TakingAIIM

"[Not so] Elementary My Dear Watson"

After 20+ years of  immersion in ECM and KM,  I still find myself in awe and amazed.  As I have commented before, ECM and KM are forever changing in ways that astonish.  Managing “stuff” that seems to defy management, and mimicking the human brain’s ability to infer meaning, spot associations and discover insights locked away in words and pictures, is not an easy thing to do. We have come light years from the 1960s when IDI’s BASIS and IBM’s STAIRS heralded the ability of software to mine content from a library of documents. But, excitingly so, we have a long way to go. Perhaps the greatest opportunity and challenge is associated with retrieval/search tools. Not only in how they work, but how they are leveraged.

My position as KM Director at FSG, juxtaposes this fascination of mine with an organization that focuses on issues even greater than “how to build the smartest search tool.”  The work of FSG, to put it succinctly, is to solve the world’s greatest problems (e.g., world hunger).  So I find myself in a perfect storm, awash in an invigorating monsoon of innovation and creativity -  great thinkers and creative problem solvers who can benefit from creative and powerful approaches to KM.  OK – I’ll get to the point, why am I so excited right now?

A few weeks back I saw a phenomenal show on Nova about the IBM project that led to the creation of Watson – the search engine that became famous when it was a challenger on the popular TV show Jeopardy.   If you are the least bit interested in how search, heuristic learning and lexical analysis/meaning inference and content mining work, I highly recommend you watch the Nova Watson special. It is AMAZING. (My family had to put up with me in the living room periodically murmuring “Wow”, “that’s so cool”, and “I knew it.”, (confirming in their minds what an ECM geek I am.)

What made the Nova show so fascinating was not watching Watson eventually win at Jeopardy, but the process the developers at IBM went through to bring the search engine to this state. It was a powerful example of  what it takes to fine tune a software system to interact with questions and a body of content in order to, not just retrieve content, but bubble up answers. FASCINATING.

Serendipitously, I am at a stage in the development of the FSG KM system, where we are revisiting the search function. As I have said time and again, search is pivotal to the value of an ECM/KM system, and search is not a one-size fits all technology. (Watson is but one example of the richness that can be embodied in “search”). So yes, we are “revisting” search, with eyes set at something that goes beyond our current word and phrase searching capability. Now, I readily admit that my talents and my arsenal are nowhere near those of the team at IBM that built Watson, but I drew great inspiration from them. They demonstrated how lexical analysis, clustering, word pattern recognition and heuristics executed at the speed of a computer, tailored to a particular situation, can provide impressive recall and precision, as well as inference and “discovery”.  (I cannot help but wax nostalgic a time when explanation of a search tool was met with blurred eyes. Now virtually everyone gets it; Google is a household word. We are fortunate to be living in a time when many “off the shelf” search tools provide rich functionality. We are planning on starting our re-visit with a trial of Vivisimo.)

Watson can beat the best of the best Jeopardy champions. It deciphers questions posed in natural language, and looks at possible answers based on experience, patterns and connections. It does not retrieve a collection of content, but pinpoints potential answers. My point is “search” has become increasingly powerful. I often recall conversations I had with Dr. Matthew Koll many years ago, who used to enjoy posing to audiences the question “What if you could obtain perfect precision and recall, what would you do with it?”.

Therein lies the real challenge -  right? Watson demonstrates the possibility of achieving Koll’s dream – perfect recall with instinctive precision.  But, then what?  It’s fun to watch Watson beat humans at answering trivia questions – but that is not the goal of this technology, is it?  FSG’s KM system is light years behind Watson, but, if it can achieve 1% the impact that Watson achieved,  it will matter. FSGers are faced not with answering challenging trivia questions, but finding solutions to much more complex issues – and they so with creative approaches and determination. ECMers such as myself, are faced with daunting challenges of a different sort. Together, there is that perfect storm I mentioned earlier; that mission that stokes my fire.  I will be sure to revisit this issue based on our experience. Stay tuned …

Lest We Forget

In the days leading to the 10th anniversary of what is now simply known as "9/11", it is difficult not to encounter media reliving that moment and/or looking back on its aftermath. The focus of this blog has never been political, and I will not start now. But, in today's Metro, I read an article that, while focused on 9/11 had a ECM undertone to it, perhaps only picked up by enterprise content management (ECM) geeks such as myself.  The article, "The US Lexicon: New Words for a Changed World", provides an interesting overview of the effects of 9/11 on the American vocabulary. 9/11: now not just a date or series of numbers, but a label that evokes a day in history; a turning point. "War on Terror" a phrase and concept that did not exist prior. "Ground Zero", no longer the area closest to a bomb explosion, but a specific place in lower Manhattan.

