The Enterprise Content Management Blog

The Enterprise 2.0 View From OpenText Executive Chairman Tom Jenkins

I'm three days into the enterprise 2.0 show and it's a bit of an overload so far.
As I entered the exhibit hall, one peer commented on the number of traditional or dare I say, enterprise 1.0 companies on hand. What did you expect? Like it or not, that's where the majority of corporate data resides. In my one on one session with OpenText's Tom Jenkins I wanted to dig a little deeper and explore that reality. And for the record, I have about 7 pages of notes from our discussion, so expect more later.

Jenkins comes across as confident as he describes the Canadian companies' place in the enterprise 2.0 world.

If you're thinking of aligning with OpenText for e2.0, Jenkins says his pitch is that "we'll make it safe and we have the 1.0 scars to be able to pull it off."

Twenty years of battle scars in software puts Jenkins in a good position to have a discourse around enterprise 2.0. He argues that companies need to have  a better perception of the risk and reward involved when jumping into the Web 2.0 world.We spoke about corporations' propensity to want to go off and experiment, something Jenkins described as "rogue developments"

The other interesting notion was even though online communities are emerging, traditional enterprise repositories and applications still contain a lot of the "water" Jenkins describes as being needed to create the internal water cooler. I asked him how he's positioning OpenText in the Mashup space, referring to the desire for early adopters (for now) to mix up and integrate applications with a nice GUI on top.

He says OpenText will evolve its Virtual Object Repositories allowing for users to see traditional line of business (LOB) apps in whatever GUI they like. Users can expose apps or services in Outlook, SAP, or any other IT-supported system.

Jenkins was adamant that many social networks will fail because of the lack of governance and well thought out strategies. He gave the example of someone posting how to engineer an airplane engine on YouTube. If that airplane goes down after heeding your rich media (video) advice, you're in a heap of trouble. Welcome to Web 2.0.

Technorati tags: open+text, ECM, enterprise+2.0, tom+jenkins, enterprise+software

Moving eDiscovery into the Enterprise – What Matters? By Ursula Talley

If you work for a mid- to large-sized company—say, one with more than $500M in revenue—you probably are familiar with the problems of eDiscovery.  Your enterprise may routinely face five or more litigation matters each year, and you have terabytes of unstructured information that you need to sort through in order to find relevant information and place it on litigation hold. 
Worse, that unstructured information is growing dramatically: at a rate of up to 80 percent a year in many enterprises.  Unmanaged and unplanned-for eDiscovery tasks increase both risk and headaches for legal, IT, and business unit organizations.  Outsourcing eDiscovery to litigation services firms makes sense if you don’t have much data or rarely face litigation, but it doesn’t make good financial sense as your organization grows.  That’s particularly true if you work in highly regulated and litigation prone industries such as banking, insurance, energy, or utilities.

Here are 10 tips to choosing an eDiscovery solution that can get up and running quickly, solve the problems you need it to, and pay for itself within months.

First, make sure your solution covers the full breadth of the eDiscovery process as defined by the industry’s EDRM (Electronic Discovery Reference Model) standard.  Your solution needs to cover everything from information management, identification, preservation, and collection, to processing, and early case analysis – handing over only the smallest legally defensible set of data to the legal review team.  Otherwise, you’ll have to cobble together multiple solutions from multiple vendors, and create a bigger headache for yourself.  Not to mention the compromised audit liability point solutions present.

Second, insist on an open integration platform that supports various email systems, storage systems, archiving systems, and content and document management systems.  If you’re in the process of migrating data from a Novell server to an EMC Celerra or vice versa, for instance, you’ll need something that can read files from both. Your solution should be able to read data from shared file servers, desktops and laptops including Macs and PCs, from content management systems such as Microsoft SharePoint and EMC Documentum, as well as from storage systems including EMC Centera, NetAPP, Hitachi and IBM.

Third, ensure that when you implement your solution, you can execute without impacting employee productivity.  Flexible job scheduling allows processing to occur after hours when employees aren’t around, and it’s essential to be able to perform litigation hold without disrupting the production environment of your knowledge workers.

Fourth, when locking down documents for litigation hold, be sure your system works in conjunction with existing corporate records management policies so you are coordinated with ongoing IT data management functions such as data backup, migration, and file expiration/deletion. Implementing an effective litigation hold strategy requires close coordination with your corporate records management policies so that documents responsive to an active legal matter are not inadvertently deleted. 

Fifth, be sure you can create a data topology map that identifies electronically stored information by a full complement of variables, including system location, custodian, access time, size, and content type.  It’s critical to be able to perform prediscovery profiling of data so you can manage it, know your liability, and quickly respond to legal requests. 

Sixth, your solution will need to make available all relevant and responsive electronically stored information to legal, HR, or audit teams prior to the completion of the collection process.  Even while collection and preservation are ongoing, you should be able to call up what’s saved, what’s indexed, and what’s relevant information today.

Seventh, your solution should be able to interact with electronically stored information without changing the data.  It’s critical to preserve the integrity of existing data.  Don’t let your software alter document properties when copying or moving it, because those properties themselves are important to maintain legal defensibility.  

