Digital Landfill

8 New #AIIM Reports on #Content - And All Free - #ECM #SharePoint

Please enjoy these recent reports and new infographics from AIIM Market Intelligence which are free to download:

The Elephant in the Room is Compliance. Secure collaboration for financial services content via mobile and cloud

Research has shown that 33% of organizations expect to see “half or more” of their employees using iPads, tablets or digital clipboards for filling in forms in 5 years. Is your business ready to handle this shift in a responsible and secure way? Download here.

Mobile Content Security and Productivity

Organizations want their employees to have access to corporate information from mobile devices, but security and compliance are major areas of concern. This white paper measures the concerns over BYOD security, the issues with directly accessing on-premise content, and the collaboration functionality users expect on their mobile devices. Download here.

Jump-start your paper-free journey

The business case for kicking paper out of the organization is overwhelming – it takes up space, slows things down, creates costs and limits flexibility. This white paper looks at why organizations hold back from taking the paper-free step, and discuss the pros and cons of outsourcing document-oriented processes. Download here.

AIIM Trendscape: Content and the Cloud

Recently, AIIM convened a select group of content and information management professionals in London and Chicago, to deliberate the central question of the role that cloud-based technologies will play in the future. We are pleased to present the findings from those deliberations in this executive report. Download here.

SharePoint 2013 – clouding the issues

SharePoint 2013 brings new capabilities but also a number of new challenges. In this report, we look at the ongoing issues of user adoption as an ECM/DM system. We study the impact of the new 2013 features, particularly on third party add-on products. We look at the issues that cloud presents for SharePoint users. Finally, we measure spending plans for licenses, services and add-on products. Download here.

Intelligent Information Management - improving the customer experience

Improving the customer experience is critical to business success and competitive status. This white paper reviews the issues for improving customer experience across multiple input channels and the potential to automate response processes based on capturing and analyzing content. Download here.

AIIM Infographics

A picture is worth a thousand words. These Infographics illustrate the challenges and solutions faced by today's Information Professional. From Social Collaboration to Enterprise Content Management (ECM), everything you need to convey key Information Management concepts is below. Download here.

ECM Maturity: is your ECM system maximized for business value?

Are you new to enterprise content management (ECM) or have you been developing your system for a number of years? Are you making progress fast enough to get the benefits of universal content access across the enterprise and between your core systems - or are you still struggling to get over that initial hurdle of user acceptance? Take this questionnaire.

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Other AIIM research is available at aiim.org/research

Looking for 5 guest bloggers on #mobile content -- Interested?

I'd like to identify 5 guest bloggers to flesh out an 8 point "how-to" guide for each of the facets of mobility and mobile content listed below.

Here are the terms and conditions.

• Prior approval if I later string these together into a short e-book.
• No company pimping.
• Between 1000 and 1500 words.
• OK to be clever.
• Would like these done by Feb 22 so I can start releasing them 1 per week after that.
• Keep to the 8 point format.
• The emphasis should be on coming up with a short list of actions for users that answer the HOW do I do this question?, not the WHAT is this? question.

Here are the 5 "how-to" articles I would like to build out.

1. Making your enterprise information available from anywhere at anytime – How do I leverage cloud technologies to mobilize information?
2. Automating business processes – How do I start automating core back-end business systems (e.g., finance, HR, contracts)?
3. Reducing costs with consumer technologies - How do I tap into the cost and productivity advantages of BYOD without losing control?
4. Connecting people and content - How do I use social technologies to actually drive process change rather than just provide a “Facebook for the enterprise?”
5. Distributed capture - How do I use mobile devices, MFPs, and small scanners to push capture closer and closer to the point of content origination?

Let me know if you have any questions or what to sign up for one -- [email protected].

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And while I'm thinking about it, TOMORROW is the early bird deadline for AIIM13.  Sign up now.

C-Change: The Impact of Consumerization of IT (#CoIT)

Sometimes, buzzwords really ARE changing the world.

The phrase “consumerization of IT” refers to the ubiquitous reality that the technology available OUTSIDE the enterprise is perceived as being more sophisticated, more user-friendly, delivered in a quicker time frame, and lower-cost than the technology INSIDE of the enterprise. 

Authored by futurist Thornton May in collaboration with AIIM's Executive Leadership Council, this prescriptive work suggests that the consumerization phenomenon should not be micromanaged as an administrative hassle associated with controlling/slowing the explosion of devices emanating from the vast, fast and global consumer electronics industry. Nor is consumerization merely a question of determining policies for allowing/denying access to an exponentially growing SOMOCLO (social, local, mobile, cloud) application set.

