Digital Landfill

New ERM, BPM, Findability and Capture surveys coming...

A recent AIIM survey indicated that 28% of organizations would take more than a month to produce all of the organizational information related to a former customer or constituent, and that 18% had been exposed to a legal challenge in the last 12 months. The survey also found that while a third of organizations plan to migrate to a single content and records management system, a further third plan to link up existing repositories via a single-sign on portal. 

In its next survey, entitled "Electronic Records Management (ERM) -- how confident are we about discovery and long-term compliance?" AIIM plans to explore more fully what the levels of risk perception are, what policies and plans are in place and how well existing solutions are working. 

With its 65,000 strong community of information management users, AIIM has a sound track record of establishing the "wisdom of the crowd" as regards current business opinion on managing records, reducing risk and driving more efficient processes. 

Issues to be measured in the 2009 ERM Survey include: 

• Business drivers - risk and legal discovery 
• Policies and intentions 
• Scope of existing and planned Records Management projects 
• Is the paper records mountain still growing? 
• User acceptance and automatic classification 
• Manage-in-place versus Enterprise Search 
• Storing records in the Cloud 
• Long-term formats and media longevity 

The Records Management survey will be run in mid August, with first results published at the beginning of September. The final report will be available as a free download from the AIIM website, www.aiim.org. 

For providers of Records management products and services, AIIM offers select sponsorships of the research effort. These “underwriters” take part in the framing of the question set, enjoy significant exposure in the published report, and receive qualified leads from report downloads. If you would like more details of how to participate, email: sales@aiim.org or call (607) 272-1036. 

In the upcoming months, AIIM will also be researching BPM, Capture, and Search & Findability. Download a sponsors brochure HERE. Exclusive sponsorships are also available.  

For free downloads of previous AIIM Market Intelligence research, please click HERE.

8 Things to Look For In a Document Management Service Provider

Today’s guest blogger is Mitch Taube, President and CEO of Digiscribe.  Mitch is the principal founder of Digiscribe, which he formed in 2002 to provide companies of all sizes with cost-effective paperless office solutions.

Mitch has served as Chairman and Committee Member of the AIIM Document Management Service Bureau Executive Forum. He speaks at various industry seminars and trade shows.

Readers who are in the document channel should check out the DMSPEF event this year in Scottsdale on November 5-7.  It is the oldest and best event for senior executives in the document channel.

8 Things to Look For In a Document Management Service Provider

Not every document management company has the expertise and flexibility to meet your firm's needs. Follow these guidelines to choose a document scanning and document management service provider that will help your company operate more efficiently, improve your bottom line and strengthen your competitive position; now and as you plan for growth in the future.

1. Focus and Experience.

Choose the service provider with the most experience, and look for companies for which document scanning is their primary focus. You can purchase copiers elsewhere; you want a document imaging provider that has built its reputation on providing quality document scanning, document indexing, and document management services. 

Make sure your potential document scanning provider offers strong references from firms in your industry or from firms using their services for similar applications.  For example, if your company will be incorporating document scanning and electronic document management in the accounts payable department, do they have a reference from another firm doing the same? 

2. Flexibility of Services.

Does the service provider offer several solutions for your document imaging and management needs? Steer clear of companies that require your firm to change its processes to fit their solutions. A top-notch document scanning firm works with every client to provide the services that best fit their current and future requirements. This means having the ability to seamlessly incorporate additional projects and people. 

3. On-Site and Outsourcing Options.

One of the ways a professional document management company meets every client's needs is by offering both on-site and outsourced scanning options. Whether your documents must remain on-site, can be processed at an off-site document scanning facility, or a combination of both, your document imaging supplier should be able to meet your requirements.  Additionally, document management software for the storage, retrieval and distribution of your documents should be available as a web-based repository, or as an in-house solution running on your internal infrastructure.

4. Reliability.

Whether you choose an in-house or outsourced solution, does the service provider deliver what it promises? A professional document imaging company should provide quick turnaround on document scanning, meet the deadlines set by clients, provide 99.9% uptime or better on its web-based document management repository, and be responsive to both service issues and additional needs. 

5. Local Offices.

Look for a company within a 50-100 mile radius of yours to avoid interruption in your key business processes. Easily accessible production facilities and customer service teams promote peace of mind when you're handing over control of mission-critical documents.  You should also visit the document scanning facility before you award a project to observe the integrity of their operations, quality control procedures and production process.

6. A Secure, State-of-the-Art Document Processing Facility.

A well-run facility should be designed for unprecedented speed, efficiency and security, and certified by one of the leading document scanning manufacturers.  A top-notch facility should offer:

• Massive Processing Capability
• Uninterrupted Service 
• Failsafe Security
• Optimized Workflow 
• Maximum Productivity

7. Client-Focused Services.

Scanning and indexing a document are only the beginning of a solution; look for a company that understands how your business works and the role that the document management solution will play in improving your business processes and bottom line. Client-focused services such as on-site staff training are standard when working with a professional document management company. Beyond training, there should be a single point of contact ensuring your complete satisfaction with the quality, accuracy and timeliness of every project. 