Some three to four decades ago when I spent much time enlightening business and technical audiences on the capabilities of search engines (then full-text retrieval; yes even ECM has an evolving lexicon), the ability for an engine to keep pace with a language over time, or to adapt to a lexicon belonging to a specific "Community of practice", was a critical concept to appreciate and leverage.

Text retrieval grew from simple word-based queries into various intelligent approaches to understanding the meaning contained in words and phrases, to not just search on exact text strings, but to intelligently process the written word, the language and expand retrieval to intelligent adaptive concept-based retrieval. Foundation to this is customizable and/or adaptive lexicon management.

Search technology has come a long long way. But still retrieval tools, especially some of the more powerful were acquired and bundled into larger ECM platforms - e.g. FAST acquisition by Microsoft. For the most part lexical capabilities, or intelligent adaptive search technology is only available inside of large ECM platforms. Six months ago I blogged about my experience with small-medium ECM platfomrs that bundle retrieval, but typically in the form of more simple tools, e.g., Lucene. These tools do not adapt, comprehend, morph or expand a search into its various permutations, to treat retrieval conceptually, and/or support customized lexicons.

For those who have never experienced an "intelligent search tool", it is easy to  be led to believe that simpler search engines such as Lucene are the state of the industry.  But, standalone search tools, such as Vivisimo, Coveo and Endeca still do exist, and it is prudent that every ECM manager or knowledge manager, who finds themselves using a ECM platform or KM platform that does not provide an "intelligent search engine"  to ask themslevs what value would be achieved by integrating such a tool.

In one of the last gigs I had as a knowledge management/ECM, we brought in just such a search tool, (Vivisimo) - in this case to a very large corporation, for whom "intellignet" search, for a variety of reasons had escaped them. In one demonstration of "effective" search, they were literally blown away. Prior to this, they had undertaken a handful of attempts, some costing in the millions of dollars to develop and train a search engine to provide concept clusters, heuristic taxonomies and conceptual searching. Here it was - "Out out ofthe box".  More importantly, seeing "it work", they readily appreciated the power od conpet-based, heuristic clustering as a way to effectivley mine intelligence from contyent - not just locate words and phrases in text.

In my current position, as I previously blogged about, we began with a simple search tool, embedded in an ECM platform.  But our plan is very much focused on expanding this to include high end search. Size of a community and corpus of content somewhat effects the need for "intelligent search", but more improtantly, in virtually every situation you will need it becasue, as the article in today's Metro that insppired this post pointed out, langauge is always changing, across communities, industries and subject matter.

ECM - We've Come So Far, But Some are Still Stuck at the Gate

Wow – it has been a while since my last blog post (at least on this blog). Being not just a consultant/analyst but practitioner of ECM and KM sure is a full time job. It leaves little time to pontificate on market conditions.

But a few weeks ago, something occurred in my personal life that thrust me into the world of ECM, and I was so surprised by what I witnessed, that I felt compelled to blog about it.

In this case, I was not a consultant or practitioner, but end-user of ECM, (or lack there of.) You see, I refinanced my home.  

As many of you know, over the  last 2 decades I have worked with scores of organizations, designing and implementing integrated ECM systems (search, content management, workflow, etc.)  to change the way business is done.  Yet, last week I felt like it was 1965.

As I said, I refinanced my home. The process started well enough. Applications were completed online. My credit score and initial approval were conducted online and completed in under 30 minutes. (I was a happy consumer, and proud ECMer. But, what came next was shocking.

Almost 2 months later the paper work was “ready”, and I do mean paper work.  The closing session was conducted face-to-face, facing well over 30 paper documents.  There were at least three instances that I recall  in which one document superceded or negated the need for the other. Signatures were required redundantly multiple times. (Clearly somer eenginnering could be used.)