Eighth, check to see if your prospective solution can execute forensically sound collection policies while providing defensible and comprehensive audit logs.  These audit trails show where data originally resided, what search terms were applied to collect it, and when copies were made.  Attaching unique digital signatures to files before and after they are collected proves that none of the actions performed altered the original content.

Ninth, your solution needs to provide rich and sophisticated search capabilities.  Are you able to search and identify terms and natural language concepts within files, as well as within emails and their attachments?  Besides being able to search on common metadata and simple text strings, are you able to perform sophisticated natural language-based searches that can differentiate between Will, the name, or will, the legal document or will, the auxiliary verb? Accuracy provides the smallest legally defensible set of data to be reviewed by the legal team – significantly reducing eDiscovery time and cost. 

Finally, be sure your solution is easy to deploy and maintain.  If you have to spend weeks or months getting a system working before it can even begin accessing, categorizing, and reporting on information, you’re at a huge disadvantage.  Ideally, look for a self-contained, out-of-the-box appliance combining hardware, software, and storage, that can provide results back to you within 24 hours.

Bringing eDiscovery in-house is a big step.  Many organizations find that in doing it, they’re able to save themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars, dramatically reduce the time taken to respond to legal requests, and better organize their own internal processes and data storage.  But finding the right solution is key.  An incomplete solution that only addresses part of your needs, and only responds to yesterday’s list of legal requirements, is bound to cause more headaches.  Take the time for thorough evaluation, and make your decision carefully.  You’ll be glad you did.

Ursula Talley is vice president of marketing for StoredIQ, a leading provider of enterprise-class Intelligent Information Management solutions that enable organizations to gain visibility and control over business-critical information in order to meet  compliance, governance, and legal discovery requirements.

Technorati Tags: storedIQ,eDiscovery,compliance,records+management,ursulla+talley

Alfresco's Social Computing Slant Shows ECM's Evolution

I had an interesting discussion with John Newton, the co-founder of Alfresco, recently. I'm a little star-struck by this guy. It's hard to get much higher on the food chain when you look at Newton's credentials. Not only did he co-found Documentum, he's also less than five years into the launch of Alfresco, arguably one of the biggest disrupters to appear on the enterprise software radar in years.

We've covered Alfresco before, and each time I come away thinking I'd like to classify them as something other than an open source ECM company. It's hard to explain. Maybe it's because Newton makes everything sound so damn easy when he talks about enterprise content management. And when's the last time you heard the words "easy" and "ECM" in the same sentence? But, back to their classification for a moment.

Newton and company have the usual check-boxes for ECM, but have managed to separate themselves from ECM's shadowed legacy of big, unwieldy repositories and tough implementations. Perhaps it's because of its mashup-centric approach to looking at content or how it describes knowledge worker applications of the future. Whatever the case, I want to put them somewhere in the middle of Web platform providers and collaboration vendors. The point is, you need to have both those qualities if you intend to peg yourself as a player in the enterprise content space.

"ECM has a penetration of less than 10% and the demand for content is very high. The old model that ECM has to be a suite is obsolete, " said Newton.

If you take into account the way information increasingly lives inside and outside the firewall, ECM becomes even more complex. Companies now have to figure out how to consume and create content in both environments, something Newton says Alfresco accomplishes by adopting a "content-as-service" approach. He argues that most enterprises lay out their palette of required services based on the need to create content. The focal point shouldn't be centered so much on the ECM suite, he argues. It has more to do with looking at "how the Web browser can help knowledge workers do their jobs."

And that's where the mashup mentality comes into play. Alfresco is smart enough to realize that the needs of tomorrow's enterprise will be heavily tied to its ability to create and consume content in real-time, regardless of platform, place, or device. Browser-based mashups will ultimately be one of the ways to empower that type of manageability and manipulation of content. John described it as simply asking, "what are the Web applications people want to use"?

But don't forget about the collaborative life of that content. It needs to live on your intranet, your corporate Facebook group, or perhaps within your partner's forum or Wiki. Mashups play perfectly in those scenarios. While Facebook-ing the enterprise is out of most vendors' comfort zones, Newton thinks the key is giving that capability to users and letting them create the next-generation of social software applications.

While that may be too progressive for some enterprises to stomach, it does highlight the trend of diminishing "command and control" mentalities. If you deter newer ways of collaborating, you're digging your own grave with "here lies a content dinosaur" as the epitaph.

"Content services should just be accessible wherever knowledge workers are. We shouldn't be forcing workers to go into these ECM suites. In our view, collaboration spans far more than ECM."

I'm betting Alfresco's legacy won't have anything to do with being an ECM suite.

First posted on InformationWeek's Content Management Blog.

Technorati Tags: mashups,information+week,enterprise+content+management,facebook,social+software,alfresco,john+newton

Too Many Vendors Or Not Enough Innovation?

One of our contacts in the PR world sent over some thoughts after reading our continuing discussion about why content management companies fail. His remarks might not be terribly surprising for those of you that live and breathe content management, but they warrant a re-visit.

He got me thinking about an often-overlooked characteristic of the content management sector: the sheer saturation of vendors and solutions.

