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Mills Davis is the founder and managing director of Project10X, specializing in industry research and strategic programs. Mills consults with technology manufacturers, global 2000 corporations, and government agencies on next-wave semantic technologies and solutions. Mills serves as lead for the Federal CIO council’s Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SICoP) research into the business value of semantic technologies. Also, he is a founding member of the AIIM interoperable enterprise content management (iECM) working group, and a founding member of the National Center for Ontology Research (NCOR).
Effective industry research and new technology R&D requires a breadth and depth of experience and expertise in multiple areas:
- Industry stature
- New technology and process research:
- Information, communication, and media technology research
- Processes and applications relevant to strategic business needs
- New technology capability demonstrations
- Technology management:
- Feasibility assessment
- Strategy and long range planning
- Management of projects, programs, and practices
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Mr. Davis brings 25 years experience as a researcher, principal investigator, industry analyst, and consultant focusing on new information, communication, and media technology research.Mr. Davis’ research consulting clients include a broad range of leading technology, government, and industrial enterprises, for example:
- Commercial IT, communications, and media clients: AT&T, Agfa, Adobe Systems, Apple Computer, Banta, Canon, Cisco, Creo, FujiFilm, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, JVC, Kodak Polychrome, Printing Industries of America, Time Warner, Xerox
- Government clients: Agriculture, Bureau of Printing, CIA, Commerce, DoD, FAA, NIH, Labor and Navy as well as state and local governments
- International clients: projects in Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, and United Kingdom
- Semantic technology clients include CoreTalk, Digital Harbor, Knowledge Foundations, Metallect, Next Quarter, TopQuadrant, and Visual Knowledge.
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Mr. Davis is engaged in range of industry research and development activities:
SICOP — For the Federal CIO Council’s Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SICOP), Mr. Davis is leading an exploration of the business value of semantic technologies for Federal Agencies across a range of applications and domains. To date, this research has surveyed more than 200 providers of semantic technology related products, services, and solutions, documented more than 100 early adopter case examples in government and industry, and reported out results in a preliminary report and a series of interim presentations.
FEA DRM — As part of SICOP’s support of OMB’s Federal Enterprise Architecture Data Reference Model (FEA DRM), Mr. Davis is assisting the DRM Implementation through Iteration and Testing (ITIT) team to prepare and execute a comprehensive strategy, plan, and portfolio of pilot tests to prove-out and improve support for data categorization, data sharing, and data description as called for in the DRM specification.
SWIM — Mr. Davis is serving as lead for SICOP’s Semantic Wiki for Information Management working group. The purpose of this activity to research and pilot test semantic wiki based solutions for collaboration, information sharing, and reference knowledge management by communities of interest as well as ad hoc groups comprised of government, NGOs., business, and/or individuals at all levels -- local, national, and international.
IECM — Currently, Mr. Davis is helping to envision, plan, and launch a new research and standardization effort focusing on reference models, specifications, and pilot testing to enable interoperable enterprise content management (iECM). Organized under the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), the iECM initiative is a collaboration involving government, industry, and technology manufacturers.
NCOR — The National Center for Ontology Research (NCOR) is being formed to promote scientific methods and practices for assessing and improving the value of large scale semantic models and knowledgebases being developed in medical, life sciences, professions, intelligence community, engineering, and other fields. Mr. Davis is serving as a founding delegate and is assisting with outreach activities.
Research Publications
As an independent researcher and industry analyst, Mr. Davis has authored several landmark industry studies. These include:
- Towards the Electronic Studio
- World Computer Graphic Communication
- Computer Graphic Networks
- Standards for Electronic Publishing
- Workflow Dynamics
- Network Power
- Future of Printing and Publishing in China
- Integrating Printing Plant Operations — Management System Building Blocks for Unifying Business, Production, and Internet Processes
- Digital Smart Factories and the Semantic Web
- Value of Digital Asset Management in ePublishing
- Next Wave Publishing Technology — Revolutions in Process and Content
- Business Value of Semantic Technologies
- Semantic Wave 2006
Media
Mr. Davis has authored articles and features that have been published in more than 30 trade magazines internationally.
Speaking
Throughout his career, Mr. Davis has been a frequent speaker at industry events. Some current new technology R&D related presentations include:
- AAAI’s Semantic Technologies in E-Government Conference (March 2006) — Member of the program committee, presenting a keynot on business value of semantic technologies for e-government.
- STC2006 (San Francisco, March 2006) — Keynote speaker on Markets for Semantic Technologies; also tutorial on executable semantic models for enterprise architecture; chairing session on composite applications for financial services and financial management.
- SICOP’s Semantic Technologies for E-Government Confrence (February 2006) — chairning featured panel on SICOP research into the business value of semantic technologies across a spectrum of applications in government and industry.
