The Cloud is coming

Cloud computing has gained some traction in the media lately with Microsoft's Azure announcement.  So what does this mean for corporations?  It means that you had better have your information organized before you move to the cloud.  

If you are like me, when you have a party or people over you scramble to clean up the place.  You want it to look nice for your guests.   The same holds true for your guests, generally (if they are good friends) they will shower and clean-up before they come over to your house. 

The same will hold true for companies wanting to move to Azure or some other cloud computing paradigm.  Before you move your data to someone else's house you are going to want to clean up, the team setting up your Azure environment will make everything shinny and new and everyone will get together and have a great party.  

Concerns:

So data clean-up is not a trivial event for most corporations older than a year.  The organization of information needs to be done in a thorough, diligent manner.  Taxonomy development, organization of information and its associated meta data, is both an art and a science and should not be taken lightly within the organization.  

So if Corporations have the opportunity and they apply the resources to organizing their information, what could be wrong with that?

Laws, Regulation, Acts, Statutes get in the way. 

Any corporation that exists in more than one state or country is subject to multiple regulations, even if they are not a part of the traditional "regulated industries".  In today's environment, regulations, statues etc cover how information is handled, stored and what to do if personal information is accidentally released. 

So the downside to the cloud is that your organization is transporting corporate information that may be subject to regulation is being sent across state lines to an undisclosed location where the cloud computing systems reside.  

The answer is that organziations need to have their information management under control before deciding to move to a new platform. 

ARMA International Show

Well ARMA 2008 has come to a close.  It was held in Las Vegas this year and being that it was my first trip to the city of sin, I must say that it will probably be my last.  Since this isn't a travel site, I won't bore you with my trip.  

Here's a recap of what I saw at the ARMA 2008 show

Vendors

The same group of vendors were present this year, some with a new name like Tower is now HP.  Some have solidified their relationships like MDY who was aquired several years ago by CA. In general the booth presence was smaller this year, gone were the massive booths that vendors would bring in and instead smaller, leaner, more intimate settings were established.  

Education

As always, the lineup of educational seminars was top notch at th ARMA Show.  I'm not saying that because I was a presentor at the show, but because ARMA pours a tremendous amout of time and energy into making the seminars great.  Some notable seminars include:

• From ISO to Implementation: A Framework for ECM Implementation (ok its a plug for my speach)
• Developing an Information Management Program Mode
• Applying Lean Six Sigma to Records Management
• Metadata and Taxonomies - Tying the Two Together
• Web 2.0 and the Records Manager
  

and the Though Leadership Session RIM: The Next Three Years

This session was facilitated by:

• April Dmytrenko, CRM, FAI 
  
• Wendy Shade, FAI 
  
• Deb Gearhart, CRM, FAI 
  
• Julie Gable, CDIA,CRM,FAI 
  
• Jim Coulson, CRM, FAI 
  
• Christine Ardern, CRM, FAI 
  
• Tad Howington, CRM, CA, FAI
  

I'm hoping that ARMA will be able to post a summary of this session.  I was not able to attend this session :( but from all reports it was probably the best session at the show.  

Overall the show was fantastic.  The team that puts together this event does a better job year after year.  

The ISO Standards that affect ECM

Later this month I will be presenting at the ARMA 2008 show in Las Vegas.  The Topic of my presentation will be How the ISO Standards Affect your ECM Implementation.  

The learning objectives of the presentation are as follows:

–Discuss with corporate management how their RM program interconnects with ECM and substantiate their analysis

–Analyze their existing environment and determine where additional information needs to be gathered or where processes need to be improved for their RM/ECM projects

 

The presentation will cover the following ISO Standards:

·         ISO 23081

o    Information and Documentation -- Records management processes -- Metadata for records

·         ISO 15489

o   The Standard for Records Management

·         ISO 15836

o    The Dublin Core metadata element set that deals with cross-domain information resource description

·         ISO 19005-1

o   For long-term preservation of electronic documents

·         ISO 14721

o   The OAIS (Open Archival Information System) standard, which presents models describing digital preservation features and functions

·         ISO/TR 18492:2005

o   Provides practical methodological guidance for the long-term preservation and retrieval of authentic electronic document-based information

·         IEC 82045

o   Technical standard for Document management, industry-specific versions

·         ISO 9001

o   ISO 9000 requires that records be kept of critical operations. Record keeping is the fourth tier of required documentation in ISO 9000, following the Quality Policy Manual, Procedures, and Work Instructions

 You can see my full presenation here. 

