TakingAIIM

Happy New Year - A Little ECM Humor

Well, we have made it through another year. This is my 71st blog post of the year.  In the past year I have commented on everything from Enterprise 2.0 to Records Management, and announced the formation of a new company, Information Architected.

Readers of the blog hopefully realize that I aiim (pun and misspelling intended) to present both views to ECM technology, its benefits and challenges; the new functionality and power it unleashes as well as the new security concerns it poses. A huge advocate of using ECM as a facilitator of knowledge exchange and social networing, I have also gone on record as seeing the dark side of Enterprise 2.0 and unfettered "knowledge" exchange.

So - I thought I would end the year's postings on a somewhat comical note, in the spirit of "Many a true word is said in jest." - This came to me as an e-mail earlier this week:

I just want to thank all of you for your educational e-mails over the past year.  I am totally screwed up now and have little chance of recovery. I no longer open a public bathroom door without using a paper towel, or have them put lemon slices in my ice water without worrying about the bacteria on the lemon peel. 

I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one pastime while driving alone is picking one's nose.

Eating a little snack sends me on a guilt trip because I can only imagine how many gallons of Trans fats I have consumed over the years. I can't touch any woman's purse for fear she has placed it on the floor of a public bathroom.

I must send my special thanks to those that sent me the one about rodent poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing. Also, I now scrub the top of every can I open because of the rat pee on the lid.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time. I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program. I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish. I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

I can no longer buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas, nor do I go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me. I no longer receive packages from UPS or Fed Ex since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise and won't shop at Target since they are French and don't support our American troops or the Salvation Army.

I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe.

BTW - If you don't forward this blog post to at least 14,000 people in the next 14 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 PM tomorrow afternoon and the fleas from 1,000 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump.  I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician...

OK - on a more serious note, happy new year to all.  Thanks for reading - and I PROMISE to err on the side of seriousness and truth. See you all in 2009.

Information Architected for Smart Distribution - Survey Says NOT YET

Those of you who know a bit about my background may know about the ECM epiphany I had when doing research on the history of the motion picture industry. When I learned that critics predicted a short-lived market fascination with motion pictures because they were no substitute for live theater, I realized the value of imaging lied not in its being a replacement for paper, but in its being a whole new form of content distribution that complemented paper.  (This is a much abbreviated version of the story - in its long version it is really quite fascinating and eye-opening, in my opinion of course. Ask me about it sometime).

Anyway, interestingly enough, as I was contemplating my blog post on the the findings from the latest Market IQ  on Content On-ramps and Off-Ramps, (see previous blog on On-ramps/capture), Hollywood provided me with another ECM  metaphor, though this time not an epiphany.

According to the article, Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of Dreamworks,  was recently in Boston "showing off" scenes from his company's upcoming movies.  Why "showing off"?  These were 3-D movies.  This was  not your father's 3-D which required you to wear those silly glasses so that occassionally some image would project from the screen.  According to the article, "...soldiers come running up from behind you. When they pass, they kick up dust that flies off the screen  ...". Katzenberg believes that 3-D will be the third greatest technology leap in motion pictures, behind the advent of sound and color.  Katzenber's commentary, a short history of how technology has continued to add value to motion pictures, making them more entertaining and engaging, is really worth a read, for those that are fascinated by the motion picture sciences. And for you ECMers - maybe not worth a read, but consider the metaphor, the example Hollywood sets. Motion pictures started most humbly with the capture of analog data (live theater) in a medium that allowed for it to be captured and played back "asynchronously".  The motion picture industry has continued to refine the medium, exploit its unique capabilities to provide value that will never rival live entertainment in one sense, but surpass it in others.

The potential is there for the ECM industry to make similar impacts. To grow and provide value from e-documents that we could never imagine in paper documents, not as a replacement to paper, but a complement. The aforementioned advent of workflow was a step in this direction. But, based on observations from the Market IQ  survey data regarding content delivery, the ECM industry has stagnated. Technology has progressed, but the "directors", we business users of online content are moving forward at a very slow rate, using little imagination.

