Brilliant Leap

Those who don't ask, don't wait

Much has been written about Enterprise 2.0 (also known as enterprise social software) in the ECM space, vendors like IBM, Opentext, Microsoft, and Alfresco already have products on the market; EMC will release Magellan soon (interested parties can apply to participate in the beta now.) And while this is exciting news to many of us in the ECM space, the cadre millennial workers may be less impressed. After all, they probably haven't been sitting around waiting.

In case you're unfamiliar with their characteristics, I've written about the generation in the NY Post. In IT land, millennials are being called digital natives because they were born into a web-enabled world. Tech Republic's Jason Hiner says that they behave differently from those who came before them. They will:

TCM Part 3: Document Sciences

When I ask customers what impressed them at EMC World, the most common answer I get, from non-developer types, is Transactional Content Management (TCM). Though I've defined TCM in previous posts, my notes from Mark Lewis's press briefing say that it's: "a solution platform uniquely optimized for business agility that enables organizations to deliver highly adaptive and proactive customer-centric, content-centric applications."

It's a mouthful, I know, AND it's important to note that TCM is a solution NOT an application. What's the difference?

EMC's TCM is a customizable, configurable workflow that encompasses document input and capture (Captiva); monitoring and optimization (Documentum) and output (Document Sciences). It is not specifically designed for motor vehicle accident insurance claims, health insurance claims, mortgage processing etc..these are applications which can be built using EMC's TCM solution.

And what makes TCM the solution of choice for building the aforementioned applications?

Transactional Content Management Part 2: Documentum

I interrupted my three-part post on EMC's Transactional Content Management solution (TCM) because I wanted to make readers aware of EMC's vision for Friction-less computing BEFORE I wrote about the Documentum-portion of TCM. Why? Because it looks like a solution that's approaching friction-lessness. (It may be important to note that I think about "friction-less" primarily from the software side. Chuck Hollis, EMC's Vice President of Technology Alliances, defines it more broadly in his blog; he describes it as "a self-service, few-questions-asked environment." )

Sounds good, doesn't it? As simple as launching a web browser. And a potent answer to Joe Tucci's (COB and CEO of EMC) concern that there's still too much involvement from IT.

What's to be seen through a wider lens?

A few Documentum-oriented readers of this blog have e-mailed me back-channel to ask why I wrote about Captiva two posts ago; the answer I gave is this: "To provide a view through a wider lens." From my observation, EMC's intention is to design products around business-oriented solutions; therefore no specific product, almost by definition, can do the whole job. So while a Documentum developer, for example, may see his/her role as customizing, configuring or writing code around WebTop, DFC, DCM and so on; EMC looks at the entire solution set: "How can we build as close to a Plug'n Play for our customers as possible ?"

A good example of this is EMC's Transactional Content Management solutions set. It's built for clients who have Accounts Payable Processing, Health Insurance Document Generation, and Business Process Management (the demo at EMC World was around information exchanged between an individual involved in a car accident and his insurance company) needs. These are areas in which high-volumes of information are input ( the EMC solution enlists Captiva), then managed via Documentum and finally delivered to customers in various formats and through various means through Document Sciences which does "customer communications management."