ECM vs EDRM

The industry is full of acronyms:

• KM
  
• DM 
  
• EDRM
  
• EDM
• RM
  
• ECM
  

What I find lately is that people use these names to the exclusion of each other.  The fact is that each of these terms are not to the exclusion and are more inclusive than we think.  Let's take a look at some of these

ECM - Electronic Content Management, the catch all phrase for each of acronyms above.  The name is as it implies, that it covers all Electronic Content.   So what is content. Content is considered the individual elements that are stored in the ECM system.  The content can be 

• A document (i.e. word, spreadsheet, presentation, etc)
  
• A record 
  
• A physical object (i.e. a box)
  
• A web page / part
  
• A workflow
  
• An email message
  

KM / DM - These are the terms that started a while back and refer to the basic document managment controls (versioning, audits, etc) and the ability to search the contents for information.  

EDRM - This is a term that I see pop up in a few cases, mostly where organizations don't want all the bells and whistles of a larger ECM package.  The EDRM, Electronic Document and Records Management are generally packages that only offer Document Management and Records Management functionality as the name implies. 

EDM - This term is not frequenly used, it refers to the Electronic Document Management packages that exist on the market.  This is basic content management functionality, which allows for the check-in/out, version control and auditing of information. 

RM or ERM - This term is used for those packages that are pure Records Managment functions. There are only a couple of vendors on the market that have pure RM functionality (Trim and MDY) and generally cover the physical object management vs the electronic content management.

The future of ECM - Part I

There are a number of writings regarding where ECM is going.  Many companies are working on new features etc.  Let's explore the economics of ECM first and see where pricing will probably be heading in the future:

What I can see happening over the next 2-3 years is the Commoditization of the ECM platform.  Tools such as Vital-Path will enable companies to move information into and out of or between ECM repositories and even Open Text’s efforts with SAP blur the lines of where the ECM repository starts and ends. 

What becomes the glue between the information is the meta data about the documents.  I've called this relationship RALPH (Records and Logical Path Hierarchy).  RALPH includes not only the departmental level file plan, but the records classification, document meta data and security information.  

The only “link” between the various points of information will be RALPH, such a relationship will enable an organization to move information into and out of any system, and throughout any part of their organization.  

Research shows that  almost 50% of company's ECM deployments are hampered by a lack of a file plan.  Nothing new here, so any organizations efforts should be in developing the relationships and hierarchy that bind their information together.    

So back to my original point.  If the primary need of an organization is to link the types of information together and companies develop these types of specialties, then the ECM system can be any one of the major vendors on the market today.  When the loss of specialty occurs, then Commoditization will be the next step.  

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog, Electronic Content Management.  I've been dabbling with blogs for the past year or so (see http://entium.blogspot.com).  As my career in the content management space develops, I have been fortunate to be accepted to speak at the ARMA International convention twice.  As with most industries there is a need to publish to keep your name in circulation and help others find what's next or the zeitgeist of the industry.  However, finding the time to write a lenghy paper or presentation takes some serious time committment.  The blog gives me the balance that I need, where I can write short pieces on a topic and develop them over time. 

So here I am.  

A little about me.  I started my carreer in the early 90's as a network engineer, moved into programming for several years and later into information management and security.  I have worked on a number of high profile projects over the years and worked for both fortune 500 firms and small 30 member firms.  I won't go into my full profile here, but you can find me on LinkedIn or just read some about me in the banner in this blog. 

Last year I won the Brit Literary award with my co-author Ellie Myler for a paper that looked at the ISO 17799 standards and how they affect records manangement.  

This year I am speaking at the ARMA convention in Las Vegas, on the topic of ISO standards and how they influence your ECM deployment.  If you are in the Las Vegas area and in the content management space I would encourage you to attend the ARMA convention.  Its probably one of the best in the industry. 

Well I hope you enjoy reading.  

George

ECM What's Next

So I've been giving some consideration as to what the next generation of ECM software will look like. Our current suite of software addresses the holes in the ECM puzzle, but more often than not as a consultant you feel like you are the little boy plugging the holes in the dam. There are so many areas that ECM needs to cover, so many components that are needed, that the consulting costs and software costs are sometimes too much for a company.   When this happens we start to talk about Risk Management for a company.  What's the least amount that they can do, and still keep themselves whole.  

However, ECM is not about the least that you can do.  It's about saving corporate assets and information. Its about not searching endlessly for a document.  Its about being able to tap into the experts within the organization and intuitively understand where information lives.  

So I ask the question.  How do we fix it all.  Spend Millions on software, consulting and years to implement?  Is there a better way?

Some of this thought process comes from the new Chrome browser from Google.  They have "redefined" the browser for the next 5 years but we are still limited by the web interfaces to find information.  

This blog will  start to breakdown the current offerings that are on the market and see what holes or niches that they fill.  Then we can look at the "what's next" from MIT and IBM to get a glimpse into the future.  We will also look at how information is organized and the benefits of using folksonomies for corporate information. Finally we will try to make some sense of what's out there and how corporations can deal with the massive amounts of information on their servers.