Here's the link to the white paper...HERE.

And here's a link to a SlideShare version...HERE

Are you prepared for the impact of consumerization? from John Mancini

2013 Predictions -- Systems of Record and Systems of Engagement -- What Comes Next?

[Note:  We will be doing a webinar on this topic, primarily for NA and SA audiences given the time of day, on Wednesday, December 12 at 2 pm Eastern time.  We'll be doing a second webinar, at a time more convenient for European audiences at 2 pm British time on Thursday the 13th.]

As many readers know, about two years ago a Task Force of AIIM members worked with Geoffrey Moore (author of Crossing the Chasm, among many titles) to build out a "future history" of the content industry.  The intention was to think about how enterprise information technology was changing in the wake of the influx of consumer technologies.  (See Systems of Engagement and the Future of Enterprise IT: A Sea Change in Enterprise IT.)

The core "story" went something like this...

Organizations spent much of the past 3 decades building out "Systems of Record."

Technologies evolved a great deal during this first phase -- from mainframes to minis to PCs to the internet -- as did the core objects being managed -- from financials to department processes to documents to web pages.  However, at the core of this migration was a continuing focus on building Systems of Record to document who did what to whom, when, and in what context. The transitions looked something like this:

In this world, IT was at the center of deploying enterprise systems, and innovation tended to flow down from large organizations, eventually reaching consumers.

Using another Geoff Moore diagram from Escape Velocity, during this period the Content Management business was very much a "complex systems business," operating on the left "hump" of the diagram below, focused on relatively few customers, dealing with complicated and mission-critical business processes.

Enter Microsoft Office SharePoint Services (MOSS) in 2007, and the industry began to change.  The left "hump" started to shift to the right.  Price points began to change as "content management" became an increasing part of the core infrastructure of the organization.  Large vendors from the world of complex content management systems initially dismissed SharePoint as "not really ECM" and then struggled to find their role relative to SharePoint as the SharePoint wave intensified. In addition, a host of new enterprise players emerged, built upon a pay-as-you-go SaaS model, led most notably by Salesforce.com.  

Meanwhile, back in the bigger IT market, another revolution was brewing.  

Over the past 5 years, consumer technologies have taken center stage relative to innovation and migrated into the enterprise, with far-reaching implications for how organizations use and deploy technology. These new technologies focus on interactions and conversations rather documents and records and on Systems of Engagement rather than Systems of Record. 

So after a long period in which there really was no "consumer" play in the document/content space (the right volume operations "hump" in Geoff's business architecture model), suddenly one appeared. The focus was not traditional transactionally focused content management, but rather the provision of previously unavailable information management tools for the individual, built upon social and mobile technologies and optimized for the cloud. These were companies with freemium to premium models like Box, Google, Evernote, DropBox, FilesAnywhere, and Yammer.  

These new volume operations players had a very different financial model than those from the complex systems world.  Per Michael Moon from gistics.com, complex systems players focus on making their money on capital expenditures and professional services, with most of the money captured in the early stages of a project -- it is not unusual for 70% of the total revenues for a project to the captured before implementation even occurs.  On the flip side, Systems of Engagement (and the mobile devices that go with them) are brought into the enterprise by the business rather than IT, and with far simpler pricing and deployment models.  The models typically focus on operating expenditures and capturing the majority of revenues after implementation via an annuity stream.

Initially, IT organizations responded to this dichtonomy by either: 1) denying the problem existed (kind of an IT policy re the Dropboxes of the world of "Don't ask, Don't tell); 2) mounting massive resistance and opposition to these tools; 3) allowing adoption, but assuming they would someday get around to the question of integration with existing Systems of Record; and/or 4) some combination of the above.

So the question for this blog post is:  What comes next? What are the next chapters in the story of Systems of Record and Systems of Engagement.

We spent some time at the AIIM Board meeting last week exploring this topic, and I'd like to offer some initial thoughts.  