In my last post I provided evidence that from a capture standpoint we are moving forward. There is momentum building in viewing "content" not just as words and pictures, but also sound, video, and albeit much further in the future, smell, touch and taste. But what "special effects" are we adding to the content upon publishing?  Technology from vendors such as Mark Logic and Thunderhead, who partially underwrote the research, enables organizations to virtually customize content each time it is used, evaluating the current reason for access and the person accessing it.  Leveraging content "chunking" approaches such as XML, and a series of rules and processes, content can "self-assemble" to provide the highest level of personalization and effectiveness.  

Nearly 2 decades ago I was consulting with a New York City commodities brokerage.  We developed just such a system.  Perhaps not as dramatic as some, but effective and cost saving nonetheless.  This system was triggered by the data entry of a "sale".  Based on the data entered (a transaction to buy a commodity at a particular point in time) a contract would be auto-generated.  Not a generic contract, but a highly personalized contract, built from a variety of "chunks" of content, prices, policies, etc.

That was nearly 20 years ago. Technology has progressed tremendously since then.  So imagine what you could do now?  But, I am sad to report most of you aren't. Market adoption and exploitation of content delivery functionality is pitiful.

According to the survey data, nearly half, 45% are minimally or not using such techniques. Only 13% felt they were using such techniques extensively.

Q: To What Extent is Content Re-purposed.Recombined to Create New Forms (Customized or Personalized) Forms of Output?

  

Source:  AIIM Market IQ on The On-Ramps and Off-ramps of ECM

Even more saddening is the fact that according to the survey, among those that are using such techniques, the great majority reported using simple mail-merge (you know the form letters no longer say "Dear Occupant" - but have your name so cleverly inserted instead.) YAWN.

Self authoring contracts, highly customized manuals and brochures, targeted patient records, customer profiles, web pages dynamically generated to actually deliberately communicate one-on-one with each individual ... the list goes on, the list of potential publishing alternatives that are sadly NOT being used by most. Only 3% of the organizations polled are using any form of 3-D modeling.

For more detail see the Market IQ.  More importantly - DO SOMETHING.  If you have an interesting content publishing/distribution application - share it here, post a comment as inspiration.  Those of you who do not, experiment - have a little fun with ECM. Put some "special effects" in your content. It can be rewarding in more ways than one.

Digital Content - Just a Whiff of Change in the Air

This week, AIIM  released the most recent Market IQ I have authored, this one on the On-Ramps and Off-Ramps of ECM - or put more directly:  Capturing electronic content and publishing/distributing electronic content.

As readers of this blog know, these are subjects at the core of my passion for ECM.  Capture is foundational to the value of ECM. The scope and domain of any ECM system is defined by its input.  If garbage is put into the system, only garbage will come out (GIGO).  More importantly, if only "imaged contracts" for example, are put into teh ECM system, only images of contracts will come out.  So, in the report I sought to establish a benchmark of the types of content that organizations are capturing in their ECM systems.

Similarly, if publishing models are strictly WYSIWYG, the the dynamics and communication effectiveness of the ECM system is limited to the exact look and feel of what is capture. There is no value add in the delivery process. To ignore either one of these "ends" (capture the front-end and publishing the back-end) of ECM, or simply allow business as usual to occur is not only negligent but quite frankly in my opinion BORING. 

The scope of online content was significantly expanded with the advent of imaging and word processing. Once the exclusive domain of data (i.e., structured fields of numbers and characters), word processing and imaging systems introduced unstructured files containing free-flowing text, graphics and pictures.  This was the impetus for electronic document management systems, which evolved into today’s more advanced ECM systems. Once the foundation to storing unstructured content in digital form was introduced, the doors were open to the challenge and realization of capturing virtually any form of information.

On the Internet today, we witness a plethora of rich content types: animated graphics, audio and video. As I have mentioned before, statistics from YouTube show that as of late 2008, 13 hours of video are uploaded every minute.  But, while content capture has advanced significantly on the Internet, survey responses indicate a very different story inside the firewall – albeit one with some surprises and signs of progress.

