is the one that matters. Consequently, it’s also the one that has to relay the message to A/P to get the check in the mail. If your customer is a bit off base, settle in, and educate them as best you can. There are some people who will not respond well to this, because they are trying to invoke a reaction from you. Again, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show, because you’ve won the contract by letting them talk. That’s what they need, and this week is the week to let the customer run the show!

So, semantics. Semantics fit in here in a couple of ways. Number one, I’ve never interpreted objection as gain. When a customer objects, it’s not a negative impulse, it’s an opportunity for you to prove your ability. Number two, I’ve never interpreted gratitude as possible loss. Sometimes, a customer will give you gratitude because they are afraid to give you anything else. If they give you too much gratitude, replay the conversation in your head to make sure you deserve it.

Special thanks to Carolyn Wilson, my business partner, and local Referral Exchange Organization Market developer for opening my eyes. You can talk to her about referral based success by emailing carolyn@reomeetings.com.

Ok, so let’s go into the other semantics, web semantics. What does this mean to you?

The Semantic Web is an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which the semantics of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content.^[1][2] It derives from World Wide Web Consortium director Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the Web as a universal medium for data, information, and knowledge exchange.^[3]

At its core, the semantic web comprises a set of design principles,^[4] collaborative working groups, and a variety of enabling technologies. Some elements of the semantic web are expressed as prospective future possibilities that are yet to be implemented or realized.^[2] Other elements of the semantic web are expressed in formal specifications.^[5] Some of these include Resource Description Framework (RDF), a variety of data interchange formats (e.g. RDF/XML, N3, Turtle, N-Triples), and notations such as RDF Schema (RDFS) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL), all of which are intended to provide a formal description of concepts, terms, and relationships within a given knowledge domain.

Credit: Wikipedia

The semantic web is a web of data the makes all the coding work throughout the entire web in every browser. Now, does that always work, no. But is it a big step, yes! We as developers underappreciate the ability we have now to make technology works for us over several different browsers. You may only know of Safari, IE, Firefox, and maybe Opera, but their are hundreds of others. My other browser is a Camino.

Humans use semantics to interpret several things. We give a computer direction to solve problem based on instructions that we’ve designed. Using the semantic web, we will give more power to the computer in terms of problem solving.

Enough said, I’m boring you

Email and comment, I want o know what you think!

Related posts:

1. Great Read! Way I Work: Jason Fried of 37signals
2. FUTURE SHOCK from iPad antagonists. Credit to Fraser Speirs
3. Do Not Crush Under Pressure : Web Venting
4. A Year in the Life of Twitter
5. Review of Up in The Air

Tags: blog, entertainment, events, knoxville, music, news, tn