As he put it, "I think, from even just a pure economic perspective, the No. 1 reason a content management company will go out of business is because there's not enough room for all of them."

And why is that? Is it because of our propensity to view any company that touches content or manages data as a content management vendor? Or is it a classic case of the vendors' desires to be all things to all people? It's really a combination of both. It's just too easy to pass up a sales opportunity for companies that he says are "just trying to stay afloat."

That brings up the notion of innovation. If content management companies are just keeping their heads up above water, how can they think freely about what the next customer needs? And throw in the fact that the space has several publicly traded pure-plays along with what he described as the big dogs (Microsoft, IBM, EMC) and you have a sector on a quest for real differentiation.

The publicist to the CM stars also mentioned how tough it is to predict a long-term view of the industry, citing things like open source, SharePoint, and consolidation as potential speed bumps to growth and innovation. Open source has to be the one that looms the largest. As Alfresco's co-founder told me this week, "Open source is the only distribution model that can compete with Microsoft's distribution model."

Perhaps some of the CM vendors should take a page from the less-entrenched software companies building the knowledge worker apps of tomorrow. It's not just R&D tunnel vision and loads of cash that allow companies like Alfresco, Jive, and MindTouch to do what they do. It has more to do with taking a fresh look at your market and how you need to serve your customers. You see, Jen in Finance doesn't want another big repository that she has to search. She doesn't want to cut and paste content from different applications. She wants to mashup up her own content and she wants it to live and breathe in her own workspace.

I liked the way Jive's Sam Lawrence attacked the innovation thread earlier this week. He sent me his take on how enterprise software's heavyweights could eventually be overtaken by social software's up-and-comers.

This has obviously been debated ad nauseam, but the perfect storm of open source, cloud computing, and Web 2.0 certainly makes for interesting speculation.

The disruption he mentions already is being felt by CM vendors everywhere. When will it drive the innovation needed?

Technorati Tags: content+management,WCM,web+2.0,enterprise+2.0,mindtouch,jive+software,alfresco

Content Management Blunders From Down Under

The hits keep coming in from my "Top 5 Reasons A Content Management Company Will Go Out Of Business" post.  This time the comedy of errors experiences come from a university from the land down under, proving content management blunders serve us all on a truly global scale.

And just for the record, I'm painfully aware that most of the reasons apply to any technology company, certainly one that builds software.

• No.1 - You fail to thoroughly test your new releases, then delete any problem posts from your tech forum.
  
• No.2 - There's not enough interaction between front line technical staff and the engineers, so a problem goes for 3 months of "we haven't changed that" ends with a message from engineers with "oh yes we did".
  
• No.3 - When your documentation hasn't been properly reviewed for a new release, so it contains suggestions that haven't worked for two major releases
  
• No.4 -You have 'modular' products where you don't have to include all the pieces, but things are a bit strange if you don't. They're also problematic if you do, because you have to provide for customers that haven't bought them all.
  
• *No.5 - 'Upgrading' turns a functional testing machine into a non-functioning lump of silicon, that needs to have its OS reinstalled it is so far beyond being repaired.

Number 1 and number 4 are my favorites. The fourth one, describing the modular product pitch really hit home. The challenge with "marketing modular" is the modules become moving targets, updated in collateral and client pitches as frequently as new functionality can be dreamed up by management. Do everyone a favor and first make sure you have the an architecture in place to support your wild-eyed quest for more market share.

OK, I'm done.

First posted on InformationWeek's Content Management Blog.

Technorati Tags: information+week,content+management,CMS,content+management+blog

5½ More Reasons That A Content Management Company Will Go Out Of Business

I seemed to have touched a nerve in my recent entry about the top five reasons a content management company will go out of business, judging by the feedback received via e-mail, tweets, IM, and the blog.

My wife helped me compile the original list based on comments that she says I've repeatedly made over the dinner table. While I'm a little surprised that she was actually listening, she was surprised that companies could make the same mistakes over and over.

The next five reasons on my list come from an ECM executive who asked to remain anonymous because he said it would be too obvious which company he's talking about, and he's already been accused of having a bad attitude. Because that was such an interesting comment, I've decided to add it in as reason 5-1/2 that a content management company will go out of business:

5-1/2: When someone suggests you have a problem, you accuse them of having a bad attitude. I know the company is your baby, your sweat, your dreams. But the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Most people do not want you to fail, especially if you're providing their paycheck. Pause, listen, count to 10 and then try to fix the problem.

The next five reasons were suggested by Mr. Anonymous:

6: You change your model, and abandon your network. One fine morning you wake up and decide that your future is in professional services, and that the partners who have built your customer base for you are just stupid little companies that no one will miss.

7: You change your model without making the appropriate employee staff increases and investment. In spite of #6, you decide that your marketing and professional services people are too valuable to spend time helping your sales force sell product. You try to convince your partners that your professional services organization really isn't a threat to them and that you need your partners to do all of your proposing and demonstrations for you. You hope that your partners won't notice the disparity between #6 and #7.

8: You decide that your ownership of the desktop is just too important to be traded away, and users aren't going to adopt SharePoint because Microsoft can't be trusted and real companies don't use SharePoint.

