CORALVILLE, IA, July 26, 2010 -- Structured Dynamics (SD) today released two knowledge bases, TechWiki and DocWiki, as free resources for hundreds of documents and articles governing the installation, use and management of the company's open source products. These open source knowledge bases may be downloaded and freely used by customers solely by providing attribution.

"These releases contribute two of the four parts of what we call a 'total open solution' to open source products," said Michael Bergman, Structured Dynamics' CEO. "They are tangible expressions that partially fulfill our company commitment of 'We're successful when we're not needed'," said Bergman.

In Bergman's blog post making the announcement, he indicated that this was the first known case of using familiar wiki technology in order to pre-package complete, downloadable knowledge bases. Though all of the system components are open source, the configuration is new and specifically geared to a complete documentation and methodology "starter kit" for open source projects.

"We designed the system to enable collaboration, version control, and single-source publishing of all relevant content related to our open semantic framework initiative," said Fred Giasson, SD's CTO. "We needed to bring consistency to our documentation efforts and a coherent, structured way for our developer community to also contribute documentation," he added. "We're also finding huge benefits ourselves in internal consistency and completeness with our early use of the system."

The TechWiki is specifically geared to coding and code documentation; systems configurations and architectures; installation; set-up and maintenance; best practices in these areas; technical background information; and links to external resources. At release, the TechWiki contains 187 articles under 56 categories, with a further 293 images. The knowledge base is growing daily.

DocWiki is a sibling Mediawiki instance that contains all TechWiki material, but has a broader purpose in providing a common language and methodology for managing these instances, including specific tasks, activites and phases. It also includes staff roles, governance and outcome measurements, as well as supporting background material useful for executive management and outside audiences.

The DocWiki methodology is based on MIKE2.0 (Method for Integrated Knowledge Environments), an open source methodology for information development projects championed by Bearing Point and Deloitte. At release, the DocWiki contains 357 articles and 394 structured tasks in 70 activity areas under 77 categories. Another 115 images support this content. This knowledge base, too, is growing daily.

The specific context for the current versions of these knowledge bases is the Citizen Dan local community indicator system initiative, the first of the OSF (open semantic framework) instances. However, the software and methods for these knowledge bases are readily duplicated for other instances and circumstances.

With these public releases, both knowledge bases have also been opened up to outside contributors. The public may also export and install these systems locally. Then, they may revise and modify and extend that pre-packaged information in any way they see fit.

"We're excited that this provides a new model for documenting and sharing of open source projects," said Bergman. "We stand ready to help any other project to adopt and improve this approach. It is almost stupidly easy how straightforward and simple this approach is to replicate for other uses," he concluded.

The TechWiki may be accessed at http://techwiki.openstructs.org; the DocWiki at http://docwiki.citizen-dan.org. Bergman's blog post describing the release is at http://www.mkbergman.com/898/using-wikis-as-pre-packaged-knowledge-bases/. An overview of the open semantic framework may be found at http://openstructs.org/open-semantic-framework. The broader description of the 'total open solution' is provided at http://www.mkbergman.com/883/listening-to-the-enterprise-total-open-solutions-part-2/. More on the MIKE2.0 methodology may be found at its dedicated Web site at http://mike2.openmethodology.org/. Description of the Citizen Dan project may be found at http://citizen-dan.org/details.html.

About Structured Dynamics LLC

Structured Dynamics assists enterprises and non-profit organizations to adopt Web-accessible and interoperable semantic data. The basic premise is that the data itself becomes the application. Via structured, linked data and a combination of semantic technologies and Web services, information in any form and from any source can now be integrated and made interoperable. The company Web site is at http://structureddynamics.com; it is headquartered in Coralville, IA.

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CORALVILLE, IA, May 20, 2010 -- Structured Dynamics (SD) today updated its corporate image with a new logo and new color schemes on its Web pages and collateral. Other upgrades to various SD product logos and other adjustments are also being made.

"Fred Giasson and I formed the company rapidly back in November 2008. We had other fish to fry, namely starting work with customers coming out of the gate, and literally grabbed a toss-off logo that had been laying in the drawer to start the company," said Michael Bergman, Structured Dynamics' CEO. "That worked well in the early days, but we increasingly felt our image looked tired and distinctly 'non-dynamic,' ” he added.

