The ECM Channel

It is a New Year, let the scanner parties begin

As is traditional, January is the time of tradeshows for several of the leading scanner manufactures. This year the festivities were held by Visioneer, Kodak, and Fujitsu. With all these events packed so close together, especially with Kodak and Fujitsu on the same day, how does an integrator, reseller or ISV choose which to attend? For me it was a simple decision of where most of my customers and partners would be. These events serve as great networking time and place to host lively refresher meetings. It is important to know that manufacturers do not release the biggest news or products at these events. National AIIM is the place to go for the latest and greatest, as the manufactures compete for awards. Resellers should treat these events as one-on-one time with the product manager’s to share your points, guide to future direction of the company, and some time to have a little fun. In the last 8 months I have noticed a decline overall in the desire to attend such events, but I firmly believe if you want to know what’s going on in Document Imaging and Content Management these events are where you find the scoops. This is affirmed by finding the industry’s leading authors in attendance. This year there was no absence of information. The general theme resounding this year was “Change.” No matter where you were, or if you read the follow-up articles, change is everywhere and speculation of more to come. As the market education starts to shift slowly to more mainstream acceptance, and demand on a steady and steep increase for content technologies there should be no surprise that pockets of consolidation and management upgrades are everywhere.

- Chris Riley, Artsyl Technologies, Inc.

Agile ECM

My youngest teenage daughter looked over my shoulder as I typed, and asked her usual, “Whatcha doin’?” I replied, “I am writing a Blog for AIIM. They have invited me to write.” Then I made the mistake of throwing in a self-deprecating, “Some people think I know something.” Her quick retort: “And when will you inform them that you don’t?” Kids! So, I am informing you. Enterprise content management is a fun business, for me at least, and I have learned a few things, but I also know my lack. Thus completes the disclaimer.

The Winchester House in San Jose, California, was under construction for nearly 40 years and is full of architectural oddities and marvels: stairs leading to the ceiling; doors and passageways to nowhere, to windows, or doubling back; rooms added to rooms onto other rooms for decades, long after the original structure was built. Now it towers to seven stories in places. It claims its share of ghosts and strange events, too – banging doors, moving lights, not to mention the spirit of Sarah Winchester herself walking about. It is a cliché. Anyone who has been in I.T. for any time has heard about the house and cited it, but I still see the house as a wonder and consider the obvious similarities to many mission critical projects, as well as to simple applications that have devolved to dead ends and trap doors. Seen any ghosts lately?

Somewhere, there is a business portfolio manager who really does not know Shinola. However, most understand their business, processes, and tasks very well, and are more technically savvy than ever. Yet, they have difficulty developing requirements for I.T. projects. I.T. processes are arguably more regimented now, capable of predictable, repeatable results. The I.T. staff is much better trained than when I started my career, and the tools we use are full featured and reliable. We can do amazing things given half a chance. Yet, requirements gathering takes very strong people skills, traits not generally associated with engineers.

Come Implementation Day, and we hear the customer lament, “This may be what I asked for, but it is definitely not what I need.” Then, the programmer lament, “Pasta Fazul! How’d we miss it?” Perhaps we find, as one client did, that the business requirements grew 40% between the conclusion of design phase and implementation! What happened between the first team lunch and post-launch review? We’ve heard it before. Scope creep, miscommunication, poor design, poor execution, and mismanaged expectations all blamed as usual, but why is it “as usual?”

You can drag out all the scope change documents and emails you want, but bottom line, we do miss it a lot. Maybe it is high time to place the blame where it belongs – on our customers. The a priori assumption in all I.T. projects that make it past detail design phase gated funding is “The customers know what they want.” What if they really don’t? What if they can’t know without a great deal of help?

The focus here is on enterprise content management projects. I have a good friend who is also a principal architect for one of our clients. He and I have been discussing for some time how to arrive at articulate and accurate requirements for an ECM project we are on. Several of his company’s departments are considering Web and portal content management. It’s an enterprise effort. So they are investigating a number of vendors. Many of them have come for on-site visits and product demonstrations. The products present dazzling features and blinding performance, and the evaluation team has grown weary of it all. The products all seem to offer the same things – the commoditization of ECM as John Newton has predicted is evident. One of our client’s SMEs and a business lead for the team has a four-inch binder full of product information that she has been divining like the Da Vinci Code. It’s been eye opening, but now our client needs help to sort it all out, and to articulate what they want and need, and then pick the vendor who meets the need.

So the principal has an idea. What if we built a prototype, in a very short time, with the sole deliverable being a set of requirements that the business can present to the vendors? The typical application of Waterfall Development to the prototype would take too long. He used Agile Development on a very successful project. However, his previous success and the success of others such as American Airlines, did not garner support from his peers and management. Agile Development gets a bad rap in some circles. Further, using Agile Development to deliver a set of requirements and not the finished product is unusual. So here are some questions for you:

• Do you apply a development methodology to ECM projects? Which methodology?
• How do you develop detailed business requirements for ECM vendors to meet? Do you use prototyping to develop requirements for OEMs?
• What resources, talents, skills, and support would you need to quickly develop prototypes with enough functionality to give the business end users a good idea of what they need in ECM? Could you do it in three to four weeks?
• Is Agile Development applicable to deliver detailed requirements via prototyping? Why or why not? What about using some other rapid iterative approach – would it work or not?

I’m not fishing for information. I know how our client is answering the questions and how we’re helping him. I want to know about you and how you handle this common problem in the context of an ECM project. As our project develops, I hope to be able to report some results to you.

Talk soon.