The complete story of the next phase in our future isn't written yet, but I would offer that it will center around the "controlled collision" between Systems of Record and Systems of Engagement and will include some version of the following 10 elements:

1. CIOs are beginning to adopt mobile-first and cloud-first strategies for new applications, especially for customer-facing applications, changing the traditional development process.
2. The key to understanding the future role of social technologies in the enterprise is that they will increasingly: 1) be a feature of Systems of Record, not a separate system; 2) either become integrated into core business processes (i.e., the honeymoon period of "social for social's sake" is over) or decline in importance; and 3) ultimately converge with email into a single system.
3. Via migrations from the "right hump," core document and collaboration technologies are now becoming available via the cloud to a host of organizations that heretofore relied on a chaotic mess of file shares.  The trick will be to avoid simply taking c drive and file share digital landfills and moving them to the cloud.
4. True document collaboration (vs. either the poor Word "Track Changes" approach or the chaotic, little editorial control Google Docs approach) will become increasingly important.
5. Effective adoption of social technologies is not just a function of turning them on. Defining use cases, outlining expected behaviors within these use cases, and effectively managing change have just as much to do with success as the technology (check Social in the Flow for details).
6. The "we will never put important information in the cloud" and "we must choose between the cloud and on-prem" militancy is evolving into an awareness that the future lies in a hybrid environment in which information is managed across a continuum of platforms and devices.
7. The concept of synching from the early days of email (remember when we needed to actively manage what we did in email when "connected" and when we were not?) will become increasingly important in thinking about the cloud.  As organizations think about strategies that integrate Systems of Record with Systems of Engagement, that link Saas enterprise applications like Salesforce.com to behind the firewall information repositories, and that allow for responsible deployment of social and BYOD technologies, the cloud will increasingly become the "place" in which synching occurs, with ultimate control by the System of Record.
8. In our desire to reassert control, we need to remember than the needs of the business to get things done will always trump our corporate need for control.
9. The Chief Marketing Officer will own more and more elements of the "controlled collision" and will be increasingly important in the intersection between Systems of Record and Systems of Engagement.
10. The SoR and SoE "collision" places an increasing premium on those who have skills to help manage this collision and understand the full picture, namely Information Professionals.

What do you think?  What comes next in the "story?" Post a comment and let me know.

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Might be of interest...

1. How to Achieve Best Practices: Records Management
2. How to Conduct a Social Business Assessment
3. How to Unclog Your Business by Automating Content-Intensive Process
4. How to Assess Scanning and Capture Requirements
5. Automating ERM with SharePoint
6. How to Develop Taxonomies to Support Navigation, Information Discovery, and Findability
7. Enterprise Content Management: Impact on Collaboration and Social Business
8. How to Use SharePoint as a Self-Help Knowledge Center

 [Note:  We will be doing a webinar on this topic, primarily for NA and SA audiences given the time of day, on Wednesday, December 12 at 2 pm Eastern time.  We'll be doing a second webinar, at a time more convenient for European audiences at 2 pm British time on Thursday the 13th.] 

8 recommendations to get started on your own Process Revolution

See also my related post, 16 things you need to know about processes, the cloud, and mobile...

8 recommendations to get started on your own Process Revolution -- From  Process Revolution - Moving Your Business from Paper to PCs to Tablets -- free download...

1. Audit your processes to see where paper slows throughput, adds process steps, or restricts transparency and reporting.
2. In particular, examine your customer (or supplier or staff) response mechanisms to see if physical mailings or paper processing are slowing things down, restricting visibility, or paralleling electronic communications paths.  
3. Look at how physical handling of incoming mail site-by-site might better be centralized, processed in higher volume, and distributed electronically.
4. If you are already using scanning, consider how much “closer to the door” you could be going electronic, and how that might transform who does the subsequent processing and where they might be located.
5. Evaluate the latest technology for capturing data from forms and invoices, and look to process a higher proportion of your documents automatically.
6. Aim to scan documents or capture data as close to the source as possible – in the branch office, on the shop floor, in the field or at the customer’s premises.
7. Brainstorm how the capabilities of modern mobile devices – portable scanners, smartphones, tablets and specialist devices – could transform your processes by eliminating elapsed time, lost forms, poor data, and re-keying.
8. Audit all of your processes that involve input from non-office staff, or suppliers or partners, to see how downstream process steps might be eliminated if they could interface directly to the process.

Have you download your free copy of my #OccupyIT Manifesto?

Sign up for our free Boot Camp - 5 Steps to Victory Over Manual Processes.

7 Reasons to Break Your Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) Addiction

This is a guest post by Sanjay Bhatia.  Sanjay is the founder and CEO of Izenda. Prior to founding Izenda, Mr. Bhatia worked in engineering and consulting positions at Radiant Systems, Trilogy and Microsoft. Even though Sanjay has provided only 7 reasons vs. my normal "8 things," he assures me that there is 1/7th more content per reason.