According to survey data, paper is still universally used across all  organizations - OK no surprises there. PDF is also a popular way to capture content, used in 90% of the organizations polled - YAWN.
Though a relatively new file format, PDF can be thought of as an “image file,” and therefore does not represent a radical departure from scanning/imaging technology. Legacy formats persist -- microfilm/fiche is still used in 43% of the organizations polled.

With all of that said, there is indication of change, albeit nascent. Survey respondents indicated that digital video and audio are used by 34% and 30%, respectively.

but, more surprising and telling is the fact that 1% of the organizations surveyed indicated that digital smell (i.e. olfactory content) and digital touch technology, both technologies I have blogged about before, are used within their organization. From a purely statistical perspective, a 1% response is not significant.  Who cares - right? Well, for one - I do.  Maybe statistically this is no big deal, but the fact that any organizations are using these forms of digital content, forms that are on the bleeding edge of content capture, shows that the business world is morphing -- slowly, perhaps -- but morphing nonetheless.

Source:  AIIM Market IQ on the On-Ramps and Off-Ramps of ECM

Indeed, when asked what content formats they believed their organizations will be using in the next five years, there was evidence of planned migration to more rich media types. Survey respondents foresee enterprises in the next five years still predominately using more traditional forms of content (including film and fiche) but building momentum for and adoption of newer forms of content. Multimedia formats, such as photos, audio and video, are expected to make modest gains, as well as the next-generation digital smell and touch formats. (See the AIIM Market IQ for that detail.)

Personally, I am very encouraged by these statistics.  Expansion beyond image and text files is the future of ECM, and represents great new potential. 

I know there are naysayers out there. Those who will say this is just a dream.  That it is irrelevant.  A 1% response rate is insignificant.  Who cares? These new media types will never take hold in a business setting.  Well, I have been around ECM long enough to know that these old fogies (hey I may be old but I am no fogy), just don't get it, and may be surprised by the adoption of rich media within organizations. 

Yeah, I have been around awhile.  I can recall the early days of Imaging technology.  Scanners being demoed to audiences that ooohed and ahhhed, circa the1980s. "Wow a copy machine that makes the copy appear on the desktop.  Cool - how do you do that?".  But I also remember these comments: "Yeah that is cool, but what are we really going to do with that?  Are they legal copies?  What if the system crashes you lose your documents."  Some of you may recall a popular argument  used back then as to why organizations should NOT migrate to images: Digital representation of original documents is risky, too dependent on technology.  We were often reminded that even if there were a total power failure, film and fiche could still be read using a candle and a magnifying glass.  But what of images? 

Well that argument may still be true, but the value derived from images outweighed the risk, and the  rest as they say is history.

So what of audio, video and those crazies on the fringe that are experimenting with digital scent,  touch and "lickable inks"?  Oh, there may be just a whiff of change in the air, but change is coming. And, I for one am excited.

And what of distributing - well, I will save the survey findings on that topic for another post.

Now Hear This - Innovation – Now More than Ever

One of the more exciting things Dan and I now face, free from AIIM’s more narrow approach to ECM, is our ability to spend more time on the cutting edge of ECM – on issues such as Innovation Management.

Innovation: being creative, doing more with less, and better leveraging the resources you already have – this is a business practice that organizations cannot afford to ignore in the current economy.  While no one would argue that innovation is ALWAYS good for an organization, it is true even more so when the economy is in the dumps.

More importantly, Innovation does not just have to happen (serendipity). Nor does it have to be relegated to a select few.  Innovation can be managed as a process and an asset.  When you manage innovation, you are likely to find creative ways to leverage things, people, process, content and technology, - all around you – already “paid for”.

It is shocking how many times we go into organization and find that 90%+ of what they need to innovate, increase profits and simplify processes is already there. (You may recall that in my last post I discussed how most organizations ignore the BI contained in their search logs, for example.)

Just how far can innovation go, fueled only by existing resources, common things around you every day?  Here is an interesting site to consider when pondering that question.

This individual created a set of working speakers for his iPod, using nothing more than plastic drinking cups and toothpicks.  Check it out – and try it out.  You never know what creative thoughts it may spur in you.  – So what’s in your corporate cupboard?