9: You believe that your customers are locked into your products, because so many of their strategic business processes use your tools. Your customers would never replace someone who has sent them as many Christmas cards as you have.

10: You believe all the things in your press releases, because you like the way the people who write them dress and they use real URLs inside of text.

Keep'em coming.

First posted on InformationWeek's Content Management Blog.

Technorati Tags: content+management,business+strategy,information+week,CMS,ECM

Top 5 Reasons A Content Management Company Will Go Out Of Business

Several months ago a content management vendor told me that the oncoming recession was causing it problems with revenue generation. I said perhaps, but it's also possible its problems were related to the fact that its customers were really angry and really vocal. It's too easy to blame market conditions without taking a hard look in the mirror sometimes.

For this top 5 list I won't name any names, but I encourage everyone to try to clean their own closets occasionally. Maybe these items will add up to survival in either a recession or peak market conditions. The top reasons a content management company will go out of business:

• No. 5: You forgot to eat your own dog food. I'm amazed at the number of companies that offer content management options while their own Web content and marketing materials haven't been updated since 1997. If you have the teams that can deliver for your customers, let them practice on your real estate first. Would you buy a suit from a man wearing rags? Maybe, but many people wouldn’t.

• No. 4: Your customers hate you. The best technology in the world won't save you if your own customers tell everyone that you're a jerk. Please don't ever tell your customers that it's their fault if they can't figure out how to use your products. Yes, content management is not rocket science, and yes, some people are amazingly nontechnical. That doesn't excuse elitism, and if the words "The customer is just stupid" have ever come out of your mouth, you may deserve to go out of business. It sounds like I'm making this up. I'm not.

• No. 3: You try to develop everything in-house. The market is moving fast, your R&D teams can't always keep up. This isn't necessarily a weakness -- sometimes you need to pick your differentiators and source the other items. If you find that you're missing release deadlines again and again on items readily available from other vendors or as open source, please evaluate your business model. You're burning cash for fun, not profit.

• No. 2: You disregard trends. I'll say it again. The market moves fast and what's on the horizon sometimes seems just plain silly at first. But we've all heard the famous miscalculation that the world only has need for about five computers -- the smartest people have made mistakes. For those who have told me that "Green is just a fad" and "Blogs are overrated," (both of those are direct, recent quotes) be careful of what you dismiss. Don't fall behind your competitors because you personally drive a Hummer and wear polar bear fur earmuffs (that's a green reference, people). Fads and trends have a way of catching on, becoming important, and filling real business needs. Be open to change, and maybe your revenue will grow.

• No. 1: Your employees turn over faster than the toilet paper is changed in the corporate restroom. Whether the job market is tight or technology workers seem a dime a dozen, employees are the face of your company. If they're leaving in droves, or you're replacing them quarterly, it's a morale killer and your customers sense it.

Send me your reasons for part two and we'll post them next week.

Cross-posted on InformationWeek's Content Management Blog.

Technorati tags: content+management, open+source, business+strategy, information+week, CMS

Baynote Doesn't Make The WCM System, They Make The WCM System Smarter

After writing about Vignette's Web Experience Platform, I thought it only fair to give some pub to one of the BASFs in the web content space, Baynote Inc.

And don't be ashamed if Baynote isn't a household name, it only recently emerged (2006) as a technology provider to some of the big brands building large websites. Baynote makes a living helping brands and web marketers use its infrastructure for what it calls "intent-driven product and content recommendations."

Talk to any vendor in the content management sector and you'll find all of them scampering to deliver a better web experience. The underpinnings of improving that experience are things like behavioral targeting, contextual search, and interaction patterns.

Baynote's expertise is apparently paying off as evidenced by a recent OEM partnership with Vignette Corp., the Austin-based provider of web content and delivery solutions. According to both companies, Vignette is using Baynote to power Vignette Recommendations, a new product that can help organizations deliver highly tailored online experiences.

According to Vignette's CEO Mike Aviles, Baynote's approach was unique enough to satisfy the needs of some of Vignette's most demanding customers.

“Savvy Web users are demanding dynamic online content that can recognize and adapt to their intention at any given time," said Aviles. The added capability of Baystone, says Aviles, will ensure its Vignette Recommendations product delivers online experiences that are more likely to keep users coming back, while also building brand loyalty.

Baynote is quick to point out that it looks at more than just click-through rates. Its technology measures more than 20 different user actions, something it says is more indicative of a visitor's true intent. Clients have access to such metrics as conversions, search context, page actions, and navigation patterns that represent the elusive "collective wisdom of the crowd."

AIIM's director of Market Intelligence, Dan Keldsen, commented on the applicability of Baynote's approach, describing the blurred lines of user-generated and internal content.

“Findability and Relevancy of content is key to users already swimming in scattered and increasingly user-contributed information," said Keldsen. He argues that in the end, things like implicit recommendations are key to tapping the collective wisdom of site visitors, something that can benefit both consumers and suppliers.

Kelsden makes a good point. As web content is increasingly mashed up internally and externally, the Achilles heel of inadequate search and personalization is even more magnified.