But what was really surprising was the fact that I had to seek out a notary, in the middle of this process, limiting when and where this session could take place. My signature  had to be wet signature, in each instance, in the presence of a notary, who had to affirm I was who I said I was – not just once but on well over half of the documents. I could not help think about the strides that the US Government, for example, has made in using e-signatures and forms, and forms of e-security to migrate processes to streamlined online systems. (How many have filed your taxes online, for example?)

To take part in this closing process was just a bit surprising. To my  brethren in the ECM consulting world, just think about it. Apparently the world is still ripe with opportunity. It brings to mind an earlier post, I wrote nearly 3 years ago. In it I concluded "... despite its age, ECM is an issue that is still growing - perhaps an eternal issue. Old issues linger, while new issues arise.  The talents and competencies  required of an ECMer grow.  But one thing is for sure there is great job security for those that do it well."  When I wrote that, I am not sure I was aware of just how poignant that message was. It still rings true, loud and clear. (You may want to read the earlier post for some great statistics on paper consumption and electronic filing.)

Document-based Collaboration Evolves Into a Powerhouse

If ever a topic were complex, it is the evolution of document collaboration. The complexity emanates from the evolution of the document itself.  In fact, today,  when people talk of document management an initial grounding question should be “define document. " Content is perhaps a better word nowadays.   Isn’t a web page a document?  An email, tweet, instant message, digitzed video, image file,  mashup of several content sources ? Today when one speaks of a “document” the possibilities are limitless.

Now compound that with the fact that while the boundaries of the media that define our documents have expanded, so too have the abilities to collaborate around a document.  Document collaboration can occur in many different scenarios:  content-to-content, content-to-device/application, and content-to-community/people scenario.  All are possible, and each is experiencing significant evolution and opportunity.  Each of these is not mutually exclusive, adding to the complexity of document collaboration, as well as the potential capabilities. 

We are in an age where our content can be both the impetus and bedrock of heighthened collaboration and knowledge exchange.  How?  Read on.

[The image displayed here comes from an article by Xerox Corporation.]

EMC Writers Summit: Third Time is a Charm

For those that followed the Twitter stream (#EMCSummit), you know that last Friday I had the honor of emceeing the third annual EMC Documentum writers summit. This was my third time (see blogs from 2009 and 2008).  Once again, a great group of fellow ECMers assembled to enjoy a thought provoking day of discussion and shared vision.  This year I was joined by return participants: Ralph Losey, Bryant Duhon, Gabe Acevedo, Virginia Backaitis; and welcomed first-timers: Laurence Hart, Melissa Webster Johnny Gee, Susan Nunziata,  Joab Jackson, Mike Vizard,and Bob Boeri.

Additionally,the group was rounded out by several EMC Documentum people including Whitney Tidmarsh,  Marko Sillanpaa,  Andrew Chapman, Chris Preston, Natalie Aijluni, Andrea Alfonso, and Dave De Jear.

The topics we focused on this year seem to reflect the "next generation" of the topics we focused on last year - showing that the ECM Market has indeed progressed, although, rather slowly in the past year.

In fact, a focus on the state of the market is how we kicked off the day, with a presentation from Melissa Webster, who provided the latest research from IDC.  Discussion immediately ensued when Melissa proposed that there is no ECM market, per se, but rather a compound market comprised of multiple individual technology markets such as enterprise search, workflow, BPM, social platforms, document management, records management, etc..   Like many IT departments, Melissa conceded that IDC is heavily siloed in the way it approaches ECM. Perhaps while not a big problem for IDC, this can be a big issue for IT shops and their respective organizations, who do not appreciate that the silos need to be torn down, figuratively, and integrated to work as a single system, in order to achieve maximum benefit. That "end result", a few of us proposed, is "ECM". This of course led to a sub-topic near and dear to my heart, and a handful of other participants, "Should the industry look for a term beyond ECM?". Readers of this blog know what I have to say about that. Similarly Laurence Hart shared his often stated opinion on the matter - in favor of keeping the term, lest he have to re-educate his market on a new term - and for what value?

Melissa, with encouragement from EMC, brought up the phrase "case management" as a way to describe application specific instances of ECM, a term currently in use within EMC. The term does not seem to offer any more clarity on labeling ECM ... We moved on ...

Melissa shared that SharePoint users as a subgroup of the survey population emerged as the most vocal concerning the lack of content management in the organization. SharePoint was characterized not so much as a content management tool, as a content creation and sharing tool - often leading to proliferation of unmanaged content.

