Theme of the week so far...

This week is a whistle stop tour of the US, a city a day, and meetings with CIO's and ECM Project Managers galore. The theme of the week so far is.....reality.

More on this in a more considered post, but as discussed at an earlier date, everyone wants to consolidate their ECM activity (this is good), nobody wants to rip and replace (also good). The discussions we currently have range around the topic of how one consolidates...is this by a single (if federated virtual) repository, or by a common taxonomy, or by the use of ECI tools across multiple disparate repositories, or via workflows...is it a bit of all things?

What is clear is that the big ECM vendors particulary Documentum & FileNET are resurgent in the marketplace, but that others are really rapidbly falling into a trailing position. Many large enterprises want an enterprise scale suite of ECM tools, they also (rightly) want to consolidate their server and database layers, and in the best cases also want to loop this into a hierachical storage exercise. But all recognise that some things are going to cause more trouble than they are worth to change, and leave well alone.

Such a pragmatic, but nonetheless bold vision of an ECM future is very heartening :-)

From Compliancy to Retention

In Sept 05 80:20 Software launched their free download 'Compliance Server' for Sharepoint environments (see attached link), and for an RM related product garnered a lot of press attention. Since the launch the company claims to have had great success, much success we can't know for sure. But, anything endorsed by Microsoft and running on top of the incredibly successful Sharepoint platform probably hasn't done too badly.

What for me is particularly significant in this new release is.....the name change. It has gone from being a 'Compliancy Server' to a 'Retention Server'. On one hand this is little more than marketing babble, but I suspect it is a reflection of a much greater market shift that many of us seem to be observing. Namely, that many buyers just can't get their head around compliancy as a business or technical issue, it is simply too nebulous a term to fully grasp. Tthe term record management clearly sends people to sleep, but that 'Retention' is easily understood and embraced by many.

Retention rightly suggests, wrapping some lifecycle protocols around various chunks of content, detailing what should be kept, for how long, and when to dispose and destroy. All activities that underpin basic data governance and good management processes.

Retention is also arguably a more accurate description for many of the so-called 'Compliancy' software offerings currently available. For in fact 'compliancy' tools typically just provide pre-defined retention schedules against specific sets of data. They can be a component of Record Management activities, and can be a support to adhering to regulations, but they are not tools that can actually may you ‘compliant’. To do that would require a culture of compliancy, a deep understanding of your obligations to relevant regulations, and clear and clearly followed procedures.

So I continue to watch this particular movement (free CM related software with interest), this particular launch hasn't had as much fanfare as the Alfresco launch, but all this along with Oracle & Microsofts determined drives into the sector, all suggests we are starting to see a major shift in the sector. We are starting to see buyers and users shape the market by their demands, ‘Retention’ over complex ‘Record Management’, simple DM for everyone, rather than over engineered ECM on the desktop etc. Large Enterprises will continue to commit wholesale to the likes of Documentum & FileNet, but the market is changing, and it will likely be unrecognizable in five to ten years time.

Frankly I hope it is unrecognizable, and that we see CM, ECM & RM truly cross the chasm and become embedded in all and any content related activities.

I intend to work this and some of the other thoughts in recent posts into a more substantial (and hopefully more coherent!) article for CMS Watch over the next week or so. I will post a link when its published.

Google & Privacy

This blog thread seems to be turning into an extended tirade against Google but I spotted this today on The Register - that research by the Ponemon Institute has found that 77% of Google users are unaware that the company stores personal data on them.

Link here - Google 77%

To repeat (yet again) this place is not about data privacy issues as such, but more to caution against the use of content in any form that is managed out of context. And there is a great deal of information sitting at Google with little or no context around it, the consequences of such profile building are open to discussion - but I think they should at least be discussed.

I drive past Google's offices in Mountain View every couple of weeks, and gaze on with wonder at the incredible growth (physically) going on there - but as an information management professional, such vast quantities of data make me think about consequences.

For the record I really have nothing against Google (honest!) I use blogger and Google search daily. My concern is simply that managing information is much more than technology and building bigger and bigger data mountains to mine. Its also about people, about understanding their needs and limitations. My concern with a firm such as Google is that it could gather so much information in such a methodical and potentially invasive manner without public oversight. One cannot knock them for doing it, but society should be asking some serious questions about the ethical issues that are being raised here.

Definitions - again....

It's not really the purpose of this blog to provide definitions, but let me take a stab at a couple. For even the most experienced ECM professional mixes them up. In a separate post below I argue that it hardly matters if these things are confused, but what''s the point of a blog if I can't contradict myself? The point is since publishing those posts I have had a few conversations that suggest to me that I might be a wrong, or that more clarity is needed. One suggestion (that I pretty much agree with) is that IT really needs to know the differences, but the end user does not. So here goes:

• Retention - a defined period of time for holding a piece of information

• Archive - Long term managed storage of information

• Compliancy - adherence to regulatory requirements

• Records Management - The methods and practices of managing records

There are much fuller and more substantial definitions available at the analyst sites , but a soundbite length definition that both the IT professional and the business user can grasp may be of value.

The bottom line here is that they do have overlap, but are quite different activities/definitions and one needs to understand the value and limitations of each to move forward.

Keynoting with Ted Nelson

I received an email friday from Janus Boye, the organiser of the cmf2006 in Denmark informing me that Ted Nelson will also be keynoting at the event. I really wasn't too sure how to reply...

Ted Nelson (for those of you who don't know) is very famous in the world of IT, some (many) might say infamous. He is credited with inventing the hyperlink, which in itself when one thinks about it virtually transformed the internet into what it is today. He is though equally well know for his Project Xanadu.

I am posting links to two sides of the argument here and will stay out of it - but will say it makes for fine reading....

• Project Xanadu
• Wired

What interests me most is in having the chance to actually meet Ted. And without going into Xanadu at all, I think Ted is fundamentally right about the need for content to be inter-related and be able to inter-relate, rather then the stand alone existence of most pieces of content today. Though on a different slant, my constant rants about context being central to RM and ECM usually falls on deaf ears, but I still believe it to be fundamentally correct. In honesty it does not always fall on deaf ears, occasionaly I find a like mind...but not often.

We talk a lot in this industry about silo's of information, but even when centralised and federated nicely, most content sitting in repositories is in turn siloed. More on this in another more detailed post. For now I encourage you to find out more about Ted, and would recommend you to read his own work, before the Wired article slamming him - just like his central thesis, both together make something of a whole, apart they lack context.

Google - Information on You

Just been reading up on the DOJ's lawsuit to ensure Google provides access to information its has about 'You'...

Article on The Register

Well its hardly a suprise, as the idea of the Web being anonymous and self governing has long been complete baloney. It is not now and certainly will not be at all in the future.

Concerning the DOJ's actions against Google, it is not that I feel strongly either way about this whole topic, other than to say information out of context, can be very dangerous. Simply storing vast quantities of data on a person, set of transactions or virtual activity, does not always provide you with something of value or truth. And 'Truth' is central to all this - what is truthful and accurate? For example though I have a lot of time for Oracle's moves into the world of Information (unstructured particularly) data management, I loathe their use of the term 'Single Source of Truth'.

Truth is a very abstract and human concept that is way beyond the capacity of a computer to comprehend. Likewise, providing unfettered access to vast banks of personal data to the governement or their agents, may not be in itself wrong, but may well have consequences that we are yet to fully expect, or understand.