It's good to see a company hell bent on helping customers deliver the right content to the right person at the right time.

Technorati tags: baynote, personalization+2.0, vignette+village, AIIM, web+experience, mike+aviles, dan+kelsden

Enterprise 2.0 Adoption..Continued

Since adoption is such a hot ECM topic, I wanted to point to discussion over on the FASTforward blog. Another blogger challenged some of us a few days ago to contribute tips for driving enterprise 2.0 (e2.0) adoption. Clearly, ECM constitutes a big part of what's shaping e2.0. I think that's why you'll find much of what's been discussed can easily be applied to ECM environments....my take's below.

Join the discussion here, there, or send me a trackback.

____________________________________________________

The thing I've learned the most from my own adoption is that your e2.0 road is paved (or under construction) with all sorts of good intentions. You just have to dive in. Have you tried to explain how you learned to use social bookmarking? Or how you use RSS?

There's an undeniable simplicity to a lot of this enterprise 2.0 stuff. A lot of it boils down to exposure and a commitment to learn.

Think about why you became an expert on information management or blogging. Was it your quest for knowledge? Was it because your a tinkerer? Or was it your personal goal to make a comeback after failing at so many futile KM projects? Point is, our motivations for recognizing the importance and need for enterprise 2.0 are many and diverse. So taking a crack at what drives e2.0 is a shotgun blast at best. 

Most of what I've seen and heard throughout the discussions deals with the traditional enterprise battles we fight everyday. Business case, ROI, technology alignment with business strategy..all relevant but very tired and beaten down. As the beat down continues, I think you'll see larger forces start to supplant the more traditional triggers that drive corporate adoption.

Larger force #1 - The New Media Breakdown

What I'm seeing is what I'd call a "new media nervous breakdown". Clients are being pressured by their customers, their next door neighbor, or Joe in marketing to come into the fold. That fold is the internet. And like it or not, putting the web to work for business involves a lot of what we're classifying as enterprise and web 2.0. It's no coincidence we recommend so many Web 2.0 approaches to leveraging the web -- often they're the easiest way to take that first plunge.

Larger force #2 - Big software companies

Like it or not the Googles and Microsofts will drive a lot of the enterprise adoption. We've already seen the Google effect on everything from search to web-based email and collaboration. You can only ignore the "Docs & Spreadsheets" link in your GMail for so long. Show me someone that's used Google Docs a few times and I'll show you someone ready to carry the e2.0 torch. RSS adoption soon will also take a huge leap when users see it baked into every nook and cranny in Vista.

An as far as tips go, mine are:

1. Be an educator. People want to learn. As they learn about what's changing on the web, they'll naturally seek out a comfortable starting point.
2. Paint a picture and tell a story. Most folks have used Microsoft Word. Show them how publishing to a blog is akin to creating Word docs.
3. Start small and build value incrementally. We're all obsessed with speed, but doing it right the first time holds more water. There's no stopwatch on you.
4. Be painfully clear about the reason you've decided to adopt a certain approach.
   HINT: "Better collaboration" isn't enough. If you can't describe it in simple business terms, you're wasting your time.
5. Let go and break stuff. Assuming we've done our job, users shouldn't be able to mess things up under usual circumstances. Once people figure out they can back out of something and its integrity can easily be restored, adoption increases.
6. Show how enterprise 1.0 and 2.0 coexist. We could talk about this one for days. 
   If you show users how their workflow can peacefully live right beside the new gadget on the block, anxiety diminishes and the exploration begins.
7. Don't discuss or describe capabilities in vendor terms. If you're telling users the value of what they're doing lies in "private labeling a b2b MySpace that leverages user-generated content to build community" they'll probably label you a dotcommer and spew bubble 2.0 connotations.

Technorati tags: web+2.0, enterprise+2.0, end+users, google, microsoft+vista, RSS, collaboration, blogs, enterprise+software, fast+forward+blog, FAST+search, ECM+vendors, ecm+solutions

Originally posted on the FASTforward blog.

Half a Billion Up for Grabs in Document Collaboration and Nobody Wants It?

I ran across this ebizQ story (nice headline) on document collaboration and wanted to throw it out to the group. It looks like ebizQ references this Butler Group report.

"Butler Group estimates the size of the global Document Collaboration segment of the ECM market to be US$586 million in 2007."

OK, big need, lots of incumbent providers. So why does document collaboration suck? Are the enterprise vendors inept at pitching collaboration? Have users given up on the big software vendors for lack of integration and usability? Has everyone just developed a personal collaboration strategy using IM, email, and web 2.0 stuff until someone gets it right?

And specifically:

• What's everyone using these days for collaboration?
  
• Do the collaborative capabilities within your ECM platform satisfy your needs?
  
• What 3rd party collaboration tools have you plugged in?
  (BaseCamp, Zoho, Groove, Google Docs|JotSpot,cyn.in)

I'm curious.

