Michel Biezunski

Michel Biezunski is an internationally recognized expert in the field of information management. He has invented and promoted new ways of finding information, accelerating access to information which is really needed, and helping organize vast corpora of information assets. His working experience covers various domains, including the publishing, finance, healthcare, and media industries, and governmental agencies.

Michel's focus is in the area of semantic integration, auditable information systems, XML/SGML Applications, navigation models within complex information sets, and hyperlink-based models. He participated in the development of the HyTime standard, and is recognized as the inventor of the Topic Maps standards, together with Steven R. Newcomb. He has written many articles and developed and conducted numerous workshops centered on these new technologies. Michel is now working on innovative solutions for auditability and integration of information systems.

Michel's consulting work consists of strategic consulting, as well as helping information owners to enhance their information systems by adding semantic navigation for facilitating access to the items of interest. Michel has developed technologies used in several applications.

Conferences and presentations

I have given a number of tutorials, workshops, and presentations at various conferences world-wide. These conferences and symposia include but are not limited to: Universal Access Collaboration Workshop, Information Economy MetaLanguage International Symposium, Library of Congress Luminary Lectures, New York XML User Group, IDEAlliance (Formerly GCA) XML conferences, the Semantic Web Working Symposium, the Semantic Web strategic workshop, the GUEST series at Goddard Center at Nasa, University of California at Berkeley, XML-France. I am a member of the board for the Knowledge Technologies Conference (IDEAlliance, Seattle, March 2002) as well as for the Semantic Web Workshop (Sardinia, June 2002). See list of presentations.

Programming skills / Structured document applications

Although not a professional programmer, I know how to manipulate structured information and transform it into something else. The programming language I know best is Python. I can contribute to the design and development of XML and SGML-based applications, and because I have a good working knowledge of HTML, I can help design web sites when needed. In the past, I also developed applications using Adobe's Frame Development Toolkit (FDK).

Consulting

Group motivation for in-house strategic vision development and project implementations. My specialty is to build consensus among groups that have an interest in realizing projects, or to build a common understanding of a vision for the future. I have worked for the publishing, finance, aerospace, and healthcare industries, and for government agencies. I have helped customers figure out where to go by designing and building working prototypes for their information systems.

Knowledge navigation systems design and implementation

Using a technology that I designed and created, I can help develop enriched web sites or CD-ROMs, by using any and all information already present, such as structural markup, index bookmarks, database field semantics, or whatever markers exist that can be exploited. The system I have created can be used to create web sites, or CDs, with improved navigation facilities among a potentially vast corpora of information objects.

Standards design

I have been involved for more than 10 years in the process of developing international standards. I have contributed to the invention and implemention of the Topic Maps standards. I started in 1990 by becoming the head of the French Delegation at ISO, became involved in the Davenport group between 1992 and 1993, then a member of the Conventions for the Application of HyTime (1993-1995). In 1996, I became an editor of the ISO/IEC 13250:2000 Topic Maps standard. I advocated an XML version of Topic Maps, XTM, and co-chaired its development from January 2000 until the first version was released in December 2000. I am still actively involved, as co-editor, in the efforts of ISO to extend the scope of the Topic Maps standard, and am also advocating a convergence of topic maps with the W3C's RDF recommendation.

I am interested in bringing user requirements into the standard process, and in reporting feedback on current progress to the customers that I represent and who want to stay on the leading edge of these emerging technologies.

Research projects

I have been involved in research projects aimed at defining new avenues for information management. One of these projects was to define an electronic library for EDF (Electricité de France) (1993-1995) by connecting various pieces of information in a vast industry-based research center. I am a member of the committee which defines the funding strategy for the Semantic Web-related research projects, co-organized by the National Science Foundation and the European Commission, as well as a member of the advisory board for a research project at Oregon Graduate Institute: "Harvesting Information to Sustain Our Forests". I am also member of the board of editors for Markup Languages, a journal published by MIT Press.

Building communities

I was the founder and president of the SGML Users' Group in France in 1992, and led that group for the next 5 years. I try to put together various communities who share interests, and am interested in contributing in the creation of new markets, such as the one opened by the Topic Maps standards. That market groups people coming from Knowledge Management, Structured Markup, and the Web. I am the moderator of the topicmapmail mailing list, a general interest list on topic maps.

Teaching experience

The subjects I have taught include: Topic Maps, HyTime, XML, SGML, Adobe's FDK, and (a long time ago) the WordPerfect macro language, plus general introductions to information management.