Preaching Outside the Choir -- Marketing Buzzword Alert!

[Note: click on the chart to enlarge]

One of the questions I asked in my survey of end users unconnected with AIIM (just a reminder -- survey size = 666, end users only, 100 or more employees) related to their familiarity with key industry terms.

In previous posts I've mentioned the need to understand that even though for some of us in the industry it seems like we have been doing this for YEARS (or DECADES), the real world has a different level of understanding of terms that we take for granted.

A couple of data points worth highlighting in the survey:

At the top of the "familiar" list -- higher than CRM or ERP (although the use of the full terms rather than the acronyms may have affected the results) -- Document Imaging (64%) and Workflow (57%).

In a bit of a surprise (at least to me) was Electronic Document Management at 10 percentage points less than Workflow.

As mentioned in previous posts, Enterprise Content Management came in at only 28% familiarity. Even Business Process Management (38%) came in higher. Social Networking (50%) which is hardly understood by anyone I talk with, came in higher than both.

The message -- there is still a lot of basic blocking and tackling that needs to be done in educating end users about this industry. Many "inside the tent" understand and are tired of ECM 101. Many end users haven't even gotten to this course yet.

Comments

[mgrey]

All of these terms are fuzzy in definition -- some more fuzzy than others.

It would be useful to conduct a second phase sampling survey. Ask a cross-section of respondents how they define, e.g., social networking, collaboration and electronic records management.