Technorati tags: document+collaboration, collaboration, ECM, ecm+vendors, butler+group, analysts, collaboration+software

Burton Group Coins Enterprise Attention Management (EAM)

Helping companies manage information is big business. Which means every consultancy, especially the big ones, is jockeying to be seen as the thought leader. And I guess with that thought leadership comes the enviable task of inventing new acronyms. Enter Enterprise Attention Management (EAM).

First thing I thought of was Enterprise Attention Deficit Disorder (EADD). Now that, I thought, would be dead-on. Between my 150 or so RSS feeds, Skype, Groove, Google Groups, Yahoo Groups, and others, discerning between what's valuable and what's noise is tough.

The man behind EAM, Burton Group VP Craig Roth,explains his method to all this information madness. 

"EAM is a method for improving the effectiveness of an enterprise's information workers by providing culture, processes, and tools to gain control over the messages sent, received, and discovered by its information workers."

And it's encouraging to see someone making an argument for some of the social media (web2.0) and collaborative technologies I'm so fond of. His "attentional technologies" category is rife with Web 2.0 technologies -- RSS, Atom, social networking -- they're all there.

The other point about getting us to use the capabilities that exist within our toolsets is a good one. Admit it, how many of you actually set your IM presence indicator to busy?

You can go down the application line -- Microsoft Word, Instant Messaging, Blogs -- there's always plenty of features we haven't turned on. Look at Wordpress for instance. Do you think you could ever keep up with all the plug-ins that could make your life so much easier? If I didn't have Akismet on WOW Feed I'd go nuts trying to manage the influx of spam.

And who knows, if Roth's techno term sticks, maybe all the IT folks can add another line to their resume. I can see it now.

All that support for desktop software, PBX, and Blackberry syncing becomes: "Enterprise Attention Management support for Fortune 500 company in financial services sector".

Love it.

Technorati tags: enterprise+attention+management, information+technology, burton+group, social+media, web+2.0, analysts

Will ECM Be Ready for Enterprise 2.0?

Enterprise 2.0 (e2.0). Think about that description for a few seconds. What comes to to your mind? Hosted enterprise apps? AJAX? Open Source? Social media? If you're reading this, probably all of the above. But I'll argue that e2.0 is about way more than just technology and social computing. It's really about an attitude, or a way of doing business.

Every time I hear e2.0, I think of people. Preparing, planning, pitching, creating, whatever the hell it takes to get ready for the profound effects e2.0 will have on the way they'll do business in the not so distant future.

So it got me thinking. With such a growing number of Enterprise 2.0-ish developments, what will happen to our 'ol  friend enterprise content management (ECM)?

The above was a longer segue than I anticipated for telling you that I asked some of those questions over on the FASTforward blog.

I was asked to contribute some Enterprise 2.0 thoughts over the next few months leading up to the big Enterprise 2.0 conference in February. I hope you'll join in. You'll recognize all the other contributors -- they're a talented bunch.

Technorati tags: fast+forward+blog, FAST+search, FAST, enterprise+2.0, e2.0, ECM+vendors, ECM, ajax, open+source, social+computing, social+media, web+2.0, FASTforward+07

FatWire Makes the Right Moves

Back in the enterprise portal glory days, I ran the biz dev and alliances group for a now defunct system integrator that partnered with FatWire. I always liked their leadership and culture and quite frankly, I think they've always been a bit ahead of the curve when it comes to managing content. I remember they were one of the first to coin the Business User Interface (BUI) terminology.I always liked that, if for nothing else than its simplicity. (And no, FatWire does not sponsor this site)

So when I ran across their press release on FatWire 7.0, I wasn't too surprised to see a conspicuous move to some of the more enviable Web 2.0 traits being adopted by software outfits everywhere. 

The namesake for these so-called called updates? Yep, one of your guesses would have been right -- "Social Computing modules." It sounds a bit like they've been bedfellows with Forrester for way too long, but we'll giv'em a break until someone comes up with something better. ;)

As to the benefits of this part product / part buzz marketing move?

I think they'll see an uptick of interest from their install base (duh), but maybe more importantly they'll get some biz dev glances from other companies with more mature blogging, RSS, and email marketing tools. I can't see a lot of large customers abandoning their current Web 2.0 infrastructure and betting the farm on FatWire's suite. But I do see a coexistence model where FatWire could power the WCM aspects of a client's web operations while also plugging into, say, a BuzzLogic, Email Labs, Traction, or Movable Type.

I also wonder why FatWire isn't mentioned more on the acquisition scene. Somebody help me here, but I think Fasciano has stated publicly they have no intention of being bought -- I could be wrong. 

Technorati tags: fatwire+software, wcm, web+2.0, blogs, RSS, email+marketing, buzzlogic, traction+software, six+apart, movable+type, ecm+vendors, ecm, content+management

Do You Really Need Soup-to-Nuts ECM?

I received a comment recently from IBM Info Evangelist Marc Andrews on the recent mini-poll I ran on the ECM blog. Thanks for your comment Marc. Ok, I admit it. The headline was meant to stir things up a bit. You're right though, the results show there's a heck of a lot of people that think the IBM / FileNET marriage bodes well for everyone.

As far as having the most comprehensive ECM capabilities?