Structured Dynamics commissioned a competition which drew over 170 submissions from about 25 individual designers. The winning design is shown on SD's newly updated Web site. The company also announced that it will be working with some of the other finalist designers for some of its other product designs. The first to be so unveiled is the company's Citizen Dan logo.

"So, with growth and presence it feels good to now have a professional look as well . . . we look to walk arm-in-arm with this logo for quite some time to come," said Bergman.

About Structured Dynamics LLC

Structured Dynamics assists enterprises and non-profit organizations to adopt Web-accessible and interoperable semantic data. The basic premise is that the data itself becomes the application. Via structured, linked data and a combination of semantic technologies and Web services, information in any form and from any source can now be integrated and made interoperable. The company Web site is at http://structureddynamics.com; it is headquartered in Coralville, IA.

About Structured Dynamics LLC

Structured Dynamics assists enterprises and non-profit organizations to adopt Web-accessible and interoperable semantic data. The basic premise is that the data itself becomes the application. Via structured, linked data and a combination of semantic technologies and Web services, information in any form and from any source can now be integrated and made interoperable. The company Web site is at http://structureddynamics.com; it is headquartered in Coralville, IA.

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CORALVILLE, IA, March 1, 2010 -- Structured Dynamics (SD) today donated its Open SEAS methodology for Semantic Enterprise Adoption and Solutions to the MIKE2.0 (Method for an Integrated Knowledge Environment) project. Open SEAS provides a framework for an enterprise to establish a coherent, consistent and interoperable semantic layer across its information assets. MIKE2.0 complements that by providing a complete open source delivery environment and methodology for information management projects in the enterprise.

"We had been developing the Open SEAS methodology for over a year," said Michael Bergman, SD's CEO. "While we had been fleshing it out piecemeal through our customer engagements, we lacked a broader context and methodology in which to embed the process. MIKE2.0 provided that; key project leaders also welcomed our contribution with open arms," he added.

Open SEAS follows a number of guiding principles in helping organizations to transition into becoming a semantic enterprise. The combination of its "open-world approach" and RDF data model enables new information to be brought in and incorporated into the framework step-by-step. This allows lower risk, incremental development and agile testing and validation of semantic approaches.

MIKE2.0 and its methodology is organized around "solutions", from the specific to the composite. These are described and packaged with respect to plans, management communications, products (open source and proprietary), activities, benchmarks, and deliverables. Delivery is accomplished over multiple increments, split into five phases from definition and planning to deployment. These assets may be applied to any information management area. The framework allows for multiple projects to be combined and inter-related, all under a common methodology.

"MIKE2.0 is going to 3.0 in terms of its solution approach with this extension and its use of semantic techniques and technologies," said Sean McClowry, Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and founder and Executive Director of the MIKE2.0 methodology, and a member of its governing board. "We think Structured Dynamics' Open SEAS is a big step forward and believe client interest along these lines will be keen," he added.

Open SEAS is compliant with the MIKE2.0 Semantic Enterprise Solution Offering. SD developed it for enterprises desiring to initiate or extend their involvement with semantic technologies. According to Bergman, SD developed it to be inherently incremental, low-cost and low-risk.

Structured Dynamics donated this methodology and all of its related intellectual assets in accordance with MIKE2.0's Creative Commons license and content governance policies. MIKE2.0's current 2000+ community members are now free to expand and use the Open SEAS methodology in any manner they see fit.

MIKE2.0 presently has some 800 resources across about 40 solution areas. With Structured Dynamics' donation, there are now about 40 resources related to the semantic enterprise, many of them major, accompanied by many images and figures. This contribution makes the Semantic Enterprise Solution Offering instantly one of the more complete within MIKE2.0.

Bergman's blog post elaborating on the announcement is at http://www.mkbergman.com/868/open-seas-a-framework-to-transition-to-a-semantic-enterprise/.

About MIKE2.0

Method for an Integrated Knowledge Environment (MIKE2.0) is an open source delivery framework for Enterprise Information Management. It provides a comprehensive methodology, backed by a resource-rich and collaborative Web site (http://mike2.openmethodology.org/), that can be applied across a number of different projects within the Information Management space. Key contributing members are BearingPoint, Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCooper.

About Structured Dynamics LLC

Structured Dynamics assists enterprises and non-profit organizations to adopt Web-accessible and interoperable semantic data. The basic premise is that the data itself becomes the application. Via structured, linked data and a combination of semantic technologies and Web services, information in any form and from any source can now be integrated and made interoperable. The company Web site is at http://structureddynamics.com; it is headquartered in Coralville, IA.