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In many cases, hundreds of millions of records can be handled with split-second response times; especially when dealing with aggregate queries on modern hardware.  But today, a considerable number of organizations are clinging to 90s ETL technology.

ETL seems to be an addiction for IT organizations because they still consider millions of records a lot of data. But having more memory than data may allow for these organizations to have their cake and eat it too. And today, getting to this point is dirt-cheap.

This may be a little controversial, but I believe that too many companies are falling for the lies about how transactional databases have millions of records and can’t handle the load. As an IT community, let’s eliminate the idea that the users have to put up with a batch process that makes it so they don’t know the outcome of their system interactions for a day (or even a month) later.

Today’s technologists are fortunate to have access to powerful, yet surprisingly affordable, hardware that would have been considered “supercomputers” ten years ago.  This is obviously a good thing! Here are seven reasons to break the ETL addiction.

1 -- ETL is Just Too Hard.

Existing ETL tools make easy things hard. People lucky enough to never have experienced an ETL project, make the assumption that there is a magic "copy the database button.”  We have four databases, let's just "copy" them to a big one every night.

2 -- Database Growth Exceeds Storage Performance.

While databases are getting faster and SSD gives a great boost to random access, data growth is rapidly exceeding performance. This trend stems from basic storage technology.  A company now can purchase several gigabytes of storage for $1.  Indeed, even laptops are shipping with terabyte drives.  There is no reason to assume this trend will stop anytime soon. 

Real-world data transfer speeds, especially over a network, are growing at a much slower pace.  This means that creating a backup of the database will take longer and longer until it borders on the ridiculous.  Moving a gigabyte over 100 BaseT takes 100 seconds.  Moving a terabyte takes 10,000 seconds or 3 hours.  (This is theoretical performance and assumes the network isn't doing anything else.)

In a real-word scenario on an active network with lots of users, this could take all day.  Sure, you could get better networking but that is a temporary Band-Aid.  As data volumes continue to grow, ETL technologies will have to spend more than 24 hours copying data.

3 -- There is No Such Thing as “Down Time” Anymore.

Typically, ETL tools would be scheduled around midnight during supposedly idle down time. What if you have people that access the system from California after-hours?  What if some of these people are in offices in different time zones?

Your midnight could well be the middle of the day in Asia, and you may have suppliers there that need access to your applications and data.  Should they suffer bad performance so that the executives in New York can get their dashboard in the morning?

4 -- Scarcity of IT Resources Makes ETL Maintenance a Nightmare.

So you hired a DBA to setup the ETL, but they have average turnover rate of 75%.  Are they going to be available when the sales department adds new fields to the database to do marketing automation?

 Since ETL scripts are often very difficult decipher, are you really going to invest the few days it will take someone new to figure out how the old scripts work and update them? Isn't there some "automatically add new fields" feature?  The answer is no.  This assumes you have the luxury of a spare DBA.  If not, it could take months to hire one; especially for a short-term project as DBA’s prefer longer assignments and the demand is there.

5 -- Real-Time is a Requirement Now.

Social media applications have trained billions of people on informing them what's happening, at the time it  happens. Yesterday's data is like yesterday's news.  Your customers expect to be able to change their data and see the results in their dashboard immediately.  Sometimes this requires fixing bad data and sometimes this is a critical operational problem that needs immediate attention.

Would you want a 911 operator to put your information into a queue and send it to responders the next day?  No. The same holds true for all critical data.

6 -- 64-Bit Quad-Corer with 16 Gigabytes of Memory Now Cost Under $2000.

If your company is like most organizations your database now fits in system memory of a commodity server.  In contrast, DBAs cost over $100 an hour and won’t tell you that $100 worth of memory may be a better investment than hiring them.  Upgrading to such a server and utilizing a platform to give users access to that now lightning-fast data, could be just what you need to ensure the company stays very happy.

7 -- Data Virtualization Enables Joining and Merging Data without Moving It.

You no longer have to copy data over to work with different sources at the same time.  Data virtualization technologies available today let users enjoy the benefits of interactive dashboards that consume data from various places; like relational databases, web services and CSV files all with one simple user experience that simulates having the data in one place.

 

It's Graduation Time - My #Commencement Address - #AIIM

I recently did a seminar for a friend who runs a class at George Mason University for seniors on finding a job in the real world.  My job was to talk mostly about non-profit careers, and secondly about the technology sector.