I wouldn't argue there either. What I would ask is do we really need a soup-to-nuts ECM for everybody platform? Now I know we're not quite to web 2.0's version of ECM, but can't you sense customers' inclinations to blend hybrid services (SaaS) and software pieces together to satisfy most of their ECM requirements? I guess what concerns me is when customers get into a classic case of vendor lock-in. You know, when vendors start approaching you with the "stack" pitch. When someone says I'll give you the repository, workflow, and collaboration pieces that fit together nicely, I have to call bullshit be a little skeptical. One thing is for sure. IBM is probably one of the few companies that have the resources to pull off that stack you just bought.

Technorati tags: IBM, filenet, ecm+solutions, ecm+vendors, ecm+strategy, information+management, ECM, content+management, content+management+2.0

Do Customers Lose if IBM and FileNET Win?

According to the latest highly scientific poll sampled from  ECM blog readers like you, the answer is yes. Sort of. In a dead heat, almost 30% of you said IBM and FileNET will prevail against the other ECM vendors. And an identical percentage (29.7%) thought customers will get the short end of the ECM stick.

Should we really be surprised that customers view things so unfavorably? Not really. Historically, you could probably analyze any big merger or buyout and see there was plenty of doom and gloom predicted by customers and channel partners.

So what can we really expect from IBM and FileNET?

 From a technology perspective, you have to think that IBM's commitment to everything-SOA should bear fruit in the FileNET orchards at some point. I'm sure customers wouldn't mind seeing more service-orientation and content management 2.0 (thanks John Newton) capabilities baked into FileNET P8. Hell, just giv'em RSS to get workflow updates and you'd probably appease an army of them immediately. Another technology bonus should be a better engine driving the federated search capabilities within FileNET P8. It's IBM technology after all, via the Venetica acquisition a while back.This has to be a little higher on everybody's radar right now with the market finally realizing that managing unstructured data is a big, big, challenge for any company. All the ECM integrators I've spoken to have resurfaced their enterprise search practices to address customer demand. I'm not saying Venetica IBM's Federated Search can attack unstructured content like say, an Autonomy, but if IBM and FileNET can't provide enterprise search across everybody's repositories they'll definitely lose some seats --not to mention mindshare. But all that's just technology and most business people don't really care about the technology, right? All they need is the usual checkboxes --- standards-based, viable vendor, flexible configuration options, you know the drill.

What about the industry as a whole? 

We'd all agree ECM is white hot right now and with that climate comes wannabes, pretenders, snake oil salesmen, and providers hocking solutions you didn't even know you needed. But it also provides ample limelight for contenders, upstarts,and  paradigm shifts. So will BlueNET stay agile enough and adapt? Of course, IBM isn't fading anytime soon and has deep enough pockets. But a bigger question might be, what will BlueNET evolve into as ECM becomes more and more the domain of the bigger infrastructure vendors? With ECM vendors disappearing like client-based software,I think you'll see the ECM designation start to fade over the next few years and be consumed by this larger notion of information management. The big boys will have bought up the remaining pure play ECM'ers (Open Text,Stellent,Vignette,Interwoven) and killed off the rest of the Euro-CMS entrants and you'll be left with five or six purveyors of ECM capabilities, most likely IBM,EMC,HP,MSFT,and Oracle.

Technorati tags: ecm, ecm+solutions, filenet, IBM, content+management, ecm+vendors, HP, microsoft+ecm, EMC+documentum

How Will Enterprise Blogging Take Hold?

Raj Bala at Kung Fu Apps has a good take on enterprise scenarios where blogging could flourish. His opinions come on the heels of Six Apart's upgrade to their Movable Type platform. And Richard MacManus has a good overview of MT at Read/Write Web.

And while tools like MT aren't typically a part of ECM RFPs,(yet) vendors have certainly realized the importance of the underlying technology (RSS) and interfaces that helped blogging spur the self-publishing model. I wonder when a Six Apart or Traction will be scooped up by somebody like IBM or HP? With a single swoop, an infrastructure provider could check off all those pesky blog/wiki/RSS requirements in that RFP. 

Technorati tags: movable+type, enterprise+blogging, RSS, ECM, traction+software, six+apart, HP, IBM

The ECM Waves Are Starting to Ripple

Informa was profiled yesterday in a DataMation article discussing their decision to move to open source. And up again is Alfresco. I think Alan Pelz-Sharpe is right,they need a salty competitor -- if for nothing else than to give traditional ECM clients more to think about. Open source ECM'ers need some peers I say.

I was talking about the same thing yesterday with a potential EMC customer in Dallas. We we're discussing mid-tier options for content and records management and toward the end of our discussion I mentioned the viability of open source. And for what seems like the hundredth time over the last few months, his eyes lit up and eagerly agreed his company is avidly seeking out open source options. (I wonder if Alfresco has an affiliate model) ;)

Without going into some of his rationale, I thought I'd just point to the Informa quote below from Bob Hecht.

"I was a Documentum person before I came into this company. That’s straight Windows stuff, very powerful – the No. 1 management solution on the market, depending on who you talk to – but nobody in Informa wanted anything to do with it, because they couldn’t envision repurposing it across the company without breaking the bank.”