- Lockheed Martin’s Information Technology Directions — Keynote speaker on the business value of semantic technologies (February 2006)
- GCN’s Storage to Knowledge Conference (October 2005) — two presentations: (a) “DRM ITIT Preliminary Strategy”, and (b) “Business Value of Semantic Technologies — Exploiting New Value Paradigms”
- DARPA’s Semantic Web Applications for National Security (SWANS) conference (April 2005) — keynote presentation on the business case for semantic technologies, interim findings from SICOP research
- Semantic Technology Conference (March 2005) — featured presentation reporting research into the global evolution of semantic technologies from R&D to mainstream markets from 2000 to 2010.
- Semantic Technologies for E-Government (September 2004) — keynote presentation on business value of semantic technology
Mr. Davis has developed and presented conferences and seminar series on new technologies and processes for printing, e-publishing, and content management for industry associations such as the Printing Industries of America, NPES, IDEAlliance, and Seybold Seminars.
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Mr. Davis directs and conducts research across a full spectrum of new technologies, applications and processes relating to net-centric infrastructure information-intensive applications, knowedge computing, and systems that know. For example:
Networking and infrastructure — Mr. Davis has conducted ongoing research over more than two decades covering new technologies and services for networking and infrastructure. In the 1980s, Computer Graphic Networks (for the Printing Industries of America) and World Computer Graphic Communications (for AT&T’s Bell Labs) explored the impact of transitioning from voice and data to rich media across industry sectors.
Recent infrastructure research has focused on semantic web, service-oriented architecture, policy-based computing, semantic web services, semantic grids, pervasive computing, and Web 2.0.
Authoring — Mr. Davis researches authoring and content acquisition technologies. Mr. Davis authored Toward the Electronic Studio, a groundbreaking comprehensive study of requirements for integrated tools and environments for authoring, editing, design, illustration, photo-imagery, video, audio, and animation production.
Other research has addressed issues of content scanning (analog to digital conversion), recognition of text and graphics, and color management.
Current authoring research focuses on semantic (concept-based) search, semantic model-driven authoring and content generation, cross-media provisioning, adaptive user interfaces. In short human and computer authoring of dynamic, interactive publications that integrate structured, semi-structured, and unstructured information.
Content management — Mr. Davis has authored studies that examined the value of document management, content management, and digital asset management solutions for e-publishing and enterprise content management.
Current content management research focuses on the coming transition from purely relational or object databases to graph databases and n-ary stores capable of very-high performance reasoning over large industrial-strength knowledgebases consisting of ontologies and content/data instances. Related research themes address the evolution of search technology and the evolution of semantically-enabled content.
Printing & media — Mr. Davis lead a multi-company research and development program called the HiFi Color Project which addressed emerging technologies and processes for digital and conventional printing with a focus on color quality and appearance differentiation. More than 150 technology manufacturers, ad agencies, prepress services, printers, graphic arts materials suppliers and paper companies participated in the program. More than 30 new products and end-to-end printing processes were prototyped, piloted, and came to market as a result of this collaborative program.
Workflow and business processes — Mr. Davis lead a blue-ribbon research team in a study of the business, process, and technology implications of transitioning from analog, to digital, to net-centric workflows for printing and publishing.
Following this, Mr. Davis helped found a dot-net company that merged together six best-in-class software companies to create the leading supplier of graphic arts ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems and Internet-based computer integrated manufacturing solutions in North America.
During this period Mr. Davis’s research focus was on finding new ways to speed up the process and drive down the cost of developing integrated Internet-based solutions that allowed a printer to link with its customers and suppliers and deploy comprehensive network-based e-commerce, e-CRM, prepress, press, and post-press manufacturing, and SCM capabilities that interfaced fully with the printers ERP system(s).
Follow-on research addressed: (a) integrated printing plant operations and management system building blocks for unifying business, production, and internet processes, (b) digital smart factories and the semantic web, and (c) shared resource solutions to exploit the technical and economic advantages of service architectures for development, operations, and evolution of enterprise content management solutions.
Current workflow and business process research is investigating the lifecycle economic advantages of integrating business applications, processes, and information — internally, with customers, and with supply chain partners — using composite application platforms driven by semantic models.
Next wave content and media technology — For over two decades, Mr. Davis has conducted ongoing research into next generation content and media technologies, spanning a broad range of industries and applications.
In 2003-2004 Mr. Davis was principal investigator and author of a 3-part monograph published by the Seybold Reports that examines the next wave of publishing technologies and the coming revolutions in process and content that will transform enterprise and commercial publishing.
Semantic technologies — Mr. Davis current research targets semantic technologies and the transformative role they are beginning to play in information, communications, and media technologies.
Key R&D themes of this research include:
(a) New semantic execution paradigms for operational enterprise architecture, composite applications, and knowledge computing;
(b) Semantic technologies for net-centric infrastructure (such as Grid and web services), service oriented architecture (SOA), service delivery (e.g., component reuse, service level agreements), security, policy-based computing, and IT modernization;
(c) Semantic technology for process interoperability and information integration; and
(d) Semantic technology capabilities for knowledge (and metadata) acquisition, search, collaboration, content management, cross-media content delivery, decision support, and user interface.