Interestingly enough, despite technology advances in the ECM world, the business drivers behind investments in ECM have not changed for years: securing intellectual property, creating a repository of record and compliance. Despite the many forward thinking benefits that are possible with a robust ECM system, business investments stay mired in mundane security issues.  Despite the efforts of many analysts (including yours truly) the norm in the market is to invest in these technologies when content security and compliance are at issue, as opposed to a way to radically change publishing models and the value derived from enterprise content.

There was a glimmer of hope. Mobility of the workforce and ECM-sharing devices are creating an impetus to re-examine the value and potential of ECM. (Another issue I have blogged about many times.)

This was a great segueway into Andrew Chapman's presentation, which was really more of a discussion on "If all the obstacles to ECM adoption - e.g., user/culture acceptance, networks bandwidth, cost, security, etc.- were to go away, what would you do with ECM?" 

Some discussion ensued around the possibilities of providing ECM as a consumer-oriented commodity. Most of us believed that there was a market potential for a personal ECM platform dor "everyday users" of the web who face fragmented functionality and repositories such as FliCkr, FaceBook, SlideShare, etc.  Mike Vizard even offered a product name - "MyCrap.com".  Beyond this however, the discussion fell back on issues regarding SharePoint and other "real word/mundane" issues, despite ongoing encouragement from Andrew to ignore these. I guess that similar to many business managers, it is difficult to think of ECM in a vision for the future when there are so many immediate issues and problems to deal with.

This provided the perfect segueway to Ralph's presentation on eDiscovery (talk  about real and present issues). Ralph's presentation was the most repetitive from the year before - but that was very telling in and of itself. Talk about not applying ECM in new ways. Despite the importance of the issue, most organizations have yet to really effectively address eDiscovery, especially applying advanced search technology to the situation. As Ralph shared, the situation is only getting worse as business users (and their personal life alter egos) find more and more ways to create and save content online. The picture that Ralph paints is frightening, as he explains that without proper management, the sheer cost of discovery can undermine the administration of justice. I encourage those of you who would like to better understand this issue to view his excellent video.

Whitney however, offered a ray of sunshine. Not all organizations are under-utilizing ECM. EMC Documentum has assembled a Leadership Council for Information Advantage, an advisory group made up of global information leaders from brand-name enterprises. These individuals are visionaries and have taken ECM in their respective organizations beyond "the usual."  They have already published a report, available for download in which they share lessons learned, best practices, and expert guidance on how to transform information into business value. One finding that jumped out of Whitney's overview was that Cloud was a game changer that cannot be ignored.

We concluded our day with a presentation from Bryant Duhon, in which he painted a "realistic" picture of social media. Bryant started by agreeing with comments made by Ralph earlier, that social media and social computing are very real and increasingly popular. But, as an early practitioner, he felt there were no real best practices to speak of. There are no  "experts" in Bryant's opinion as the technology and its application is nascent.

Ah yes, and so the growth and impact of Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 from a business, legal challenge and technology perspective is very likely to be a focal point for next year's summit.  Stay tuned...

A Great Big Dollop of Secret Sauce on My Face: Culture and ECM

I’m Back.  Yes,  I know it has been many weeks since I have blogged (and my Twitter activity has been a bit anemic as well.)  Dan and I are eyeball deep with a major, challenging and amazing ECM and KM consulting gig.  We are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel though. Much progress has been made, but the organization has a long way to go – at least concerning ECM and E2.0.

It’s as if they pulled a Rip Van Winkle and let the ECM and E2.0 technology world move on without them for the past 2 decades. But I am not throwing stones. To the contrary – in spite of this, the company is very successful, thriving, growing, and highly respected as a leader in its industry.  This fact is humbling, because it reminds the ECM and E2.0 zealot in me that there is so much more to success than technology.  Oh, I know that I, and many other industry analysts have said this many times – but here I am engaged in a textbook case of just how unimportant technology can be.

Their secret sauce- it’s no secret. I have talked about it before as well, it’s corporate culture, and the way this company permeates it all the way down the employee chain. It’s this organization’s greatest asset, IMHO, and it is so powerful that, as I said, it keeps the company successfully buzzing along despite a gap in ECM.  (I can only imagine how things will take off when the “lubrication” that ECM provides is injected into the wheels of business.- There's that ECM zealot again.)

