This paper provides a lucid introduction to Conceptual Graphs (CG), a powerful knowledge representation and inference environment that exhibits the familiar object-oriented features of contemporary enterprise and web applications. An illustrative business case study is used to convey how CG adds value to data, including inference for new knowledge. It enables newcomers to conceptual structures to engage with this exciting field and to realise "Conceptual Structures: Knowledge Architectures for Smart Applications", the theme of the 15(th) Annual International Conference on Conceptual Structures (ICCS 2007, www.iccs2007.info)