I violated one of my long-standing rules in professional keynote speaking by NOT asking him whether there would be any other speakers, and if so, in what order would we speak.

Well, it turns out there was another speaker, and he spoke first.  There were a few characteristics about the speaker I wish I had known beforehand.

1. This guy was a REALLY good speaker.  OK, I do a lot of speaking, so I thought we're even.
2. This guy knew what he wanted to do with his life since he was 4 years old.  [Uh-oh.  I still haven't figured that out completely.]
3. What he wanted to do was to be a jet pilot with the Thunderbirds in the Air Force. [Double my concern.]
4. Enroute to his dream, he had a life threatening illness that he had to overcome. [I'm toast.]
5. He concluded his presentation with a video of him flying; you could see the wings of two other jets about 8 inches above his head.

"And our next speaker, John Mancini, will talk about non-profit careers."  [Oh, crap.]

Short circuit to the end, it went OK, although I never did confess that at 4 years old I wanted to be a garbage man -- or maybe it is now called a recyling engineer. In thinking about this presentation, though, I did come across a post I did 2 years ago.  I thought in this graduation season I would run it again.

And to all you new graduates, good luck.

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8 Things You Need to Know Now That You Are Out in the Real World Looking for a Job

 OK, I have waited long enough for an invitation to do a Commencement Address and none have been forthcoming.  (Although my wife does work in a church pre-school; I am holding out hope that this year's harvest of kindergarten wannabees will still tee me up.)

The particular reason Commencements are on my mind is that our youngest is getting ready to graduate from High School. One of her older brothers has graduated from college and is out in the workforce (although about ready to go back for an MBA) and the other will graduate from college in December, the good Lord willing. So perhaps by auditioning through this blog post -- and by trying out my act on the Herndon United Methodist pre-Ks -- I will have a future chance for a Commencement address. I am especially lured by the idea of getting an honorary doctorate with no work.

So here goes -- my 8 Things You Need to Know Now That You Are Out in the Real World Looking for a Job.

1 -- You likely won't go to work for a super-cool company.

 I have recently been listening to Tom Peters' The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence while "jogging" (a relative term -- I go faster than just standing still) on the treadmill and around the 1/16 mile track at the Y. (Note: I DO understand how unbelievably geeky this sounds).

Tom talks about two worlds -- Guru World and the Real World. In Guru World (the place you read about in all the management books), everyone works for companies that are (amongst other things): 1) Fortune 500; 2) global; 3) supercool (like Google); 4) on TV all the time.

The reality -- and I can personally testify to this one given that I am well into the 2nd half of a 30 year career in the association world -- is that most people don't work at these kinds of places. Most companies or organizations are somewhat small and make their money doing things that are not terribly sexy. Like mine. There are millions of organizations like mine. That doesn't mean the job can't be fulfilling. But not every job is cool.

2 -- Be resilient.

While I am on Tom Peters, he has a GREAT chapter on what companies are looking for in an employee. It all comes down to being "resilient." I love the attributes he lists. I'm thinking about having them put on our job applications. For those of you looking for a job, your task is to figure out how to convince your interviewer that you possess these traits (just a partial list).

• Inner calm.
• High self-knowledge.
• Breadth of out-of-the ordinary experience.
• Known for integrity.
• An appetite for modestly controlled chaos.
• Sense of humor.
• Empathy.

 When I think of all the people that I have hired in my world of small associations over the years, these traits trump domain expertise. Every time. Make sure your interviewer knows that you have them.

3 -- Clean up your Facebook act.

I have been on Facebook a long time -- since shortly after they opened it up to non-edu domains.

There seems to be an assumption out there that you can somehow control how you are viewed by various audiences by controlling the variable security settings on Facebook. No matter what anyone says, DO NOT BELIEVE THIS. I heard two quotes about this at a recent seminar at Santa Clara University that ring true.

First, from @benparr @Mashable -- "Do not post anything that you would not be comfortable having your mother see." And secondly -- I think the quote was from Felix Sterling, SVP and General Counsel, Trend Micro Inc. -- "Don't ever underestimate the power of unintended content syndication."

One recent example. A friend of my one of my sons recently friended me out of the blue. Nice kid; have always liked him. Two days later, he evidently broke up with his girlfriend. He proceeded to post a horrendously offensive status about his ex-girlfriend. I don't think I'll ever think about this kid the same way again.