Information Architected for Kindle

Just about a year ago, I added Kindle to my Christmas wish list, and posted to this blog regarding the Kindle's impact on Content Delivery.  Well, I never did get one for Christmas, maybe this year.....

But - I did get a Kindle related Christmas surprise.  Recently it was brought to my attention that this blog is available on the Kindle, and one of my books (Knowledge Management)  is also available as a Kindle book. 

So for those of you that have a Kindle (and I envy you), you may want to add the this blog to your Kindle subscriptions. 

BTW - those of you using the Kindle - according to the latest research on Content Delivery, which I should be publishing next week, you are indeed part of a select few, in a corporate setting anyway. The research found  that the use of multimedia content, and the re-purposing of content in creative new ways within the firewall lags far behind the Internet. Stay tuned ...

Searching for Searches

Earlier this week Google announced their annual Zeitgeist report on the search habits of its users.  While Obama was the fastest rising search term in the US, Sara Palin took the lead world-wide. (Was the world more worried over the prospect of "President Palin then we Americans were? - Or is it just that her humorous side transcends national boundaries?  After all everyone likes a good laugh.)
The fastest rising searches in the U.S. during the year were: 1) Obama; 2) Facebook; 3) AT&T; 4) iPhone; 5) YouTube; 6) Fox News; 7) Palin 8) Beijing 2008; 9) David Cook; and 10) surf the channel.

Look over this list - it is a perfect commentary on the year in review. Indeed, you may want to peruse the full report, where popular searches and fastest rising searches are ranked and categorized in a taxonomy that includes books, US searches, world wide, trend setters, politics and more.

But while the report  in and of itself is interesting, what is more interesting to me is the level of insight it provides.  This same level of insight is typically available to corporate executives whose organization's are using a solid search engine.  Yet, based on my experience working with many companies, this valuable body of knowledge often goes completely untapped.  In the Market IQ report on Findability that Dan and I authored earlier this year, key findings included that most users felt that search within their firewall was far less powerful than search on the Internet and nearly half have no specific goals or strategy for search in the enterprise.   This includes not leveraging the full potential of the search tool. Typically, when consulting with an organization I will ask to see search logs and reports.  Usually the only people that do not look at me like I am speaking a foreign language are from IT.  But, typically, while those in IT know what I am talking about, they are not active users of the resource. The depths of knowledge captured by the search engines tracking of searches is not looked at and therefore it is not in any way integrated into various business applications, either manually or automatically.  Search query and retrieval habits are an amazing source of BI (business intelligence) - available for free (if you have a search tool that tracks them.) So why aren't more businesses leveraging them? 

A casual look at the Google Zeitgeist report demonstrates the insight that can be gained not just about search habits, but topics of interest, topics gaining in interest, arising communities, popular products, trends etc.  So again I ask, why don't more organizations use this type of search mining in-house to gain similar levels of insight on rising customer and employee concerns, popular HR issues, common reference points ... Most business executives, I find simply do not understand or appreciate the power and insight provided by search analytics.

If you encounter an executive who fails to see why search needs to be better funded and supported with specific strategy, perhaps a simple nudge to look at the Google Zeitgeist report will be enough.  Its worth a try. I know I am going to try using it.

Web 2.0 – You say Tomato I say ...

As announced in my last post, Dan Keldsen and I just started a new company – Information Architected.  Obviously we get along …. and agree on everything,why else would we agree to be joined at the hip -  Right? … WRONG.  Like any good partnership (in my definition anyway), Dan and I often have differing perspectives and debate the merits of many things.  Debate is good – without differing opinions one of us is redundant.

Take for example Web 2.0, and its extension inside the firewall, Enterprise 2.0.  Earlier this year we published a Market IQ on Enterprise 2.0, (representing many months of research), and keynoted at the Enterprise 2.0 conference – together.  So surely we agree on that topic.  Well, we agree on much that relates to Enterprise 2.0 – but not everything. 

Take Twitter as an example. I subscribe to Twitter.  Dan subscribes to Twitter.  I use Twitter casually.  Dan uses Twitter extensively.  Dan thinks Twitter is GREAT.  I think Twitter is, well, OK I guess.

