NIEM WHAT IS IT REALLY?

XML ORB: VIEWS & INSIGHTS David Webber XML savant blog: XMLOrb CAMeditor.org

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NIEM - MANY THINGS TO MANY PEOPLE Cross-government information sharing Interoperable and reusable Cheaper better processes Easier services for citizens Safer society Effective healthcare

CHALLENGES Smarter Processes Empowering Citizens Privacy Quicker and Simpler Open Collaborative Infrastructure Less Bureaucratic

AVOIDING “GOD SYNDROME” Belief in a single infallible solution If we just do this it will make everything so much better Life is complex, managing it is also Common sense versus legal complexity

TRIAL AND ERROR Iterative technology improvements Avoiding engineering complexity Trial, error, refinement Taking risks, thinking outside the box Computers make humans smarter Relax, it helps creativity flow

COMPLEXITY EXPLORED Complex not necessarily Complicated Need to untangle complexity NIEM for a broader world A termite "cathedral" mound; example of emergence in nature – Wikipedia.org

NIEM COLLECTIONS People treat dictionaries, vocabularies, ontologies, associations, linguistics as complex and complicated Need to focus on business goals, breaking problems down, looking only one degrees or two degrees away from desired outcomes

DICTIONARY BASED PARADIGM Maturing Dictionary Technologies Simple business information components Leverages XML and semantics Smart wizard agents manage content Technology neutral representation model Can be rendered into any target syntax

WHAT PEOPLE NEED Business lexicon and search tools Cross-domain analysis tools Compare exchange to dictionary tools Quality control evaluation reporting Content management by domain

SMARTER NIEM TECHNOLOGY Refactoring of NIEM core – basic reusable components – building blocks Context as flexible option not rigidly hardwired by named components XML is all about context by hierarchy - embrace it!

HOW WILL THIS HELP? Easier for people to do Simple logical business terms Cross-domain information components Intuitive mapping mechanisms Better semantic techniques Leveraging smart agent technology Pre-built public open source components

TOWARD NIEM “MASH-UPS” The world is not a giant UML model If my software can recognize an information component – that is dynamic reuse Avoid unnecessary attribute overhead Leveraging Content Assembly Mechanisms

OPEN SOURCE RESOURCES Download the CAM editor toolkit from: Download the CAM editor toolkit from: