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

Oracle's Vince Casarez Is Confident About Enterprise 2.0's Arrival

Enterprise 2.0 is here folks. If you're here in Boston for the conference, you're obviously already a big believer. And if you're oracle customer, you might already be well down the enterprise 2.0 path.

I caught up with Oracle VP and enterprise 2.0 evangelist Vince Casarez recently to get the scoop on how the world's largest software company is ideally positioned to help customers transition to enterprise 2.0, a term describing the tools and processes companies are adopting to drive better collaboration among finicky knowledge workers. He says that while the enterprise 2.0 space is maturing rapidly, companies are figuring out that enterprise 1.0 fundamentals still apply.

"We think it makes more sense to inject best-of-breed Web 2.0 capabilities into your enterprise application environments," said Casarez.

He says knowledge workers are more likely to adopt new ways of sharing information when they have a sense of familiarity or connectedness to existing applications or workflows. He's got a point. An overused example of that comes from Oracle's arch rival Microsoft. Think of all the applications that have lived and died by the Microsoft Outlook sword. Fact is, if you can thrive in the ecosystem of an existing enterprise application, you'll get a chance to live, or be adopted, as the saying goes in software.

With Oracle's line of business (LOB) applications so prevalent, does that mean all of its customers will adopt its software to join the e2.0 ranks? Of course not. There will always be customers that gravitate to the start-ups, hoping to get a few months of added capability tacked on to spur time-to-market and and potentially cut costs. After the best-of-breed sparkle fades however, most companies will come to the realization that enterprise 1.0 never really left us.

Things like IT governance, compliance pressures and vendor viability will rear their collective heads just as they always do. Couple that with the fact that CIOs are now realizing they can look to existing infrastructure to satisfy enterprise 2.0 requirements and you have a compelling business case to look to an Oracle.

"Large enterprises have invested millions of dollars in existing applications, not to mention the training that goes along with having to ensure large-scale adoption of that infrastructure," added Casarez.

I also asked Casarez about the enterprise 2.0 activity within its channel of solution providers and integrators.

"We're seeing some very sophisticated enterprise 2.0 use cases start to emerge from our channel partners.It's clear our customers have moved past the experimental phases of enterprise 2.0," he said.

If you've followed any of Oracles' web 2.0 moves over the last year, you know that customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation are two areas ripe with current pilots and early implementations.On the CRM front, its move to create more social CRM capabilities has drawn some praise from industry observers and it (CRM) seems to a breeding ground for a lot of enterprise 2.0 pure plays.

Its dThree implementation has been a showcase for Oracle on the marketing services front. I spoke to dThree a while back and saw what the right web  2.0 "injection", as Casarez says, can do to sometimes stale marketing platforms. dThree layered just the right amount of social computing features to its marketing platform, built from the ground up using things like Oracle WebCenter and Fusion middleware.

Who says the enterprise software guys are just enterprise 2.0 window dressing.

Technorati tags: oracle, enterprise 2.0, e2.0, dthree, social+computing, vince cesarez, oracle+webcenter, oracle+fusion

CMS Haters To Gather in NYC

OK, the headline's a little strong, but it did grab your attention.

While I was scanning Twitterville, I noticed CMSWire was microblogging about the upcoming "I Hate My CMS" event in New York City. I'm fairly confident (like you) I could personally sign up a few hundred folks for this one.

The promoters actually nailed it:

"While CMSes are among the most vital systems in digital businesses, they are also among the most cursed due to their limitations and idiosyncrasies."

Most of us know how important content management systems are to serving our markets, but unfortunately there's just as many of us that would rejoice if we never had to touch a CMS toolset again.

According to organizers, the panel will address CMS issues from customer and vendor viewpoints in addition to commentary from a technology analyst. The "tales from the trenches" part should alone be worth the price of admission.

Panelists include:

* Kyle McNabb, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
* Tim Peters, Managing Director, Leading Hotels of the World/LHW.com
* Albert Lee, Director of Technology, New York Magazine

The Society for Information Management (SIM)and the Internet Strategy Forum are hosting the event.

If someone Twitters the event, send along details and I'll be sure to tune in.

 

Technorati tags: content+management, internet+strategy+forum, SIM, technology+events, twitter, microblogging, CMS

First posted @ Information Week's Content Management Blog

Enterprise 2.0 Rave Offers Readiness Survey

 If you want to get the ins and outs of Enterprise 2.0, jump over to the Enterprise 2.0 Rave and check out the program.The organizers have decided to host the event virtually (May 21-22) with webcasts featuring various roundtable discussions.You'll recognize most of the folks, even if you're just a casual observer of social media and Web 2.0.

They've also assembled an enterprise 2.0 readiness survey you can access here and plan to share the results during one of the sessions.

Technorati tags: enterprise+2.0, enterprise+2.0+rave, web+2.0, e2+0, tech+events, technology, business+2.0

Catching Up On Some AIIM Thoughts

I'm way behind getting this up but wanted to get some thoughts up for what it's worth.  Most of my AIIM updates a few weeks ago were via Twitter, which was a good exercise in conference blogging since most of it was done using my Samsung i-730 via SMS.

As far as the show,I came away sort of underwhelmed.I made some good contacts and met some fellow bloggers, but the show's excitement seemed muted. I kept digging for some real news or slivers of innovation as I circled the ECM vendor stations. Mostly I came up empty. Yeah, Oracle talked up Stellent and yes EMC was pitching platform updates, but that's just a day in the life of an enterprise software company. And outside of an audio announcement of FileNET's mock trial, they were incognito except for an IBM booth on the OnDemand (print) side. Yawn. Not surprisingly, most of the innovation came from hungrier solution providers and early-stage companies trying to make a name for themselves.

