Products that do what they are supposed to do

By the way, it's Day 13 of my Budget Rent a Car nightmare vigil.

Here you see a picture of what at first glance might appear to be a very fine product.  It is a toaster oven that does many things -- many of which we never asked it to do.

There is one thing that it markedly does not do well -- make toast.  When you try to make toast, the bread tends to slide down through the toaster thing-a-ma-gig (technical term) and get stuck and begin to burn.  There also is no apparent way to perform one of the functions that I believe is key to a toaster -- pop up a lever and pop the toast up manually.  As a result, I hate this toaster oven.  By trying to do too many things it fails at the very things that tempt it to lay claim to the noble title "toaster" in the first place.

Now in contrast, the picture on the right is of something that does only one thing but does it PERFECTLY.  It is an apple peeler/corer that my father in law gave us years ago.  You stick an apple on the little sticking out thing-a-ma-gigs on the left hand side.  You put a little lever/blade on the apple.  You turn the crank and -- voila! -- it perfectly peels and cores the apple.  And makes a very artistic single long and skinny apple peel as a bonus that is the envy of my friends.

This is a humble machine, but high on my list.

There are many document solutions out there of the apple peeler/corer variety, but alas there are also many of the toaster oven persuasion.  It has gotten more complicated for end users to sort through the capabilities of the various solutions out there.  Don't get me wrong -- there are many fine solutions out there.  But if you are looking for an apple peeler/corer and wind up with a toaster oven, you won't be happy.

So what to do?

Get educated.  Here are a few suggestions.

1. Get training for you and your staff.  It's easier than you think.  AIIM training is available on-line, in public courses, and via private sessions.
2. Get some data.  AIIM provides FREE (as in it doesn't cost anything) access to all of our Industry Watch reports.  AIIM Market Intelligence provides industry data like Gartner or Forrester, but focused explicitly on the user experience with document and records technologies.  (And did I mention the reports are free?) 
3. We are currently in the middle of our annual Spring road show.  It too is free.  AIIM's ECM Seminars focus on the application of ECM technologies to core business processes. 

Did I mention that I still haven't been contacted by Budget Car Rental?

You can follow me on Twitter at jmancini77.