Digital Landfill

Top 10 Document Management Posts for November

1. 10 Fast Facts About Document Management Value
2. 8 Things to Watch for in the Coming Recession
3. 10 Commandments for an Effective DM Project
4. What do you see as the impact of the recession on DM and CM projects?
5. Panera...I beg you don't blow it
6. SharePoint Deja Vu
7. Effective Marketing 101
8. Marketing During a Recession
9. Spot Survey of AIIM End Users Points to Recession Challenges, But Resiliency
10. Where does the document channel see opportunity in 2009?

And don't forget for that hard to buy for person -- Will's Christmas List

As the economy tightens, it's more important than ever to invest in yourself -- check out AIIM's training program and our Job Center.

Thanksgiving

I hope readers will forgive a bit of a personal post on the eve of Thanksgiving.

Today I drove down to Roanoke (about 4 hours from here) to pick up my mother-in-law for Thanksgiving.  As I drove back, it occurred to me that this will be her 90th Thanksgiving.

As we all settle in for Thanksgiving with the overcast of an uncertain economy and feeling terrifically sorry for ourselves and our 401k balances (or as David Yockelson referred to it – now his 200.5k balance), it also occurs to me that we – me included – just need to get over it and be grateful for what we have.  And consider what really bad times look like and how far we are from that today.

For example, think about my mother-in-law's first Thanksgiving in 1918.

The end of World War I was only a year in the past.  Memories of the 8 to 9 million military deaths and 22 million wounded soldiers were fresh, as were the 10-15 million civilian casualties.  The overall casualty rate (killed, wounded, prisoners) for the 65 million mobilized soldiers in World War I was 57%.  An entire generation of young men in Europe virtually wiped out.

The world was also in the middle of a global influenza pandemic.  According to Stanford University:  “The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than ... World War I, at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351…In the two years that this scourge ravaged the earth, a fifth of the world's population was infected…It infected 28% of all Americans.  An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during the pandemic, ten times as many as in the world war.”

I shudder to think what the 24/7 hysterical news media (Gas prices are too high!!! Argghhh!!!  What should we do?  What should we do?  Can we survive for another day?  But wait a minute... Now gas prices are too low!!!!  Forget everything we said earlier about conservation and big cars and telling everyone we had a crisis.  What else should we obsess about?  How about the economy?)  would make of the world of my mother-in-law’s first Thanksgiving in 1918.

So let’s all take a few moments Thursday.  Sure the market has us all crazy.  Sure we're all worried about jobs and what next year will bring.  But our list of blessings is long.  Very long.  How would we act if things really were bad?

For that hard-to-buy-for person on your list

The first of two personal posts on Thanksgiving Eve and then I will return to the world of document management.

I am pleased to report that Will's Christmas List is available for that hard-to-buy-for person on your own holiday list.

First published in 2000, this was my contribution to great American literature, following in the tradition of Steinbeck, Faulkner, and Hemingway.  Except of course for the fact that their books sold in the millions and mine sold in the -- uhhh -- well let's just say not in the millions.  It does rank #437,749 on the Amazon list, so apparently there are some books that have sold less.  Royalties from this publication do not appear to be a factor in my retirement income.  But that doesn't really matter given that as a result of the market collapse, I have calculated that I will be working until I am 253.

Here are some completely made up reviews of Will's Christmas List from incoming members of the new Administration in a shameless attempt to ride their coat tails: 

• "An insightful exposition into the current crisis in the financial markets."  (Larry Summers)
• "I laughed until I stopped." (Barack Obama)
• "After I read this I wanted to rip someone's $%%#^ head off." (Rahm Emmaneul)

Will's Christmas List is now available for yet another generation of gift-givers.  I wrote it originally for my kids.  They liked it and their friends liked it.  They still seem to like it.  Proof of either: a)  its staying power for the tens of readers that view it as a holiday classic; or b) the severe shortcomings of the American educational system.

If anyone buys any of these bad boys this holiday season, I plan to donate the proceeds to Worldvision.  We have three kids there as kind of match up to our own.  Except that our Worldvision kids appear to be much better behaved than our actual kids.

Will's Christmas List.

Marketing during a recession

Kudos to Paul Dunay on MarketingProfs for this awesome post -- Statistics on Advertising During a Recession.

Among his data points worth noting...

A McGraw-Hill Research study of over 600 Businesses found that:

• 1981-1982 – businesses that maintained or increased their ad spend during the 1981-82 recession...
  • Averaged higher sales growth during the recession and in the following 3 years!
  • By 1985 – sales of the businesses that maintained or increased their ad spend during the 1981-82 recession...
    • Had risen 256% over those that had cut back on advertising.

Likewise in 2001 – another study found that aggressive recession advertisers increased market share 2½ times the average for all businesses in the post-recession.

In 2002 – the Strategic Planning Institute illustrated that during economic expansion...

• Although 80% of businesses increased their advertising spend there was NO improvement in market share
• Why? - because everyone increased ad spending during the upturn.