8. Great Value. 

While cost should not be the only factor when selecting a document-imaging provider, a company worth your business will offer cost-sensitive, expandable services that won't destroy your bottom line. Be wary of high-cost add-ons and vague promises of affordable services as you grow. A great document scanning company will spell out projected costs up-front, stand behind its commitments and show you a quick Return on Investment.

Document scanning can increase staff productivity, lower overall costs and position your company for expansion without growing pains. By carefully weighing service providers against the 8 guidelines above, you're assured of a document management solution that best fits your business plan and bottom line.

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AIIM's Document Management Service Providers Executive Forum provides owners and senior managers in document imaging/ conversion/ preservation services with highly educational and vendor-neutral instruction. As an ideal peer-to-peer networking event, the Forum fosters mindshare to compare past experiences and ideas for future business development.

Top 10 document and ECM posts in June...

1. 8 steps you can take to better manage your inbox
2. 8 things you need to know to build an ECM strategy 
3. 8 things vendors need to know about selling document management to small businesses 
4. 8 things you need to know about SharePoint governance 
5. 8 things you need to know about Twitter and business 
6. Some musings about the future of ECM 
7. 8 things you need to know about using ECM for regulatory compliance 
8. 8 things small businesses need to know about document management 
9. 8 things you need to know about content classification and ECM 
10. 10 fast facts about document management    

Just for fun - political correctness

This is from a University web site (name withheld in case she actually applies here!) that we were looking at to arrange a tour for our daughter.

Apparently the student self esteem movement has reached the point now where it doesn't even matter who you actually are, but "how you are most comfortable" describing yourself.  It would really be fun if there was an option for an open answer to this question on this form.

I'm hoping that soon there will be other more flexible entries on the form.  Like "how would you most comfortably describe" ... let's see... maybe your GPA?  or maybe your SAT scores?  

Or maybe "what tuition would your parents be most comfortable paying?"

Top 10 ECM and Document Management Posts in June

1. 8 steps you can take to better manage your inbox
2. 8 things you need to know to build an ECM strategy 
3. 8 things vendors need to know about selling document management to small businesses 
4. 8 things you need to know about SharePoint governance 
5. 8 things you need to know about Twitter and business 
6. Some musings about the future of ECM 
7. 8 things you need to know about using ECM for regulatory compliance 
8. 8 things small businesses need to know about document management 
9. 8 things you need to know about content classification and ECM 
10. 10 fast facts about document management    

Get noticed in the e-discovery marketplace

Would you characterize your marketing effectiveness as being in the 45% "good" or "excellent" or the 55% that is "fair" or "poor?"

The simple fact is that it is hard to measure marketing effectiveness.

AIIM has introduced a new records management and ediscovery microsite.  

If you are interested in getting noticed in a crowded marketplace, a microsite sponsorship can give you guaranteed leads and visibility - at rates that begin at only $2,000 per quarter.

Just check out this short video - 90 seconds long - I think you'll see this is something different from the usual ho-hum marketing opportunities.  You can get more detail from Len Carey at lcarey@aiim.org.

Here's the direct link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed3BbGAPLpw

ECM, Security, & the Cloud - A Hybrid Approach

You're invited to an upcoming webinar on cloud computing - July 15 at 2 pm eastern.

While security is still often-cited as the primary concern given by users hesitant to place their content in the “cloud,” the software-as-a-service model is functioning: saving money and providing value for companies regardless of industry and for a variety of applications. That said, sometimes, some information can’t be managed in the public cloud either due to corporate culture or industry regulations. In those situations, you don’t need to completely forego a cloud strategy. 

Join us for a strategy session that discusses how you can formulate a hybrid strategy to keep your information safe behind a firewall while providing access from the cloud to that information.  Here's the link to register -- free session -- http://www.aiim.org/Events/Webinar-cloud-hybrid.aspx

8 Ways to Reduce your Storage and Bandwidth Costs for Document Imaging Solutions

Our guest poster today is Lou Franco, Director of Engineering at Atalasoft.  Atalasoft publishes DotImage, a .NET Imaging SDK and Vizit, a Document Viewer for SharePoint.  He can be reached via email at lou.franco@atalasoft.com, on Twitter (@loufranco) or via his blog.

If you are serious about document and content technologies, you should also check out our training program.

8 Ways to Reduce your Storage and Bandwidth Costs for Document Imaging Solutions

Enterprise Imaging applications can be challenging to run efficiently. Unlike other data, document images are usually large, which means they take up a lot of memory, use a lot of disk storage, and take a long time to process or send over a network.