So get rid of all of those F words and keg stand pics and pictures of drunken orgies. I'm not a prude -- but my Mom is on Facebook for crying out loud. Do you really want a 79-year-old woman to see that?And if that isn't enough, you can be guaranteed that potential employers will use Facebook to check up on you. Don't let embarrassing results deep six your job opportunity.

Electrons live forever.

4 -- Attitude trumps just about everything.

There is a Chick-Fil-A I go to more often than I should in Reston, VA. (Note: As a veteran Chick-Fil-A person, I will let you in on a secret. Based on my scientific study, if you order extra pickle on your sandwich, you tend to get a bigger piece of chicken. Try it. If you don't actually want extra pickle you can just take it off. You don't need to thank me.)

The thing that I notice almost every time I go in this Chick-Fil-A is this: the people. Everyone is friendly. Everyone works as a team. Many of the people recognize me and say hello.

I should add at this point that I don't believe English is the native language for ANY of the people working at my favorite Chick-Fil-A -- a place I go out of my way to stop at if a need a quick meal.

The point is this. Before you start whining about how tough it is to find a job in this economy -- and it is tough -- remember that there are many prospective employees out there who don't share all of the amazing gifts and privileges that you have had. And yet they approach a not terribly exciting job (see #1) with grace and enthusiasm and an attitude to die for. You should too.

5 -- Be an expert.

I know looking back to my post college job-hunting experience that there is a tendency to sit around and just wait in-between sending out bushel baskets of resumes. Don't.

You have two assets that you can put to work while you wait that will help you in the job search. And these assets are so common in your universe that you don't know how rare they are in the world at large.

Number one. You are a recent college graduate in something.  Your knowledge at this point about some set of academic topics is likely at its peak. Take my word for it, this will fade. I got an "A" in Linear Algebra my freshman year at William & Mary. Now I couldn't even tell you what Linear Algebra is, much less do it. But for now, you know a lot of stuff.

Number two. You are a digital native. You have no fear of computers. Interacting with social media is something you do without thinking.

Combine these two and do something productive with your time while you wait. Blog and/or tweet and/or participate in LinkedIn on topics that are germane to the kind of job you are seeking. Become a valued participant in the discussions.

You know how to use social networking. There is a favorite cartoon I use in presentations that has two dogs at a PC, with the caption, "On the Internet, no one knows you are a dog." On the Internet, no one knows you have no job experience. They will judge you by the quality of your participation. Take advantage of this. On the plus side, it can lead to contacts that will help in your job search. At worse, it will help keep your skills sharp.

It will also convey an experience that is critically important to organizations like mine and that you can market in and of itself -- how to get noticed in a Facebook world.

6 -- Be indispensible.

 If you haven't already done so, read Seth Godin's Linchpin. For that matter, read anything by Seth Godin, but for purposes of the job hunt, start with Linchpin.

Seth's concept in the book is that the path to career fulfillment is to be indispensible to the organizations that employ you -- "The indispensable employee brings humanity and connection and art to her organization. She is the key player, the one who’s difficult to live without, the person you can build something around."

In my career of hiring people, these people are worth their weight in gold. No matter what the economic circumstances of hiring and firing, you will defend them. I will take a personal pay cut rather than let these people go.

So think about what potentially makes you indispensible. Some of it is domain knowledge, which you likely have in spades as a recent graduate. Some of it is practical experience, which you likely lack. A huge part is attitude and approach and enthusiasm.

For you, job descriptions should not matter. Getting your foot in the door does. Especially in smaller organizations, once you are in and once you are viewed as indispensible, you are on your way. You won't stay at a small organization forever, but by being indispensible you will make them weep when you leave for a much bigger job down the line.

7 -- Know YOUR story.

Your resume is likely somewhat thin. But everyone has a story. The purpose of your resume and your cover letter and your interview should be to tell the story of who you are.

Some of this will be a recitation of academic accomplishments. Some of this will be a description of skills you've garnered in part-time jobs. Some of this will be a reflection of personal experiences.

But the point is this. Think about your story. In advance. Practice talking about who you are and what makes you special in 120 seconds or less. And then make sure this comes through in whatever printed stuff you send me.

8 -- Know ME.

There is no excuse in a Google world for not knowing everything about me and my organization before you walk in the door. Ignorance was a whole lot easier when information was hard to come by. In a world of ubiquitous information that is instantly findable, you have no excuse.

If I ask you about our web site, you should have a perspective. If I ask you about some of the conversations on Twitter that are connected with AIIM, you should have come across these at some point. If I ask you whether you have seen my blog or our Facebook fan page or my Linked In profile, the answers should be YES, YES, and YES.