The point to note ... as hard as it is to believe right now, the seeds of the next expansion are being planted in this midst of all the current chaos.  What are you doing?  If you're in the document, content, and records industry, how can we help?  Drop me a note at johnmancini@aiim.org.

Check out the original post.

These are a few of my favorite blogs...

1. *MarketingProfs* Daily Fix Blog
2. AIIM Knowledge Center Blog
3. Andy Sernovitz's Damn, I Wish I'd Thought of That!
4. CMS Watch Trends and Features
5. Document Imaging talk
6. Email Marketing Strategy from Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey
7. No man is an iland
8. Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman's Blog About Surprise
9. Presentation Zen
10. Seth's Blog
11. Six Pixels of Separation
12. The Business Of IT
13. WordCount/by Michelle Vranizan Rafter

Why should document management make the short list?

OK.  We all know we’re in for an interesting ride over the next 12-18 months.

[Note:  Over the past few months I have periodically recalibrated my retirement age relative to the DJIA in my Facebook status.  With the market at 7500 this evening, I am formally estimating my retirement age now as 249.]

But I digress.

We all know that IT projects will be a challenge next year.  We had a speaker at our Document Management Service Provider Executive Forum who indicated that projects in 2009 for his company needed to meet three criteria: 1) no capital expenditures; 2) any proposal must pay for itself in the current year; and 3) any proposal must be implemented within one quarter.

What do you think?  As IT projects are scaled back to only THE most important, why should document management make the cut?

[Another note:  Twitter updates now available at jmancini77.]

See also:  10 Commandments for an Effective Document Management Project.

There are jobs in the ECM industry!

Amidst all the uncertainty of the current economy (a particular favorite was last week when the market was DOWN 308 points at 1 pm and closed UP 577 points at 4 pm) there are windows of opportunity.  People are hiring.

Where can you find them, you ask?  At the AIIM Job Center. 

Below you will find an example of some of the jobs posted in the last few weeks.

So what does this mean to you?

If you are a job seeker or worry that you may become one, post your resume.  THERE IS NO CHARGE.

If you are hiring, there is no more economical way to find talent than the AIIM Job Center.  Why would you want to post on Monster or something that is not focused in this industry?  Check out the AIIM Job Center to post your next position.

What do you see as the impact of the recession on content and document projects?

I recently made a few posts related to the impact of the recession on the content and document management community:

• Warning:  Icebergs Ahoy!
• Document Channel Strong Moving Into Recession
• Spot Survey of End Users Points to Challenges Ahead, But Resiliency
• 10 Commandments for an Effective DM Project
• 10 Fast Facts About Document Management Value
• 8 things to watch for in the coming recession
• SharePoint Déjà Vu – 4 Observations
• Bailout, Stock Collapse and IT Spending

I referenced these posts in a LinkedIn discussion (AIIM has a LinkedIn group with 3,000 members, why not sign up -- also, why not sign up for our InformationZen group -- now at 2,000+ members) and got some interesting comments back.  The question was... “What do you see as the impact on the economy of CM projects?”

Here are some of the responses (edited slightly to protect the innocent and guilty alike).  What do you think?  What does all this craziness mean for our industry?  Why not post a comment?

#1
I think that with a global financial crisis as this one, interventionism from geo-political unions will increase very much (to worldwide level). That will be the only way to prevent such stock exchange crashes in the banking sector worldwide. That will therefore push for new, more global regulations to allow quicker and more precise risk assessment. Hence, compliance will become not only a sectoral or regional issue, but a worldwide requirement for any major company.

I'm also convinced that communication will need to get improved to manage consistent and quick detailed situations to be communicated to masses via multiple channels. Web Content Management will need to integrate quicker and quicker informational as well as transactional content to provide real status on situations, and not only rumors, in order to prevent crazy speculations.

For me, process efficiency is only a short view to a long path. You don't set-up BPM in a second, and if cost cutting is concerned people prefer to freeze all investments and cut down personnel rather than invest in more efficient processes. Still compliance and content communication would be important assets to manage risk exposure for public companies.

#2
Operational efficiencies and ROI will obviously become critical in building a business case for CMS funding. The focus will be more on solving specific business issues.

Expect careful scrutiny from CFOs, extended product evaluations, and a forced collaboration between IT and Business to build consensus and keep initiatives on the front burner. Solution Providers who can help their prospects build a solid case combining clear value against Total Cost of Ownership should do well. Though a few verticals (such as higher education) will consume social networking functionality, system flexibility and user adoption will win out over trendy features. Nice-to-haves will get filtered out early.

#3
I agree that operational efficiencies and ROI are keys. Also, to further increase ROI, CMS should be positioned as infrastructure instead of an application. It should include the ability to integrate structured and unstructured repositories across the enterprise.

#4
Wasteful spending is a reality not only in government, but also in the corporate world. The need for business process efficiency and lean operations will continue to drive the adoption of content management during this recession. However, companies will look for recession-proof solutions such as open source and agile software development.