Most of you are probably familiar with the graphic (below) that I often use to describe KM as the alignment of business strategy, people/culture, processes and technology. I know that I have said before that culture is the most important among these, In fact that was the focus of my presentation at this year's  E2.0 Conference.   But I think that I have never really appreciated just how powerful and important people/culture really is until now. And so, I just don’t say it again, but SHOUT it (and eat a bit of (ECM) humble pie) “Culture is far and away the most powerful of the components.”   My client has taught me that really great culture can more than adequately make up for a dearth of technology.

Oddly enough, this reawakening came at a time,when Dan Keldsen, among others, got involved in an online debate/dialogue with Susan Scrupski – of 2.0 Adoption Council fame.  The debate provided a mirror reflection on my awakening. Susan was lamenting that Apple and Trader Joe’s are examples of most successful companies, that do not practice the mantra of E.0 – transparency.  She stated “Truthfully, there are many, many successful companies that do not subscribe to a culture of openness and sharing, much less transparency....” Susan went so far as to label Trader Joe’s as  “anti-social.”(See why the debate ensued.)

Susan, the secret sauce is not your prescribed “E2.0 transparent culture.”  The secret sauce is "any" healthy corporate culture – and quit frankly you do not know what their corporate (i.e., internal) culture is. (Is that what is bugging you?) That is their secret sauce – and likely a smattering of technology in these cases as well. But just as I am sometimes too over zealous about technology –culture zealots sometimes miss the point as well. There is not one best way to “do culture”. Transparency and emergence are not the only traits of a healthy culture, nor do they necessarily guarantee success by themselves. Indeed, Scrupski’s 2.0 Adoption Council is a very much closed community. I am sure that within its firewall there is great collaboration and transparency, but they do not share all they know and discuss with “everyone”, nor do they allow just anyone into their community.

The 2.0 Adoption Council is likely the same as Trader Joe's and Apple. While I have had a chance to consult with Apple  – I have not had the opportunity to work with Trader Joe's – though I am a loyal customer.  Do not underestimate the value, and QUALITY of the internal culture of thee organizations. Are they "transparent and social” with the general public - maybe not, but they got it right nonetheless.

Ripe culture does not mean always open, transparent and fully customer driven. The secret sauce of internal culture sometimes is just that – a secret.

ECM: Sometimes You Can't Fight City Hall

Nearly a year ago, I reported on an ECM story, close to home, and of a high profile. Last September, a top aide to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino was cited for deleting hundreds of e-mails - subject to legal discovery - in violation of laws regulating public records.  At the time Menino explained - whoops it was caused by a "glitch".  As I reported back in September 2009, thanks to ECM technology (i.e. forensics), the e-mails were recovered.

Well, Massachusetts Attorney General, Martha Coakley has dropped any and all charges against the aide, stating that he did not willfully destroy the hundreds of records.  Apparently Coakley - like Menino believes the "glitch" theory. 

No back-ups?  No automated records management and e-mail management system? No legal hold technology?  It is amazing that in this day and age, our governments can still go without mainstream ECM technology. It was found that City Hall protocol instructs employees to delete their e-mails daily - no matter the content and context?  Hmmm? I am sorry your honor but our company's protocol requires us to delete all of our records daily. We thought there was a back-up - guess not?  Really? No one in city hall understood that chief Michael Kineavy's emails are supposed to be saved as public record?

Maybe, given the fundamental nature and criticality of electronic content to government and society at large, we should require our civil servants to have at least a high level working knowledge of ECM. The city claims to have subsequently invested in new technology, but are they using it properly?  I know where my city could get some good education and advice :).  Hey Martha and Mayor Menino - we are right next door.

Flipping Over Content Delivery

 
Readers of my work know that one of my more favorite aspects of ECM is content delivery. Along with mobility, the ability to re-purpose modular "chunks" of content in a variety of formats and contexts significantly enhances the value derived from ECM, increases the effectiveness of communication and quite frankly is just plain fun.

I have blogged about the concept often over the last few years, and originally began writing about it more than 15 years ago.  Many never seemed to quite get it - but slowly over the last few years more and more apps have emerged that clearly demonstrate the value of dynamic content delivery.  The latest is a free app known as Flipboard.