Recent publications relating to semantic technology research include:
- Business Value of Semantic Technology (September 2004)
- Evolution of the Semantic Wave: From Vision to Mainstream Markets 2000 – 2010 (December 2004)
- Business Value of Semantic Technology — Exploiting New Value Paradigms (Presentation, October 2005)
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New technology R&D requires effective capability demonstrations. Throughout his career, Mr. Davis research has featured demonstrations of the capabilities of new technologies and processes. For example:
Color Connexions — Mr. Davis organized a twice-annual conference series for IDEAlliance that featured multi-vendor pilots and demonstrations of (then new) fully networked end-to-end workflows for conventional and digital printing, and Internet content distribution.
HiFi-Color — As part of this multi-client research program, Mr. Davis conducted a series of pilot tests to showcase new technologies and processes for offset, flexographic, and digital color printing (e.g., extra-trinary color separation, stochastic screening methods).
The final demonstration, which took place at a major tradeshow, configured a complete creative studio and prepress shop whose output of masters a collaborating sheet-fed offset printer printed locally.
Digital Roadmaps — This 3-year, multi-company program was sponsored by the three largest trade associations in the graphic arts to: (a) demonstrate advanced net-centric processes for printing, packaging, publishing, and Internet content delivery, and (b) educate print customers, creative services, printers, trade services, and graphic arts materials manufacturers regarding emerging business, production, and manufacturing processes. The program included technology capability and process demonstrations each year at the industry’s largest trade show (attended by 60-100 thousand people).
SICOP — As part of the research into the business value of semantic technologies, Mr. Davis has be helping arrange and present demonstrations and pilot tests of new capabilities. Currently, he is assisting the FEA DRM Implementation Through Iteration and Testing team to develop a stategy, plan, and portfolio of pilot tests of the DRM specifications.
IECM — A key element of the charter and strategy for the iECM effort currently in formation is to develop a program of joint enterprise and technology provider pilot programs. Mr. Davis is playing an active role in this process.
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Industry research and new technology R&D activities are conducted within an administrative and management framework that includes long-range plans and strategies, annual budget and performance targets, measurement and assessment of achievement and formal communications and reporting throughout this cycle.
Mr. Davis brings the management skills needed to direct new technology R&D. These skills encompass new technology assesment, practice management, program management, and project management:
New technology assessment — As a researcher, industry analyst, consultant, and executive Mr. Davis’s career demonstrates expertise as well as a depth and breadth of experience in technology long-range planning, strategy development, and new technology feasibility assessment.
Practice management — Mr. Davis has 20+ years experience as a professional services executive with business development, practice management and P&L responsibilities, including chief executive role in own consulting firms.
Program management — Mr. Davis has track record of conducting successful collaborative R&D and market development programs that champion advanced business concepts, practices, processes, and technologies. Multi-year, multi-company programs involving more than 150 technology manufacturers, services providers, and end-user companies have encompassed technology, standards and market research, new capability and process prototyping, pilot programs, partnering, co-marketing, conferences, seminars, executive briefings, trade show demonstrations, media campaigns, publications, training, and consulting services.
Project management — A specialist in industry research and solution envisioning engagements of varying sizes and durations, Mr. Davis follows practices set forth in the Project Management Institute’s PMBOK GUIDE (third edition).
Solution Envisioning — Designed for managing complex business and technology choices in a world of net-centric operations, service-oriented architecture, smart content, composite applications, and semantic technologies, this methodology focuses on capabilities that meet business needs with well-aligned solution patterns, executable architecture, and optimized technology choices, rather than by starting with use cases that preclude innovative concepts of operations. Solution envisioning life cycle services encompass: briefings, diagnostic audit, needs and requirements analysis, strategy, solution design, business case and ROI, implementation, training and deployment, transition, and project management.
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Project10X, Washington DC, 2002–present
- Professional services firm. Founder and Managing Director.
- Next-wave IT and semantic technology research, solution envisioning, strategy, and delivery serving knowledge and content intensive organizations.
Printcafe Software, Pittsburgh PA, 2000–2002
- Roll-up play that merged together six best-in-class software companies to create the leading supplier of graphic arts ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems and Internet-based computer integrated manufacturing solutions in North America.
- Co-founder, SVP Consulting Services & Strategic Marketing.
DAVIS INC, Washington, DC, 1988–2000
- Research and consulting firm. Founder and President.
- Industry analysis, market research, technology assessment, and systems consulting services serving businesses and technology suppliers in the graphic communications, office, and consumer markets.
Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Washington, DC
- Management consulting firm. Senior Associate. Information Technology Practice, Federal and International Practices.
- Responsibilities for business development, SDLC methodology, proposal development, software engineering, and project management.
IBM Corporation, Washington, DC
- Information technology manufacturer and services provider.
- Software development, business applications, service bureau operations.
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