Brilliant Leap

Got an ECM Project to do? There's never been a better time....

Last week I went to Alfresco's Lunch and Learn in Manhattan and was pleasantly surprised to find the room filled to capacity. It had been snowing that morning; there were 90+ car crashes in the area and even the trains were running behind schedule. Despite all that, the ECM inquirers, end users, and geeks didn't let the weather keep stop them from trudging through midtown to see what the Open Source ECM vendor had to offer. I went because I wanted to learn about Alfresco's latest features (3.2 was released in January) and because it was a good opportunity  to say "hey" to a handful of folks that I knew would be in attendance.

What I found exceptional about this gathering (aside from the content) was the diversity of ECM/Document Management experience among those in attendance. On one end of the spectrum was Adam Storch of Microstrategies, who has been building ECM/DM solutions for over 17 years, (using the likes of  Alfresco, Interwoven, Documentum, FileNet, Sharepoint... should we count Lotus Notes?), on the other end was a woman who was just beginning to think about dipping her toe into ECM waters. "We have to start managing our content, so we're exploring the possibilities," she said. She went on to explain that she'd been talking to a number of different vendors. "Which one is best?" she asked.

"It depends on what you want to do and on who you ask," I told her.

I offered to introduce her to some ECM veterans sitting in the room, but she declined. "When people are presenting their solutions, they all sound wonderful," she said. "But I'd bet that getting the "walk" to match the "talk" is an entirely different thing," she added, noting that she had one chance to "get it right." 

As we went on talking, I thought about all the different people who I knew that could help her, and came to realize that I could ease her fears. ECM/DM technologies were no longer new. There are many people who have over a decade of experience; they know from trial and error what works and what doesn't; and they've developed methodologies which deliver time and time again. This wasn't true in the early to mid-1990s when having prior imaging experience, knowing how to spell Documentum, or how to program in Visual Basic in conjunction with Crystal Reports were often enough to win you a job. Back then, people were building solutions hoping that they'd not only meet the users' needs but that they'd actually work. This doesn't have to be the case any more.

Yes We Can!

By now it's clear that those three words are the chant of the American majority. The promise of possibility has won over the voice of fear; and the idea that big business can keep you safe and secure (think about your 401k, your job, your insurance company) has all but vanished.

So why am I talking about this on an ECM blog? Because I think that Generation X,Y and the Millenials have been saying "Yes We Can" in the workplace for quite a long time. They've stuck their noses up at, or simply ignored, the corporate voices who have tried to keep it all behind the firewall; they've installed third-party applications like AIM and Talk and accessed their Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter accounts on company hardware regardless of policy. I've heard IT Managers from companies as large as Pfizer say that they know that people are sharing their music collections at the office and admit that they can't police it all. And even if IT policies could keep folks from free-wheeling on their desktops, there are always iPhone, Blackberrys, or PALMs that are becoming more and more able to get the job done. And if you try to tell these generations that they can't use their personal devices in the workplace. they won't argue, their behavior will speak for them, "Yes We Can."

So what are Corporate Officers to do when they're charged with the duties of keeping Information safe, secure, and compliant; when it's their responsibility to insure that only certain folks get to view/and or alter certain documents, when "sharing" and collaboration and workflow have to be controlled?

Free, free, set them free

When I began recruiting in the Document Management space more than a dozen years ago, "document control" was a relatively common term. After attending a few Sharepoint presentations over the past year (and watching Bill Gates's keynote at the SharePoint 2008 conference on Monday via the web), "collaboration" seems to have emerged to be the word in that world.

Sharepoint, according to Gates, is "based on a vision of letting workers share information in a better way." *

Enterprise Content Management, according to Wikipedia, "is the technologies used to capture, store, preserve and deliver content and documents and content related to organizational processes. ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an organization's unstructured information, wherever that information exists."

On the most superficial of levels, it seems like one technology (SharePoint) is about the creation of content/documents by groups of people and the other is about storing the result(s) and keeping it safe. What happens in the "in between"? Which technology dictates the critical lifecycles and workflows? Can these technologies be used in concert to produce a winning ROI (which is somewhat jokingly referred to as "Risk of Incarceration" by traditional ECM customers.)

The Blissful Ignorance Effect?

I keep getting phone calls and e-mails from clients and readers asking whether I've actually run into anyone who has abandoned Documentum and gone with SharePoint (and if the answer is yes, are they happy with the end result ?), whether EMC's embrace of SharePoint is a good thing (it depends on who you are-a shareholder, a developer, a customer, an eRoom enthusiast, someone whose income is/would be affected by Documentum becoming a more potent technology or more widely used), and whether I foresee any front-end vendor giving Microsoft a run for its money in this space.

