The Enterprise Content Management Blog

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

Wanna Be a Part of The Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Network?

I saw the powerful effects of activating a network recently in a matter of days.I guess we bloggers are a shameless bunch of self promoters. Give us a network badge or two, some portable JavaScript and we're in!

Case in point. I asked some reputable software and technology bloggers a short time ago to join the Enterprise Content Management Network, a FeedBurner-hosted network that aggregates members' blogs and splits the ad revenue. You regular readers will know most of the names, but recent additions you might not know include C3 Associates and the Tower Software guys.

Now none of us are getting rich anytime soon sharing ad revenues,but hopefully we'll give some fledgling bloggers a chance to be heard and learn some stuff about each other along the way. Maybe at some point we can have something like Social Media Today.(sigh)

On a side note, I noticed the network has a little Google juice as it's starting to appear organically. (roughly #25)

And if you haven't done so yet, grab this OPML file and you'll have a single RSS feed for some great insight and commentary. Thanks to everyone who joined thus far..you're a talented group.

P.S. Send me a note if you want to join. You'll look darn good with your blog featured in our widget ;)

Technorati tags: enterprise+content+management+network, ECM, feedburner+ad+network, feedburner, google+juice, internet+advertising, tower+software, C3+Associates, web+2.0, online+communities

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

Where's the Buzz from the ECM Vendor Shows?

With all the consolidation and attention from Wall Street, you'd think ECM vendor conferences would be hotspots these days. You'd be wrong. In fact, except for a press release here and there, you wouldn't have had a clue they were even in full swing.

And it looks like I wasn't the only one looking for buzz. The Portable Consultant blog kinda summed up my thinking as they too were underwhelmed.

"Sadly, my Technorati searches only came up with one LinkUp blog… not a real blog since it was a trade publication and much of the content was (yawn…) text from Open Text’s recent press release on their new release."

Over the last few 6-8 weeks, I've thought on several occasions, where's the excitement? Where's the discussion? How are vendors rallying their customers, prospects, and the media? Certainly, it isn't by attending session after session of product speak and marchitecture. People want interactions other than raising their hand and asking a question from the back of the next panel discussion.

 

And not to pick on one company, (we're picking on everybody)but the FileNET camp seemed almost radio silent during last week's UserNet 2006 in Dallas. Let's see, you've just been acquired by IBM and it's your 20th Anniversary for the event. At least they did a post-show video. But where's the blog? Where's the podcast? And where are all the customers talking about you?

Same thing for Vignette. Their silence was even more deafening, only managing to come out with the (big yawn) standard "customer excellence award" release.

C'mon folks, let see some creativity to get butts in the seats and people talking. Maybe they should all take a page out of the Office 2.0 Conference playbook.

Technorati tags: ecm, ecm+vendors, vignette, filenet, ibm+filenet, vignette+village, usernet+2006