#5
As in any business the 'Cost of Ownership" is a major factor that needs to be considered in any project or purchase. In the times ahead there will be a greater focus on TCO. The market will look for companies that can offer that type of solution.

#6
We are seeing unprecedented growth towards Supported Open Source technology from organizations wanting to "Take Control" and achieve full ownership of any ECMS budget spend.  Also our clients have strictly evaluated the financials of shortlisted vendors to protect them in case of any organizations going under.

#7
It's not all doom and gloom in the CMS space.  There has been lots of talk about ROI but I haven't heard any mention of how managing web content helps companies drive top line revenue. The traditional ROI associated with CMS (productivity gains, time to web, etc) is important.  However the companies I speak with are most interested in discovering how content drives the KPIs that matter to their business.

#8
While the numbers will speak for themselves on what the impact is, I would love to bring in an interesting conversation I recently had with the Marketing Head of a Bank. The bank had just decided to go in for a major investment on a WCM Platform for their internet properties.

I asked him why he thought it was prudent to spend on WCM in such times when even mission critical business applications are going under close cost scrutiny. What he replied was quite an eye-opener. According to him, this was best time to invest in CM technologies focused on clients…According to him, the cost of online conversion is much lower than the cost of offline conversion. That’s why a good “digital branch” fueled by a powerful WCM platform can help them be few steps ahead of the competition.

#9
CMS that is too costly will not be adopted. CMS that involves Open Source and a great ROI will be adopted.
The customer is thinking about costs involved and looking for a solution that will survive. The larger CMS vendors are at risk due to proprietary models IMHO…It's the solutions that provide support and the ability to modify that are going to provide the long-term solution for transformation and stand a better chance of getting budgeted.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Panera...I beg you don't blow it

Ask anyone on my staff and they will tell you that I am a BIG fan of the Panera Bread Company (NASDAQ: PNRA).

Why? First. Their food is great. But second, their system wide free Internet is terrific. When travelling, I got out of my way to find a Panera.  I have scheduled business meetings there for that reason.  I often hide out there when I have to write an article.  After hearing me say a number of times that I was going to "work at Panera's" a friend of my daughter asked me whether I worked baking the bread or making the sandwiches.  Even during my sporadic carb-watching diet intervals I still seek out Panera. I rave about Panera.

But today (Saturday) I got a hint that maybe changes are afoot.  Maybe Panera doesn't get people like me after all.

It was halftime at my daughter's dance competition (astute dance types will remind me that it is likely not called "halftime").  I went over to Panera to get a sandwich and do a little work.

And then it happened.

After 30 minutes my Internet was cut off. This has never happened before.

A note on the log-in page says they are now doing a 30 minute restriction in "prime time."  Saturday lunch is prime time?

Panera. I beg you. Don't do this!  I am a member of your tribe even if the tribe does not yet exist. If you don't know what I am talking about, read Seth Godin's book. Don't make the Starbucks mistake and treat me like a customer. I want to be part of a Panera tribe. Even during my low-carb interludes.

What tribes are you a member of?  A good place to look for a tribe or two in our industry is on the InformationZen web site.  Over 2,100 industry executives are hanging out there.  Looking for a tribe.

Seth's book, BTW, is good reading for those of us in the blogging world. Check it out.

Effective Marketing 101

Last week I attended the 33rd meeting of our Document Management Service Providers Executive Forum in Austin.  That's right, 33.  And there were a number of executives there who have been in attendance at a good number of them.

On the way down on Southwest Airlines (which seems like a great airlines if you have an A-15 and a not so great airline if you are a C-57, proving that customer experience is not always directly tied to the actual service delivered), I saw an ad in the airline magazine for Tito's Handmade Vodka.  The ad told the story of this little vodka company in Austin that had won awards against well-known Russian vodkas.  When I got to Austin, I of course could not remember the name of the company (my wife can testify about my failures related to the names of our neighbors, much less vodkas).  So I Googled "Austin Vodka" and up popped old Tito's in the number one position.  I went to the web site, which was quite entertaining.  To make a long story short, I used the web site to find a local liquor store and bought a couple of bottles as giveaways during my presentation.

It occurs to me that this is a good example of what marketing should be all about.  A little small company in Austin used effective marketing to actually entice someone who had never even heard of them to seek out their product and make a purchase.

They used print to attract my attention -- in an environment in which many companies look down on print as an effective medium.  They used story-telling within their ad to attract my attention.

They had obviously taken time to optimize their site for search -- so that even someone who had forgotten their name could find them easily.

Their web site was entertaining and fun, drawing me in further.

And their web site helped me actually make the purchase.

Nice work.  The tools fit together to drive an actual outcome.  Not often the case.

See also...

Where does the document channel see opportunity in 2009?

Document channel strong moving into recession

Spot survey suggests greater resiliency for DM spending moving into 2009