Why am I being asked these questions you might wonder. Simple. I speak to more that 100 ECM professionals each week. And while I'll be answering these questions in longer, individual posts later, here are some things to consider.

If you're charged with integrating SharePoint into your existing ECM environment, do yourself a favor and read Andrew Chapman's blog.

On the other hand, if you're hell bent against anything Microsoft invading your space (I trust you to supply your own reasons) and you want to bring a hip presentation into your next meeting, turn up the volume and click on the little movie below.

 

If you need to bide some time investigating alternatives to eRoom and SharePoint, Google launched Google sites last night. If you look into it, let me know what you think, Google's a brand that can give anyone a run for its money.

And finally, if you feel powerless over the onslaught of technologies good/bad/unproven, I want to remind you that you still have power. Consider the Blissful Ignorance Effect which reasons that customers (trans. your upper management and end- users) don't want to be burdened by all the details inherent in the choices available to them. It's how you (or anyone else) spins the truth that matters. Scientific findings suggest that decision makers "will often engage in whatever distortion is needed to justify the purchase." It may be as simple as playing up the positive aspects while downplaying the negatives.

Brilliant Outsourcing

So, are you wondering what those brilliant folks you outsource your Documentum tasks to are doing?

a) Applying their years of Documentum experience to your problems?

b) Watching movies from Hollywood or Bollywood?

c) Genuinely trying to do the work that needs to be done?

Information? Content? Records? Buzz, Buzz!

What are we managing now? Records, documents, content...Nope, it's information, at least according to EMC. "Where Information Lives" is its tagline. AIIM, which was previously known as the Association for Information and Image Management, is now the "Enterprise Content Management Association" BUT, they're talking about "Information" too. BUZZ ! BUZZ! We're just a little confused. But...lucky for us, we found this little slide show (complete with a commercial from AIIM) that attempts to explain it all!

A Conflict, a Ray of Light, and a Link to a Drink

I have a friend who's worried that the EMCing of Documentum will turn it into something inferior. That somehow the business strategy of a hardware company will conflict with the technological wins that a software solution provides and that the result will be something unrecognizable (in a bad way). "What's the basis for your argument?" I always ask my friend.

"Look what IBM did to Lotus Notes," tends to be his answer.

"But EMC could make Documentum even better," I say. "That could happen..."

"It could," says my friend." But I have a feeling he wouldn't put two cents on the bet. "I'm not sure how a storage company and an enterprise content management company can share the same vision," he says.

Documentum's Founders Reunite (on a ski trip)

Who wouldn't have wanted to be a fly on the wall when John Newton (co-founder of Documentum and founder of Alfresco), Howard Shao (recently retired co-founder of Documentum) and Razmik Abnous (Chief Software Architect and current CTO of EMC's Content Management and Archiving Division) spent some quality time skiing and dining in Meribel France? Aside from the great powder beneath their feet and the fine French food and wine their pocketbooks (okay, sorry, wallets) afford them, there's the conversation...Loyalty Vs. Betrayal, OpenSource Vs Proprietary Code, and the energy of something new (Alfresco) Vs the confidence and comfort of an established product with an established market following (Documentum). The tension doesn't seem to have been as thick as I would have guessed it would be (of course I wasn't there) and these three fellows seem to have remained rather friendly (it seems that Razmik invited them all to stay in an apartment he'd won in a charity auction.) Here's John Newton's account of the time he spent with some of the finest minds in Content Management.

Documentum + Microsoft:The HookUp- How Does It Affect You?

Are you saying I should learn SharePoint? I've been getting this question from some of my readers and my honest answer is "You should retain your expertise in Documentum, but you should learn something else too." Why? Because every day (and I mean "day" rather literally) a Documentum customer tells me that they no longer see Documentum as the answer to all ECM problems. Want proof? Pfizer recently "retired" a Documentum-based application. What was the replacement created in? SharePoint. Why? It was cheaper, easier, and most importantly, it provided the users with the same functionalities. Will this be happening more and more? Who knows, but consider the practicality AND the business of it. Keep in mind that EMC and Microsoft have embraced in a bit of a snuggle.

A SharePoint Tsunami in a Regulated Space?

As a recruiter who has worked in the ECM/EDMS space for more than a decade, I'm beginning to hear talk that I've never heard before from my Documentum managers: "Do you know of anyone who's done SharePoint?" You're doing stuff (that's my technical term) with Microsoft? I ask. These are people I've grown up with in the EDMS space and back when they were developers Microsoft was a bad word.