All that aside, I did get the sense there were real buyers roving the show floor. The Attensa guys (more on them later) confirmed my hunch saying the show provided real customers with real budgets..unlike what their colleagues experienced at the Web 2.0 Expo.

I only attended a few sessions and those were just as advertised - very focused and very topical. Luckily I was also fortunate enough to be in Xerox's eDiscovery roundtable, a very fluid session that was not only in-depth but also informative thanks to a good mix of analysts, columnists, and legal practitioners. Here's a link to the podcast. Thanks to Becky Dziedzic at Xerox for her hard work organizing the session.

< Photo | John Mancini and me >

The other thing I kept thinking was Questex Media, producer of the AIIM show, should take a page out of FAST's book and create an online community and year-round blog for the show. I just think it's ironic that one of the largest content shows around lacks any real online horsepower and savvy. There should be plenty of conversations taking place..where's the social networking? Here? Looks like that was for the press only. Note to the organizers: Give your audience a voice and let your community interact. We all might learn something.

The highlights for me were as followed:

• Xerox's new media push ( Ok, I'm sucking up a bit but their Second Life launch was interesting and their panel was impressive)
• Attensa's RSS platform - it's a three dog race between Newsgator, KnowNow, and Attensa.
• The Microsoft Solution Provider Pavilion - K2.Net, ClearView,  Meridio , and Russ Stalters' firm were a few that stood out. 
  
   
  < The Attensa team >

Technorati tags: AIIM, microsoft, ECM, ecm+vendors, oracle, stellent, EMC+documentum, john+mancini, attensa, clearview+ecm, k2.net, meridio, boston

Blogging the AIIM Show in Boston

I just landed in Boston for the AIIM Show this week.This year's a little different as I'm attending as a participant.The folks at Xerox invited me to be a part of their ECM | e-Discovery roundtable.

The panel includes some real heavy hitters in the legal,high-tech, media, and analyst communities. Should make for some good discussion.

Xerox also tells me they'll be recording the session and plan to push it out as a podcast. If you're wondering what the "Show Me" scanned image is,that's my ticket to Xerox's event at Fenway Park. They've got a tour planned and we'll even get to meet some of the players! What's a trip to Beantown without heading out to Fenway. I think I'll stay out of the batting cages though. ;)

I'm planning to blog the conference mostly on Twitter, so if you want the down and dirty subscribe to my Twitter feed here. For those unfamiliar with Twitter, think of it as an SMS-based mini blog. You can see their widget running on my blog..it's the one that says, "What Am I Doing?" A lot of people use it to chronicle EVERYTHING they're doing but I tend to use it as a more of a business channel..what I'm reading, analyzing, commenting on, etc. 

A far the show goes, there's always plenty to talk about during the week - new products, new alliances, research, you name it. So if you've got some stuff you'd like to pitch, drop me an email and let's schedule a few  minutes to chat while I'm in Boston.

And those distinguished panelists I mentioned earlier?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Dave Cohen – K&L/Gates – Electronic Discovery Law Blog

Ralph Gammon – Document Imaging Report – Document Imaging Talk Blog

John Mancini – AIIM – ECM Industry Watch

Paul D, Boynton, Esq. – Lawyer’s USA

Craig Freeman – VP | corporate litigation services, Xerox Global Services

Matt Kelly – Compliance Week

Barry Murphy – Forrester

Riley McNulty – IDC

Larry Wescott – Electronic Discovery Blog

Looking forward to a good few days.

 

Technorati tags: AIIM, ECM, e+discovery, analysts, blogs, twitter, AIIM+Ondemand, enterprise+conent, content+management, citizen+media, citizen+journalism, xerox

FAST Times In San Diego

We arrived around noon in San Diego today for the FASTforward conference. I'm posting from the media room with a bunch of fellow media attendees bloggers and sitting close by is Tom Mandel of ConnectBeam. If you're not familiar with ConnectBeam, read Jerry Bowles recent post. 

The conference looks to get off to a good start with Ray Lane and FAST CEO John M. Lervik kicking off the key notes in about a half hour. And as you'd expect FAST is gearing up the press push. We'll see what else they announce, but so far they've already made some waves in the internet ad market. Here's a post I did a few days ago.

I'll be posting for the next few days so stay tuned...hasta from SD. 

Media Room

Seaside Village

 

San Diego Marriott

Technorati tags: FAST+forward+07, FAST, ConnectBeam, San+Diego

Cross-posted on WOW Feed::Tracking New Media and Technology

$1600 Bucks For An ECM Conference?

An invite to EMC's Momentum 2007 Conference showed up this morning in my inbox -- with a $1600 price tag attached to it.

What do you guys think? Too much, not interested, wouldn't miss it? I'm not picking on EMC specifically, they just happened to be one of the next upcoming conferences.

So I'll ask everyone, are vendor conferences a dying breed? Are they doomed to be replaced by videocasts, skype conversations, and blogs?

And on the blog note, shouldn't EMC and others be reaching out to citizen media for coverage of these events? That point's been belabored many times but I still don't see many software companies doing it.

I'm not sure if the enterprise guys will ever move to the Unconference, but it would definitely shake things up a bit. I'm sure there's a PR firm already pitching the unconference approach to a mid-market software company as we speak.

But hey, at least EMC booked the Counting Crows. Wait, those guys haven't had a good song in more than a decade. Oh well, hopefully, the WiFi's good.

 

Technorati tags: emc, EMC+world+2007, emc+documentum, EMC+Momentum+2007, emc+vendors, unconference, counting+crows, user+conferences

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