- Bill Hunton, Armedia, LLC

Is the iPhone a peak into ECM future?

It’s elegance typical APPLE, it’s battery life near unreasonable, it’s technology, a hint of things to come in the ECM market. Apple launched the iPhone http://www.apple.com/iphone/ a compact cell phone that run’s a reduced version of the Apple OS X operating system, the Smarphone just got a little smarter! Will announcements like these impact the ECM industry. Most of you think not, but perhaps this is a peak into the ECM future. Now we have completely mobile devices that will actively generate content at near the simplicity of a desktop computer. From mobile devices come documents, emails, IM conversations, web history and now even more of an emphasis on rich media such as photos, audio, and video. In the future enterprise wide content management systems will have to work with these complex devices seamlessly. While the iPhone is not marketed at the business user as much, similar devices will become more prevalent because of its launch, and so will their impact to content management.

In the Windows CE Smartphone and Symbian based phone world this is not a new thing at all. Companies like ScanR.com and DataViz ( Dataviz.com ), show very clearly the potential for document capture, review, edit and store functionality on mobile devices.

Readers beware and don’t ignore the impact of mobile devices to the ECM world as they bring with them new challenges.

- Chris Riley, Artsyl Technologies, Inc.

Got Jobs?

According to the soon to be released 2006 AIIM State of the Document Management Service Providers Industry report, expectations for increased productivity are high in 2007.  74% of the 231 respondents anticipate adding new staff in 2007, with 39% expecting to increase their staff size by greater than 10%. 

This optimistic outlook continues the trends of the last couple of years as the typical channel company has increased their staff and revenues year over year.  With the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure bringing even more attention to the importance of electronic documents, I would think their optimism is well placed.  What do you think?

Now I know my ECMs

As a relative new-comer to the ECM Industry, I am happy to say that I finally have my ECMs and EMCs straight.  As with any technology industry, acronyms abound in the Enterprise Content Management space...BPM, EDM, ERM, SOA, etc.  However, it has taken me nearly a year of linguistic exercises, speech therapy and the occasional shock treatment to stop my habit of interchanging ECM with EMC and vice-versa in my daily conversations.  Of course I know the difference, one a technology industry the other a technology provider in the industry, but it just never came out right.  Anyways, on to more pertinent information.

In February, AIIM will be releasing our 2006 State of the Document Management Service Providers Industry Report.  When put together with the 2005 report, they make a great trending tool.  If you would like a copy of the 2005 report, please email me at tmoore@aiim.org

Get Ready for XPS

Get Ready! XPS is the new file format coming from Microsoft, which is targeting the PDF market as the new secure widely distributed format. This means interesting challenges and developments in the Enterprise Content Management space. While XPS has many features similar to Adobe PDF, there are also striking differences, one major difference is the concept of “images with hidden text layer”, this is not an obvious feature in XPS and is only achieved with some tricks. Some of the exciting features are integration completely with the Microsoft driven enterprise including Active Directory and SharePoint. Even more interesting certain application developers are creating converters from PDF to XPS and vice versa, what an interesting exchange. It seems obvious the standard will evolve and change rapidly, post Windows Vista release. It’s a technology to watch heavily, and adopt slowly and cautiously. For complete format specifications please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/default.mspx. Also if you are interested in playing with some XPS files simply download the free viewer and samples from here: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/viewxps.mspx.

- Chris Riley, Artsyl Technologies, Inc.

Nominate a candidate for AIIM Awards

AIIM proudly recognizes outstanding achievement by its members and community partners. The AIIM Awards acknowledge the significant contributions by individuals and companies to the industry and the association, and are typically bestowed at AIIM's annual industry conference

The deadline for nominations is February 5, 2007.  For more information about the awards or to make a nomination, please visit:  http://www.aiim.org/awards.asp

AIIM ERM survey shows organizations still struggling with electronic records management

Below are key findings from AIIM's recent ERM Industry Watch Report.  For a copy of the full study, please email me at tmoore@aiim.org 

Managing Electronic Information Still #2 Priority in Most Organizations (vs. Paper)

In general, end users believe they have done a reasonable job of putting in place formal programs to manage paper-based information. When it comes to electronic information, in general organizations report far less structure.

Many Records Management Programs Just Cover the Tip of the Iceberg

As the survey pushed participants for more granularity with regards to their records and information management program, it became apparent that many end users have yet to address important elements in a truly comprehensive program.

Organizations—Especially Medium Sized Ones—Are Vulnerable to New e-Discovery Rules

There are some aspects of the new e-Discovery rules announced December 1, 2006 (such as the safe harbor for inadvertent deletions) that are positive, given the extremely ambiguous legal environment that exists for “electronically-stored information” (the term used in the new rules). However, as is evident from the results of this survey (and other AIIM industry Watch surveys), the expectation that the new rules create—that organizations have control over their electronically-stored information—is problematic at best for most organizations.

In Searching for an Electronic Records Solution, Organizations Stress the Basics

The decision to implement an electronic records management solution hinges on three primary drivers: “improve efficiency and productivity,” “compliance,” and “risk management/business continuity.” It is surprising that even in a survey specifically focused on records management, and with a sample dominated by “document management specialists,” the “productivity” and “effi ciency” benefi ts of RM technologies are understood and valued.

RM Outsource Opportunities Exist, Especially as RM Requirements Grow More Complex

As organizations struggle with the complexity of records management requirements, they are increasingly realizing that an outsourced solution is at least something that should be considered. The reason for the shift is the increasing risks of “doing it wrong,” and the increasing complexity of “doing it right.”