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An update: So that's it. After two years, it still holds up pretty well.  About the only thing  I would add to it right now is to make sure you are present on LinkedIn and that your presence is optimized for the kind of job you seek.  With a few recommendations sprinkled in. Even if they are more of a personal nature than job related.  

Update on the people mentioned above...My daughter has wrapped up her second year at James Madison and is looking to apply to the nursing school there. #2 son did graduate and now works for Dell in their new software group (his initial company, AppAssure, was acquired 9 days after he started) and is surviving the rigors of the first year of sales, focused on cloud-based backup and disaster recovery solutions (which has certainly changed the nature of dinner table conversations).  #1 son graduates from the MBA program at Duke next weekend, and has survived in Blue Devil land after an undergraduate life as a Cavalier. He and his wife did had a cool piece on Business Week's site last week - The MBA Life at Duke.

 

 

8 Things You Might Not Know About Cloud Computing

[As is the case with our 5 myths series, the opinions expressed in the 8 things guest columns are those of the guest contributor and not necessarily mine or AIIM's.  This guest post was prepared by Matthew Jackson from Penny Imaging Exchange. ]

1 -- It’s safer than you think.

When transferring massive amounts of important documents onto virtual servers, security is a common concern. A ‘cloud’ doesn’t sound safe—it sounds like anyone can reach inside and take what they want. 

 People think that since something so intangible can’t be impenetrable, on-site servers are a smaller risk. You can see them, touch them, and put padlocks on them. What could be more secure?

 Cloud networks, for one. The fact is that their security measures frequently surpass those of traditional corporate infrastructure. Just because you don’t see where your information’s going doesn’t make life in the clouds any more dangerous: virtual servers can be just as safe as physical ones—and often safer. 

2 -- It’s more flexible than you think.

Cloud platforms grant you scalability, which translates to flexibility, efficiency, and ultimately less expense. When you need more capacity, you get more, and when you need less, you get less—and you pay only for what you get. 

Imagine a world where every business needed its own power supply. Instead of getting electricity from the city infrastructure, your building would have its own generator, with all the headaches that come with it. You’ll need a place to put the generator (which will be big and noisy), you’ll need someone to run it, and you’ll also need to regularly buy parts and fuel. You’ll also have to manage periodic upgrades. Sound familiar?

And forget about scalability: your generator’s only going to produce as much power as it was designed to. If there are times when you don’t need so much capacity—or, worse, times when you need more capacity—there’s really nothing you can do.

It makes sense for electricity to be a utility. So does computing. Any cloud network will be far more responsive to your needs than a traditional in-house server. It’ll save you time, aggravation—and money. 

3 -- It means more freedom for everyone.

Cloud technology tears down barriers. It makes no difference whether they’re barriers in distance or time: using a cloud to its fullest flexibility, you can store and transmit data from servers scattered around the globe. That is, the servers will usually be in your region, but they can be in other countries if you like. At the same time, these servers will act as the edge locations for your end-users. This saves everyone’s time. It also improves latency and security

Integrating yourself into a global server network through the cloud will boost communications and allow you to better manage and control your business.

4 -- It gives you the power to make worlds.

Thanks to advances in technology, you can now use the cloud as an extension of your current network, creating your own private virtual cloud where you have full control on the creation of subnets, enhanced control over the security configuration of network gateways, and more.

The cloud becomes the glue holding your organization together. However, instead of stiffening up, your organization will have more freedom, more flexibility, and more control over the resources within your cloud.

5 -- It’s robust.

Some people worry that files on the cloud will be lost if servers go down. At the very least, they think, the information will be inaccessible for some time. Neither is the case, actually, and with all the features built into the cloud platform, it’s really the safest and most reliable way to store your documents.

Cloud systems give you the ability to store your files redundantly, making them 400 times safer than if they were on a disk drive in an on-site server. In addition, you can also store your documents on multiple servers in different areas, which protects you from a power outage in any one location and automatically replaces any failing nodes.

Using these strategies, your files on the cloud will always be safe and accessible virtually all of the time.

6 -- It’s safer than you think, again.

Putting sensitive documents on the cloud will become increasingly popular. For things like medical records and government contracts, cloud providers employ state-of-the-art security features. These include firewalls, multifactor identification, SSH Keys, Identity and Access Management, and security groups. In this case, the flexibility of cloud systems translates to quick responses—they can and will upgrade their defenses as soon as upgrades become available.

