Going forward, I recommend adding semantic markup to new content as it is created. We've been doing this with XML and SGML documents for years, using semantic tags to unambiguously flag specific pieces of text for future discovery. Tagging part numbers in a service manual, for example, can automate the addition of hyperlinks and improve search relevance. Tagging an annual report with XBRL can automate the discovery of specific facts within the management discussion and analysis or the footnotes, helping to prevent another Enron.

Semantic tagging and content reuse. More recent XML standards, like DITA, help authors focus on creating granular, component-based content, primarily for content reuse. In addition to providing definitive metadata, DITA encourages organizations to break their content out of the document model. Storing and retrieving content in documents makes the facts and events inside those documents harder to discover across the enterprise.

Think of a lengthy policies and procedures manual. Historically, individual policies and procedures have been bound together in one book for the convenience of publishing. Adding or revising one policy means the whole manual must be reprinted and distributed. Today, electronic publishing on the web, intranets, and portals make it possible to publish each policy or procedure individually, as it is added or revised. The book itself is obsolete.

A very large document like a policy manual used to be managed in a document management system as a single, monolithic document. Now, it can be managed in a content management system as a collection of hundreds of reusable DITA topics. And how do you effectively manage large quantities of DITA topics? By specifying metadata for each topic, so you can find it again. Just like semantic markup and the Semantic Web. The same technologies that evolved for adding semantic markup to web pages can be used to add it to DITA. DITA is already in widespread use as a way of authoring content that can be rendered to web pages, so the semantic markup can be inserted as part of the publishing process, with no special skills required on the part of the author.

Clearly, combining semantic markup with a granular authoring approach like DITA holds a lot of promise for content creators and consumers alike. Content becomes easy to define and even easier to discover. The combination also holds a lot of promise for the future of the Semantic Web itself. In fact, creating the Semantic Web might be as easy as authoring content in DITA.

Paul Wlodarczyk is vice president of solutions consulting for JustSystems, the largest ISV in Japan and a worldwide leader in XML and information management technologies. Learn more about JustSystems at http://www.justsystems.com, and contact Paul at paul.wlodarczyk@justsystems.com.