A Knowledge Graph Powered Encyclopedia of Smells To Follow Your Nose, Literally! 

In Semantic Web speak, “follow your nose” is a data discovery strategy where a user or an agent navigates a Linked Data network by following Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) to find related information, similar to how humans browse web pages (ref. Follow Your Nose: A Basic Semantic Web Agent | SpringerLink.). In my content and marketing communication mind, and speak, this is par excellence a manifestation of the broader shift we all experience today: moving away from being pushed content and messages of questionable value and relevance, toward being able to pull content that is relevant, needed, and genuinely desired.

The project I present to you today, embodies the concept literally. It is called the Odeuropa – a European research project aiming to develop novel methods to collect information about smell from (digital) text and image collections. We will look at one of its deliverables today: The European Olfactory Knowledge Graph (EOKG) – am assemblage that let’s you do exactly what I described – follow you nose: pull smells, facts, answers to questions and unexpected relationships, all through one search interface.

A Linked Data Bouquet of Smells: The European Olfactory Knowledge Graph 

The European Olfactory Knowledge Graph (EOKG) includes information about smell from (digital) text and image collections from the European history (1600-1920), extracted in the context of the Odeuropa project in a cultural heritage preservation perspective.

It contains over 2,500,000 olfactory reference coming from over 43,000 images and 2,400,000 texts in six languages, organised according to the Odeuropa Ontology and leveraging machine learning to recognise and categorise olfactory elements. (cit.Lisena, Pasquale, Thibault Ehrhart, and Raphaël Troncy. “European Olfactory Knowledge Graph”. Zenodo, February 26, 2024. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10709703.)

For technical details and curious facts, I have developed a material (thanks to Atanas Kiryakov and Gergana who back then helped me … and also with the) you can read it here, highlighting GraphDB – GraphDB in Action: Smells Like Semantics Spirit.

For the content part however I want us to look closer at the very idea of having a sophisticated search engine (enabled by the knowledge graph) together with a website (also powered by the knowledge graph data) that let you navigate over 300 years of European history through the lens of scent. In the first place, this is a great example of how a knowledge graph doesn’t just organize data. Yes, it does serve the data integration and interlinking part, but what it also does is unlocking the potential of these data pieces to become a semantic network in somebody else’s mind.

Back to content, here’s how our imaginary user Tim would benefit from such an assemblage if built for marketing communications.

Tim, our user, following their nose across the European Smells 

Imagine Tim, a researcher fascinated by how culture shapes human experience, opening the Odeuropa Smell Explorer. He is now presented with a cornucopia of opportunities – not searching keywords, he can now navigate and entire  ecosystem of knowledge about scents.

Instead of static records, Tim can follow rich connections in the European Olfactory Knowledge Graph (EOKG) – from a 17th-century medical text describing rosemary as a cure for melancholy, through artworks where fragrant herbs are depicted, all the way to modern studies linking rosemary’s aroma with memory and wellbeing.

For Tim, this isn’t just data retrieval,  it’s discovery. The Explorer allows him to see patterns across time, disciplines, and contexts that would remain hidden in traditional archives.

By weaving together fragmented data into a connected knowledge ecosystem, the Odeuropa Smell Explorer shows what’s possible when we design discovery around relationships –  not just keywords.

Me, the troubled content manager, sitting before new opportunities to work with content for the benefit of my user 

I have been wanting to add the content creators/managers perspective to the Knowledge Graph stories presentations for a long time. And I will start to do that with this edition. I want us to see clearly how the knowledge graph also shifts the work of us, the people working in content. 

For a content manager, for example, working with large collections, more often than not, texts, images, metadata, and context live in silos. And this naked it hard to  surface connections or unlock new narratives. You start writing something, weaving your network of connected concepts in a tet and then your flow is killed by all the systems you have to go through and dig for an image here, for that presentation there, for the new name of the exact things elsewhere etc. 

A system like the Odeuropa Smell Explorer, built on the European Olfactory Knowledge Graph (EOKG), would change that dynamic. Instead of static assets, hidden across folders and systems, and let’s face it, many times in people’s computers and heads, a content manager would enjoy an ecosystem of linked knowledge.

If we imagine we are the content manager of the website presenting the “300 years of European history through the lens of scent” our work (operational but I believe also creative) will greatly benefit from:

• Deeper context

Every object (a painting, a manuscript, an artifact) isn’t just tagged, it is existing as a deeper structure, not a string: it’s connected to smells, emotions, cultural practices, and related materials across centuries.

• New pathways for discovery

Rather than relying only on keyword search, the content manager would be able to explorable through associations (e.g., how a single scent links to health, religion, art, and domestic life).

• Audience engagement: 

We would be able to create content that is not only just a flat blog post, but rather a blog post full of depth and experiences, and engaging set of connected concepts opening fresh perspectives and views that drive engagement by making the content rich, relevant and relatable (sorry, I couldn’t resist the alliteration!).

Instead of and Epilogue: Discovery over delivery and connections over collections

Sometimes, the most powerful way of engaging people is simply giving them the freedom to explore . and trusting that, if we design the connections well enough, they will find their own way.

I know that might sound naive in the context of marketing that seeks instant ROI and prefers working with gated content and gathered emails rather than working with shared, co-created knowledge and gathered insights, that would remain in the emotional memory of the user. But long-term allowing people to pull rather than pushing them content is the sustainable content way forward.

There is much to learn from Odeuropa: about ser-centric discovery, about designing for relationships rather than for content artifacts. It demonstrates how knowledge graphs can transform access to content into experience, content retrieval into exploration, and content intself into a living, breathing network of meaning. I see the EOGK as a sneak peak into the future of our work, where we use semantic technologies to support curiosity-driven discovery, and serendipity – values that are often sidelined in today’s efficiency-obsessed digital ecosystems but which will become more and more relevant with the shift of the way people access content, marketing one very much included.

This knowledge graph story is part of my broader effort to bring together two worlds that too often evolve separately: the building of knowledge graphs and the creation of meaningful content.

Through practical examples from the Knowledge Graph stories I share, I explore what becomes possible when semantic technologies move beyond infrastructure and into everyday use, making connected content practices tangible, repeatable, and actionable for our content practice and thinking.
You can find all the stories about Knowledge graphs and Content archived here:Knowledge Graph Stories.