Dan is probably too often subjected to my complaining over the abuse of Twitter. I mean really, why do people on Twitter feel there is value in sharing with “the world” that: “enjoying a coffee right now- mmmm”, or “–just waking up, not showered yet.” For those unfamiliar – I am not making these quoted messages up, and they can get worse.

But as annoyed as I get, as I stated, I use Twitter. "Why then?" you ask.   Because I also see the very positive and valuable side to collaborative social technologies. I do get value out of Twitter.

This value statement was clearly brought to the world’s attention during the recent terrorist attack in Mumbai, India.  The event was covered in a timely manner by “human journalists”, also known as "citizen Journalists”.  Within minutes of the first attacks, many “ordinary citizens”, social networkers, were sharing news and video of the event, using hand-helds and the power of social networks.  A very dramatic example of leveraging the power of social computing, to communicate important and relevant content, to educate from eye-witness accounts, in a timely manner.

But such value does not have to be linked to such dramatic content, that’s not my point. I was recently listening to NPR, and heard a great story, a lighter story about the powers of social computing. 
Muscians around the world are finding one another and having interactive jam sessions – online. Real and valuable content (of course art and music’s value is in the eye and ear of the beholder), being collaboratively developed by a geographically diverse but like minded and intentioned groups of people.  This is, in my opinion,  a very creative and powerful example of creating new “realities” using the power of social computing and collaboration.

Ah, both examples are still outside the firewall, part of the Internet social web – so where is the tie to Enterprise 2.0.  More importantly – what is the lesson learned.  First, the tie.   I am amazed at the rate at which the Internet is now driving user expectations. You may recall, that in the Findability IQ Dan and I wrote for AIIM, we found that experience with search on the Internet is the single greatest influence on increasing user expectations for enterprise search.

As for the the lesson learned.  I still say that there is much abuse of social computing, but among the crap there are the jewels, new business models and valuable content.  Enterprises should take heed from these and other examples of Web 2.0.  Watch, learn, adapt and innovate. Look at the potential of the technology and model and shape it to advance the corporate mission and goals. 

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review, entitled “Which Kind of Collaboration is Right For You?”, by Gary Pisano and Roberto Verganti, said it well.  They point out that too many people who look at collaboration via platforms such as  Twitter and Facebook think that social collaboration, by definition, must be completely open and free forming.  Not so say Pisano and Verganti, and I agree. Within the firewall you can restrict access, impose governance and perhaps “ensure relevancy” – without necessarily squashing the dynamic creative capabilities of social computing.

OK – maybe I am just part of the graying workforce and my opinions are prejudiced by my age.  But – to end this blog I want to share a video on YouTube that takes a comical but poignant look on the question – “Real Life Facebook.”  WATCH IT – Its entertaining – and thought provoking.

Changing Position But Not My “AIIM”

Some of you may have noticed that I have been uncharacteristically negligent in posting to this blog.  In a word I have been – busy.  Yes, more so than usual. As others of you have noticed on my Facebook page, I have been preparing for a career move.  Well it is now official - along with Dan Keldsen, I just started a new consulting practice – Information Architected Inc.

So expect a lot more blog postings soon (after I come up from the many small tasks associated with establishing a start-up), and expect more unbridled commentary.

That said, although I am changing positions, I am not changing the focus of this blog – and so I have decided to keep its name.  Yes – I am still “Taking AIIM.” 

I am and will continue to be a member of the AIIM community – and more importantly – I will dedicate my career and this web site to ECM.  As I stated in my “inaugural” post, I created TakingAIIM as a forum for my musings on ECM – the proactive management of content (in its broadest digital definition) so as to impact the enterprise in new and innovative ways. That’s still my passion and still the charter for this blog site.

So I hope you will continue to follow it, post comments and recommend it to other ECMers. 

As for Information Architected and our business model – check it out. 

We hit the ground running, and are completing a Market IQ on Content On-ramps and Off-ramps, and a market study on SharePoint. 

Stay tuned, that and more are forthcoming as I continue to TakeAIIM.