11 - Demonstrating an Expert System: The Knowledge Engineer as Marketer

Abstract

This chapter discusses the role of the knowledge engineer (KE) as a marketer. At certain points in its life cycle, every expert system will have to be demonstrated. In fact, the iterative nature of the prototyping process guarantees that an expert system will be shown more than once to domain experts, users, managers, and project funders. Giving the demo involves more than tapping keyboard buttons. It means distilling and codifying knowledge that might have taken the KE months to acquire and presenting that knowledge in a format suitable to the audience's abilities and interests. Ideally, the KE's goal is to build a system that eventually will be demonstrated to management by the system's users, not the system's developers. The KE has an obvious interest in the system's success, because it represents his or her own skill and ability. However, users are more likely to be impartial to a project funder because they should be confident enough in the expert system's benefits to agree to give the demo.