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irON Brings Native Spreadsheets, JSON and XML into the Semantic Web

CORALVILLE, IA, October 18, 2009 -- Structured Dynamics today released irON — the instance record and Object Notation — and its family of frameworks and tools into the open source community. SD stated the purpose of irON is to provide simple conventions, a small vocabulary, and free parsers and converters to allow common data formats to become first-class participants on the semantic Web.

"irON is an important piece in the semantic enterprise puzzle that we are building at Structured Dynamics," said Michael Bergman, SD's CEO. "It reflects our belief that knowledge workers should be able to author and create interoperable datasets without having to learn the arcana of RDF."

irON is an abstract notation and associated vocabulary for specifying RDF triples and schema in non-RDF forms. Its purpose is to allow users and tools in non-RDF formats to stage interoperable datasets using RDF. The notation supports three serializations for writing RDF and schema in the formats of: JSON (irJSON); XML (irXML); or, comma-separated values (CSV) via spreadsheets (commON).

The irON specification includes guidance for creating instance records (including in bulk), linkages to existing ontologies and schema, and schema definitions. Data ingested in the irON frameworks can also be exported as RDF and staged as linked data.

"irON and its three serializations can capture virtually the entire scope and power of RDF as a data model, but with the simple and familiar constructs used by each native form," said Fred Giasson, SD's CTO, and co-editor with Bergman for irON. "We used the unique differences amongst XML, JSON and CSV and our intimate knowledge of RDF to guide development of the notation."

Structured Dynamics acknowledged Dr. Jim Pitman and the Bibliographic Knowledge Network (BKN) project (NSF Award 0835851) and its BibJSON format for being a "catalytic influence" on irON's development.

Links and References

The irON release is version 0.8. The irON specification is available at http://openstructs.org/iron/iron-specification, provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license. The parsers and converters will be available by mid-week at http://code.google.com/p/iron-notation/, available under the Apache license, version 2.0.

About Structured Dynamics LLC

Structured Dynamics assists enterprises and non-profit organizations to adopt Web-accessible and interoperable data. The basic premise is that the data itself becomes the application. Via structured, linked data and a combination of products and Web services, information in any form and from any source can now be integrated and made interoperable. Linked data is based on open standards to interconnect any form of relevant information on the Web — on demand and in context. The company Web site is at http://structureddynamics.com; it is headquartered in Coralville, IA.

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Experienced Executive Joins SD as Senior Advisor

CORALVILLE, IA, October 1, 2009 -- Structured Dynamics announced today that Steve Ardire has joined its executive management ranks as senior Advisor. For the past 15+ years, Steve has provided incisive business strategy and development, product marketing, and sales consulting services to early stage software startups. His focus is semantic knowledge discovery, enterprise information management, Enterprise 2.0 and related. His strength is to establish value — defined through the customer — as the guiding mind-set for all customer interactions.

"As our technology foundation solidifies, it is time for us to ramp up outreach to Global 2000 companies," said Michael Bergman, Structured Dynamics' CEO. "Steve is a perfect choice for us and extremely knowledgeable in the relatively new semantic enterprise space; we now have the right senior team to expand our market presence," he added.

"I've been actively looking for winning companies and winning strategies targeting the semantic enterprise for nearly five years," said Steve Ardire. "Structured Dynamics has a capability and message across the entire enterprise stack that is among the best I've seen."

Since the early 1990s Ardire has held senior executive, consultant, business development or strategy positions with a slate of advanced software companies, including iQuest Analytics, Trampoline Systems, fourthcodex, Broadstrokes, SchemaLogic, The Kelvin Institute, SCT Global Education Solutions, LifeF/X Networks, Big Science Company, Cartia, Microsoft, and Stellar One Corp. He has been instrumental in setting business development strategies and achieving revenue goals.

Ardire has a BA in geology from Franklin & Marshall College and an MBA from the University of Connecticut. He and his family reside on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state.

About Structured Dynamics LLC

Structured Dynamics assists enterprises and non-profit organizations to adopt Web-accessible and interoperable data. The basic premise is that the data itself becomes the application. Via structured, linked data and a combination of products and Web services, information in any form and from any source can now be integrated and made interoperable. Linked data is based on open standards to interconnect any form of relevant information on the Web -- on demand and in context. The company Web site is at http://structureddynamics.com; it is headquartered in Coralville, IA.

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