Flipboard  is a personalized digital magazine, created by culling social media and content pertinent to the reader.  This is the future of publishing, and it will take off - of that I am sure.  But do not just take my word for it.  Flipboard has received many great reviews, and commentary , that like this post, positions Flipboard not just as an iPad app, but another step forward in dynamic content delivery.  Initial reaction has been so positive that the provider had to ask for patience with potential early "blips in service."

- My point, I am not enamored with Flipboard per se - but am very excited to see yet another well done app come to the market that helps all of us experience the power of dynamic content delivery. Merge this with DAM and multimedia and the possibilities for new more effective ways to communicate are endless and the boundaries of ECM are stretched once again. 

Oh yeah, the ECM nerd in me is again having a very good day.

Do You Need to Pick Through Garbage to Find Valuable Content?

It has been weeks since I blogged, or even Tweeted on a regular basis. Where have I been? Dan and I are on the road, consulting on a very complex, grand and most interesting ECM project. A Fortune 100 company that remains successful and growing in spite of the economy, has managed to achieve such greatness without benefit of a formal Information Architecture and ECM strategy. This project has been the focus of our time and attention of late. The challenge is great and the potential opportunity huge. We are dealing with a large and diverse collection of content in various stages of maturity, quality, accuracy and accessibility. The organization readily realizes that years of ad hoc, manual and individual approaches to content management have resulted in a nearly chaotic collection of content and processes. Many issues exist, from a need for enterprise search and a centralized taxonomy, to strategies for content distribution. But a fundamental issue is the state of the collection of content itself. Among the many repositories, valuable content resides amongst dated, ambiguous, unapproved and at times contradictory content. A critical decision has been made to clean up the content repositories before addressing findability. The merit of beginning with the establishment of search and taxonomy, under a series of UIs, and using these to expedite the discovery of dated and inaccurate content and subsequently deleting it was debated, but a fundamental decision was made not to expose users to the “garbage”, but rather, first authenticate and clean up the content and subsequently use the findability tools to expose an “official body of quality content.” But I am not blogging today simply to relay this experience. While deep in thought about this situation, I heard a news story that brought this decision point to mind, and ignited in me a chance to blog about the BP oil “spill”. (Hey its not a spill - it’s an underwater gusher. Let’s call it what it is.) Despite many strong opinions about this disaster, I have refrained from blogging about it because the charter of my blog is ECM. Last week’s news, however, gave me my excuse to express opinion about this disaster, ala ECM. BP is using a form of ECM and Web 2.0 to control public opinion. They have hired “reporters” to write about the “spill” from a “more positive” perspective. These “reporters” are using phrases to describe their experience watching the clean up effort such as: “...enjoyed the spectacular ballet at sea… dolphins swimming around us. Even a shark came along to watch the show.” (Watch the show? Try struggle to survive, in disgust? And what's with "ballet?"). They have also reported that “... hotels have been prospering because so many people have come here from BP and other oil emergency response teams.” According to other independent, i.e non-BP owned sources, this is simply not true and the local tourist trade is seriously hurting. I keep my outrage and disgust about this entire situation in check – the point I want to raise here is this, if left unchecked and un-managed, garbage such as this could potentially be retrieved as “fact.” Content authentication and source identification are critical to a comprehensive ECM strategy. Internet and intranet sites alike have the potential to provide access to a wealth of content, but can contain “garbage” among the “jewels”, garbage as rank and lethal as the oil “spill” itself. (OK I snuck that in.) Consumers of content need to be diligent in filtering garbage from “fact”, or be assured, as is the case with our client going forward, that systems are in place to control publication. I am not advocating censorship, but ECM systems need to provide some approach to quality control, tailored to the scope and needs of individual situations. Fact checking, authority and credentials of authors, and/or providing clear and blatant identification of authorship are all steps that can be taken to at least let the reader decide what is content and what is “garbage”. In an earlier blog post, I directly addressed the need to authenticate content – of all types. As an issue fundamentally critical to any and all collections of content – especially those that are “findable.” In another earlier post I commented on the irony of bloggers who were “unhappy” with a regulation that compelled them to disclose any affiliations or gifts they received in connection with their blog writing. I have to say that at least in the case of BP, authors are identified as “BP Reporters”. So at least the potential is there for the reader to use a garbage filter on the consumption of content. – In the absence of content quality controls, such as those being implemented by my client, readers must beware.