Tough. But absolutely true.

And did anyone else notice the announcement from Alfresco and Kofax? That's a game changer for a lot of FileNET (IBM) and Captiva (EMC) clients over next 12 to 18 months if Alfresco and Kofax start closing some deals. They'll certainly need more integrators to make it happen. If I was an ECM solution provider, I'd be all over Alfresco and Kofax.

tags: ibm, filenet, emc, emc+documentum, kofax, alfresco, records+management, content+management

The Industry Spin on IBM and FileNET

Things are starting to settle down a bit after the IBM acquisition of FileNET. Last week I received the formal email announcement from FileNET Chairman Lee Roberts outlining most of what's already in the public domain. It's been interesting to see how each describe what the other brings to the table.

Here's one from Roberts' email.

"The integration of FileNet's content-centric business process management capabilities with IBM's industry-leading business integration provides the broadest continuum of capabilities for process automation solutions where content management is required"

Content-centric BPM seems to be what everyone's preaching about -- sounds like a fancy way to say we do ECM and BPM.
I think most of you saw how BPM was driving a lot of FileNET's P8 wins over the last year or so. It just doesn't seem like the "BPM and ECM intersecting" speak has evolved much. One thing is for certain. It's been done ad nauseam.

With so much going on with Web 2.0 (content management 2.0),open source, SaaS, and such, where's the forward thinking? I realize it's the "enterprise" and we shouldn't get too cute with all the new-fangled stuff, but if I'm a customer I'm not only thinking about interoperability,I'd also like to know about things like RSS,Wikis, portlets, and blogs.   

Formtek's Dick Weisinger intimated similar thoughts about the integration points.
"FileNet users, many probably with heavily customized implementations, are probably having serious concerns about what the IBM integration strategy will be." At least Dick was diplomatic. I'd replace "serious concerns" with scared @#*#@!-less.
In all fairness (it's easier being an industry observer) one analyst (Andi Mann) was pretty eloquent.

“You saw it [during the teleconference] with them talking up business process management, the BPM stuff. IBM had a big hole in their information management strategy around that capability of passing content from place to place to place in a structured manner to support the business process,” he explains. “IBM obviously has the middleware for delivering the information, and with DB2 Content Manager On Demand, they have a pretty good repository for storing unstructured data, but this really does complete that play for them. It gives them the ability to pass information in a structured way from person to person to person.”

Couldn't have said it better myself.

tags: ecm, ecm+vendors, filenet, ibm, content+management, documentum, emc+documentum, open+source

// Cross-posted on George Dearing's FileNET blog.

Bringing Web 2.0 Into the Enterprise

Luis Sala expounds on a John Newton post about how Web 2.0 can drive ECM adoption.

 

Microsoft's Second Mover Advantage in ECM

Russ Stalters has predicted some of the ECM consolidation for a while and FileNet has been one of the hot topics as of late. In addition to the takeover speculation, he mentions the undeniable Microsoft effect. "FileNet claims that they are partnering with Microsoft and announced “FileNet is introducing broad support for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies” back in May during the AIIM conference."
The announcement hasn't seemed to make much of an impact. Has there even been a joint customer win announced? I think once Office 2007 is more established and Sharepoint is the de facto for departmental collaboration, you'll see FileNet's market share start to erode. The other scary part is when some of the MSFT partners start building specialized imaging and capture applications. Those existing imaging systems won't be ripped out for a while, but the new deployments will start to move into Sharepoint environments due to end-user familiarity. Granted, all this will take a while but Microsoft has proven time and time again they're the best at creating the "second-mover advantage".

Technorati Tags : microsoft, ecm, ecm+vendors, ecm+statistics, filenet, documentum, open+text, content+management

What Does Further Consolidation Mean For FileNet?

A CIBC analyst chimed in last week on the Open Text / Hummingbird deal saying he didn't think the two companies would compete any better against larger rivals.

"Although Hummingbird will add scale to Open Text, we believe it will not meaningfully enhance Open Text's competitive positioning versus large ECM (enterprise content management) providers such as Microsoft, IBM and EMC."

And conspicuously no mention of FileNet as one of the larger rivals. Several folks around the web are speculating what the folks in Costa Mesa might be thinking. There doesn't seem to be many viable merger candidates left for FileNet. At least none that would increase their competitive chances against the usual foes. And if you look at other software sectors, (business intelligence, security, ERP, BPM) most of the companies that would be a good FileNet fit have been snapped up. I still think the most likely scenario is HP or Oracle. With so many imaging systems in place, HP has the wherewithal to develop new applications on top of that infrastructure along with the systems integration capabilities to provide connectivity to legacy systems. Throw in the HP partner channel for icing on the cake. And why Oracle? Maybe customers and analysts would take their ECM aspirations seriously if they bought FileNet. And there's plenty of FileNet customers that have backend Oracle ERP modules that could easily be connected to imaging and content pieces from FileNet P8. What do you think?

Technorati Tags : ecm, ecm+vendors, filenet, hummingbird, open+text, emc+documentum, IBM, microsoft, ecm+strategy

 

Cross-posted on George Dearing's FileNet Blog

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