However, advanced image processing techniques can easily get you an order of magnitude improvement in size, speed or bandwidth. If you start using a few of these techniques, you’ll see how easily you can reduce your hardware budget (which, incidentally, will reduce power consumption, maintenance, downtime, etc.)

1.  Resample the image to a smaller size and adjust the DPI so that it prints to the same size. 

A color scan of US letter size paper at 300 DPI is 2,550 pixels wide by 3,300 pixels long, for a total of 25MB. If you resample so that you cut each dimension in half, and then adjust the DPI to 150, your image takes up just over 6MB, or 25% of the original. This will reduce the storage size and the bandwidth needed to transmit the image over a network.

2.  Convert to grayscale or black and white. 

If your document is using 24-bit color, but you don’t mind losing color, you can convert to grayscale, which uses about 33% of the space. If you can convert to 1-bit without losing meaning, your documents will be about 4% of the original size. This will reduce the storage size and the bandwidth needed to transmit the image over a network.

3.  Use a better compression algorithm. 

Advanced compression algorithms like JBIG2 and JPEG2000 can result in smaller files without sacrificing quality. You might not have an easy way of viewing these images directly, but PDF supports them as a way to compress its images, so put them in a PDF and anyone with Acrobat Reader can view them.  [Note, information on industry standards can be found at AIIM Standards.]

4.  Use tiled formats. 

If you often need just part of an image, use a tiled format, such as Tiled-TIFF, which makes getting regions of the image faster. If you have web-based viewers that know how to tile images before sending them, you’ll use fewer server resources to tile the image.

5.  Use automated border crop. 

Some scans, especially of smaller items, like checks, have a large dark border around the edges. Use an algorithm that can detect and remove this, leaving you with just the important part of the image. Incidentally, this will save you ink if you print these documents.

6.  Remove blank pages. 

If you are scanning two-sided documents, you probably have some blank pages. Detect and remove them.

7.  Remove unneeded metadata. 

Images often carry around extra metadata that was put in by the device or software that created them. If you don’t need it, remove it.  You’ll save storage and bandwidth. If you need the data, it might be better to extract it and store it separately.

8.  Create thumbnails on the server, and send them on demand. 

If you are preparing a web page of thumbnails, then make them on the server (don’t use browser features to resize them). Detect if the thumbnail is viewable on the page, and request it on demand. This will lower bandwidth requirements and make the pages load faster.

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This post is part of an ongoing guest blog series around the overall theme of "8 things."  The idea is to tap into the collective experience of members/readers on topics that they are passionate about.  (But hey -- related to information, documents, content, or records!).  Click HERE for a full list of topics that we've covered.  Got an idea you want to pitch for an "8 Things" column?  Pitch me at johnmancini@aiim.org -- especially if you are an END USER. 

Other posts in the series...

8 steps you can take to better manage your inbox

8 things you need to know about Twitter and business

8 things vendors need to know about selling document management to small businesses 

8 things you need to know to build an ECM strategy 

8 things you need to know about SharePoint governance 

8 things you need to know about using ECM for regulatory compliance  

8 things you need to know about information risk 

8 things small businesses need to know about document management 

8 things you need to know to manage the explosion of information  

8 things you need to know about content classification and ECM  

8 ways to increase user adoption in an ECM project  

8 reasons why information governance makes sense   

8 steps to the ISO 15489 Records Management methodology   

8 steps to consider when starting an ECM project    

8 things you need to know about workflow and business process engineering    

What to do after being laid off...

A friend sent me this and there is a certain unfortunate grim reality to it...

But here's something else you can do while looking for a new gig - get training and upgrade your skills.

Here is a link describing our training courses.  

If any of these look interesting and you are between positions right now, contact Georgina Clelland at gclelland@aiim.org and she'll come up with a special discount for you.  I know it doesn't fix everything, but hopefully it will help a bit.

8 Things You Need to Know About Workflow & Business Process Engineering

Karuana Gatimu is a Solution Architect for ECM and BI solutions as well as an AIIM Certified ECM Practitioner.  With 18 years of experience in this space as a technologist and content producer she is currently the lead SharePoint Architect for Skechers USA, writes a blog, SharePoint Strategist and is one of the driving forces behind SharePoint user groups in California.

This post is part of an ongoing guest blog series around the overall theme of "8 things."  The idea is to tap into the collective experience of members/readers on topics that they are passionate about.  (But hey -- related to information, documents, content, or records!).  Click HERE for a full list of topics that we've covered.  Got an idea you want to pitch for an "8 Things" column?  Pitch me at johnmancini@aiim.org.