E2.0 With FAME Will Come Obscurity

Last week the Enterprise 2.0 Conference was held right here in my hometown, Boston MA. As usual, the E2.0 community was abuzz with Twitter (#e2conf). But, now, with the show a happy memory, many of us attendees reflect more deeply than 140 characters allows, in our blog posts. The blogosphere is ripe with conference coverage. Among them I recommend those from Sameer Patel, Jacob Morgan, Rawn and Ron Miller. I will refrain from sharing observations that are redundant to theirs – except in cases where I think redundancy will add to the power of the message. So that said – here goes. in keeping with tradition, I have rolled-up my impression of the conference into an acronym. This year the conference is characterized as

FAME

OK, to explain the acronym - lets start at the end;

E is for ENERGETIC

More so than ever before, I could not help but feel the energy level of the crowd (Yes crowd, this may have been the most popularly attended E2.0 conference yet), as the spilled out of sessions and milled around the hallways. MAybe it was all that fine Starbucks coffee that was being served - but I think not. Read on... Now, back to the beginning;

F is for FUNDED

I came away with the impression that most of the attendees were not there for theoretical or introductory eduction - but practical insight on how to succeed with Enterprise 2.0. Most seemed to be working on real and funded programs, (Which likely was the root of the aforementioned energy level). I could not help but pick up on this during the various Q and A sessions and one-on-ones that I had. Indeed, for the first time in 2 years I walked away with no less than 3 real leads – i.e. individuals seeking proposals for targeted consulting.

A is for APPLICATION-focused

The conference responded to the attendees' focus on real-world issues with a nice mix of case studies, all focused on the leveraging of E2.0 functionality to specific business applications - many presentations in the form of real-world case studies. My favorite was a group of three panelists all discussing how innovation was managed as a process within their respective organizations, partially based on collaborative software. Innovation Management was a popularly discussed business application at the conference, overall, including 2 of the keynotes. The crowd was also coached several times by those pioneers of E2.0, the 2.0 Adoption Council members. Their experiences are always a conference highlight. Lastly,

M is for MATURE

This is perhaps reflective of the other letters in the acronym. Presentations were far more grounded in real-word examples, workshops were provided by industry veterans, and attendees came seeking practical advice to move funded project forward. The market has matured. Both of my presentations focused on implementation issues, each illustrated by real-world examples. The first looked at how culture impacts the implementation of E2.0. (Download slides) My second presentation, based on a study done with the 2.0 Adoption Council, provided insights into deploying E2.0 in a controlled environment (in this case focusing on privacy issues in the European Union).

Esecurity e202

View more presentations from Carl Frappaolo.

In the presentation I broadened the definition and scope of E2.0 (See slide 4) – positioning it within an integrated Enterprise Content Management (ECM) strategy. (ECM – at least the way I define it.) In the end, I would have to say that Maturity was the big take away for me this year. In fact, as I was presenting E2.0 and Privacy it struck me, and I stated, that I believe the success of the E2.0 show – characterized by the maturing of its focus and audience, will be the demise of the show or at least the label Enterprise 2.0. Typical of many nascent technologies – they are couched in definitions and frameworks that position them as business applications. I draw the analogy to imaging. Circa 1990 imaging was discussed as if it were a business application. People spoke in phrases such as “we do imaging”; "I am the manager of our imaging application" . It may seem odd to think of scanning technology as a business application, as opposed to a way to create and share content within business applications – but I assure you that was the case. Imaging too had a trade show built entirely around it – less we forget that AIIM stands for the Association for information and IMAGE management. The focus, attitudes and energy surrounding E2.0 are changing. I do think that the success of E2.0 will be the demise of the conference, as we know it. But this is a good thing, and it is actually critical. In its nascent state the market focused on E2.0 as an application: "Does your organization have an E2.0 project, budget, leader/champion?". This will fade into obscurity as we realize you don’t "do E2.0", . you leverage this genre of capabilities to facilitate and strengthen and redefine business applications. This was perhaps foreshadowed in the subtext of this year's conference title, "Business Powered by Collaboration." I give the conference 2 – 3 years tops, before it either fades into history, or morphs into something related – but bigger. This is not a reflection on the show, but market maturity. In fact once again, Steve Wylie and crew are to be congratulated for their skillful orchestration and attention to detail. The show was a huge success, but with success will come obscurity (and likely something bigger and better.)