When creating a virtual private network, taking full advantage of the cloud’s capabilities will grant you additional security so heavy it easily meets the standards of the U.S. departments of State, Energy, Agriculture, and Treasury.

7 -- It takes you out of the box.

Some people might not like the idea of using the cloud as a foundation for new applications. Again, that’s just a trick of the langue: cloud systems aren’t as stable as on-site systems—they’re even more stable. 

Plus, with clouds you don’t have to tear down the foundations every time you change something. No longer will you have to put up with the limitations of standardized software: now you’re free to create custom applications and complex workflows that bend to your needs, instead of the other way around.

8 -- It’s here to stay.

More and more companies are adopting the cloud for all the above reasons. Increasing numbers of people are attracted to its security, its scalability, and its transforming effect on business. 

Cloud systems provide cost-effective solutions that save you money on equipment, service contracts, personnel, and electricity. Putting all your information on the cloud may seem like a big leap, but that’s the way the wind is blowing. The revolution has begun, the IT industry is changing, and so must you. Now is the time to jump into the cloud.

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About the author:  Matthew Jackson—as a Custom Cloud Designer for Penny Imaging Exchange—creates custom-branded and hosted cloud-based workflow solutions. Penny Imaging has more than 25 years of industry experience and is committed to creating mutually beneficial relationships. You can continue this discussion at http://complexworkflow.com/forum/.

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More on cloud computing… 

What the heck is AIIM up to re Information Certification?

 

 

Get that Christmas shopping done early; yes Virginia, I do have a life outside AIIM

Looking for that perfect holiday gift?  Look no further than Will's Christmas List.

Imagine if you will, the following reviews.  If they had actually occurred, would you be likely to actually buy this book?

"I laughed until I stopped." (New York Times Book Review)

"This book could help bridge the gap between liberals and conservatives." (Barack Obama)

"The pages as well as the chapters are numbered sequentially. Amazing." (Kirkus Book Reviews)

"If there was a movie made of this book, the father would be played by Colin Firth and the mother would be played by Amy Adams." (Mary G. Mancini and John F. Mancini, in order to satisfy our respective fantasies)

This is a labor of love that I wrote over a number of years for my kids.  It has literally sold tens of copies over the years, assuring that the massive royalties I receive (in some years, well into double digits) will not be a threat to AIIM's continued claim upon my services.

I do like to do a bit of experimenting each year with the Long Tail Phenomenon and watch how modest numbers of units affect my ranking within the long tail on the best seller list.  

So here's the starting point.  Right now, per Amazon, Will's Christmas List is #4,210,041 in Books. Let's see where it winds up; I'll report back.

Have fun.

 

8 things you need to know about enterprise capture

One of the things I talk about during my presentations is that will capture is a mature technology (i.e., it actually works as advertised), the capture market is still relatively immature. Specifically, while a relatively high percentage of user organizations are scanning to archive, relatively few are extracting data from images to doing indexing or metadata, even fewer are extracting data to drive processes, and still fewer have a true enterprise capture strategy.

These themes were reinforced by the recent AIIM white paper, Capturing Data to Multiple Business Processes - What's holding you back? 

Check it the major conclusions.

1 -- Opportunities for document capture remain strong.

Within organizations surveyed, 23% do not have a formal mechanism for systematic scanning and capture, and a further 20% are primarily scanning-toarchive. 55% are primarily scanning-to-process. 

2 -- Benefits of archive scanning are well acknowledged.

62% of respondents agree that they have made very real storage cost savings from their scan-to-archive project, and 71% also agree that they have achieved much improved response times and better customer service.

3 -- Scan-to-Process ROI is strong.

62% of scan-to-process projects equalled or improved on the expected return-on-investment payback period through greater productivity.

4 -- There is considerable scope for capture-enabling more processes.

40% of organizations have 3 or less processes capture-enabled. 

5 -- Users are keen to expand use.

60% of existing users are very keen to expand their capture system utilization.

6 -- Lack of awareness is holding things back.

The main reason respondents are not capture-enabling more processes is a lack of IT resource, and next is the lack of awareness among process owners. 

7 -- Capture platforms make integrations easier.

The majority of respondents felt that IT resource issues and technical issues would be eased considerably if they had a common capture platform with standardized data integrations. 

8 -- Capture is considered to be a vital part of business processes.

When describing the importance of capture to their business processes, 28% consider it to be a “Crucial component” and a further 36% consider it to be a “Key enabler”.