8 Things You Need to Know About Workflow & Business Process Engineering 

1. Know Your Business.

It is extremely difficult to be a good Business Process Engineer (BPE) if you don't understand your native business processes. Take the time to understand the real needs of business users and the enterprise as a whole before jumping in to automating workflows and deploying sexy on-line forms and task queues. Do not - I repeat Do Not - mention specific technologies. Listen, listen, listen and then listen some more! You'll thank me later. 

2. Automating a Poor Process is a Bad Idea.   

The majority of the effort in automating workflows is with the people, not the technology. Getting good requirements, helping people to collaborate and work more efficiently is the heavy lifting. Often, you will need to have multiple meetings to get people on the same page about how the process should occur. Once you have agreement and documented it with a flow chart of some sort you will be ready to apply the technology to the process. Making this engineering process relevant to business users is critical to success. P.S. Don't forget to get everyone to sign that flowchart. Again, you'll thank me later! 

3. Pay Attention to the User Interface.   

If users do not understand and adopt your solution all your business process engineering is useless. It is very important that the user interface to your workflow product be agreeable and relatively intuitive to your user base. Take the time to brand it. Make it look like it belongs to your organization. Have some fun with this and get people talking about your solution. Never underestimate the power of water cooler buzz to make or break your project. 

4. Accommodating the Mobile Manager/Executive is Critical.   

To gain real adoption and success your executive managers need to be able to approve or deny workflow tasks on the run. Blackberry or Windows Mobile support may not be an obvious requirement of your system but it will drive adoption like very few other things. Several workflow vendors offer this as an OOTB feature. Look for it to aid your exec's in utilizing the system and the rest of your users will follow. Besides, happy efficient executives are more likely to approve the budget for your next project. 4. Utilize an Iterative Development Best Practice If you try to re-engineer the Universe you will most likely fail and collide the wrong particles causing a megaton implosion of your career! Pick a small project that has some true value to your users and start there. When people ask for more features when they see how cool it is tell them on the "next iteration" of the solution. Create your own versioning system and stick to it. Leave them wanting more! 

5. Get someone from Marketing or PR involved in your Project.   

Let’s face it, most BPE's are not all that creative when it comes to marketing our solutions. We may be code warriors or true systems experts but sometimes our communication is challenging for regular users to understand. Get someone on your team who specializes in communication, both visual and verbal if possible. Let this person assist you in selling your project, spiffing up your presentations and beautifying your training guides. Have fun, use color and pick a good slogan. Then your solution will stick in the minds of users. 

6. Constantly Validate Expectations.   

Project documentation and communication is critical to making sure your user community, executive managers and vendors know what is going to be delivered to them and expected from them. Often times the pressure of a timeline puts this phase of project documentation on the back burner. Often times those same projects fail. Give yourself enough time to confirm with your project stakeholders, both in writing and in person that you are going to deliver what they expect. When you have launched your project make sure there is way for your user community to provide you with anonymous feedback as a part of your project post-mortem or quality assurance process. 

7. Deliver Quality Even if you Have to Change a Deliverable Date.   

As a BPE often we are doubling as the Project Manager. In this scenario you are in charge of the project schedule. Do not hesitate to pull the plug on your go-live date if you are not 98% confident your solution a.) meets expectations, b) is technically solid and c.) looks great. Move your date if you must but do not deliver a half baked solution. Trust is the most important thing you can earn from your organization - don't burn it trying to rush to make a date. 

8. Don't Give Up - Stay Enthusiastic.

In every workflow or business process engineering process there comes a low point. Stay true to your ideal of making the workplace a more efficient, smoothly running machine. Don't let people's fear of change bring you down. Believe in yourself and the project you are running. Take heart - if people are freaking out then to some extent you are doing the right thing. 

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This post is part of an ongoing guest blog series around the overall theme of "8 things."  The idea is to tap into the collective experience of members/readers on topics that they are passionate about.  (But hey -- related to information, documents, content, or records!).  Click HERE for a full list of topics that we've covered.  Got an idea you want to pitch for an "8 Things" column?  Pitch me at johnmancini@aiim.org.

Need training?  as noted above, Karuana is an ECM Practitioner.  AIIM is the largest provider of content, document, records, and business process management training in the world.

E-mail problems -- sheer overload tops the list

The latest AIIM survey on e-mail management highlights the enormous resources that are being applied in most organizations simply to keep up with the e-mail torrent.  50% of responses spend at least 1.5 hours per day processing e-mail.  Click HERE for free access (you just need to register or log-in) to the survey results.

Interested in using this graph on your web site?  Just ask.

The latest AIIM survey on e-mail management highlights the enormous resources that are being applied in most organizations simply to keep up with the e-mail torrent.  50% of responses spend at least 1.5 hours per day processing e-mail.  Click HERE for free access (you just need to register or log-in) to the survey results.