Weather at the 2010 AIIM Expo + Conference: Partly Cloudy – Repost From AIIM ERM Expert Blog

This is a repost from my blog post on the AIIM ERM Community Expert Blog

For anyone who attended the 2010 AIIM expo + conference last week you had to wonder if this were really the “SharePoint Conference”. As I walked around the expo floor, besides the large SharePoint 2010 booth from Microsoft and large adjacent KnowledgeLake booth, almost every booth referred to SharePoint on their signs or signaled that their product or service offering supported SharePoint. Additionally, with an entire track (the SharePoint 2010 Summit) dedicated to SharePoint related topics one might wonder what the future holds for the AIIM expo + conference.

One thing surprising to me was the way Microsoft chose to configure their booth with only an “experience classroom” and partner pavilion. They did not have any Microsoft manned stations to highlight, discuss, and demonstrate how SharePoint 2010 supported ECM and records management in a much deeper way with the upcoming release. Another surprising omission was lack of promotion for Microsoft’s cloud Software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). I would have though Microsoft would have really focused on BPOS as an offering to take advantage of the interest in cloud computing offerings.

The cloudiest vendor was SpringCM. This SaaS vendor was completely focused on Cloud as the answer to fast and easy deployment of ECM. Their offering sounds pretty compelling but I wonder how this offering play with large global enterprises that have a significant investment in SharePoint or some other ECM solution like Documentum or Livelink. I think SpringCM has a window of opportunity but will start bumping up against the Microsoft BPOS offering when Microsoft releases the SharePoint 2010 version of BPOS.

I did not see any other vendors who really talked about a credible cloud based offerings (delivered in a “pay-per-use and self-service way” as defined in my previous post) on the exposition floor. Alfresco points to hosting partners which provide Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for hosting Alfresco “in the cloud” but after a quick look at the partner sites it looks like most are really just providing off premise hosting for an Alfresco implementations as opposed to a true pay-per-use cloud offering.

I attended the keynote session entitled “Reinvent Work, Collaboration, and Innovation in the 21st Century” by Google’s Cyrus Mistry. I was somewhat disappointed since his talk really did not focus on leveraging the Cloud to transform how businesses manage information. He really focused more on how Google is using Gmail and Google Apps to create a culture of information sharing which is a very laudable goal.

What was disappointing was Cyrus’ recommendation “not to waste time” deciding which files to keep and which to delete and to just keep everything. Just because storage is getting cheaper and for Google the solution to any search problem is Google Search does not relieve organization from sound records management accountability. James Watson’s recent post on the AIIM ERM Community talks about the rationale for appropriately deleting unneeded content regularly. I think the folks at Google should read the blogs and Wikis at the AIIM ERM Community regularly.

Until next year…

Technorati Tags: AIIM,SharePoint,Records Management,Blogs,Open Text,Alfresco,KnowledgeLake

Why I do this? (Part 1) – Repost from AIIM ERM Community Blog

As I mentioned in my post “Joining a Very Special Group” I was invited to write about Electronic Records Management (ERM) on the new AIIM ERM Community.

The following is the first post I made on the AIIM ERM Community Expert Blogs last week.

Why I do this? (Part 1)

Ever wonder how or why you wind up doing what you do? Sometimes people set out on their career journey with a very specific destination in mind and carefully plan the development of that career along with very specific goals. That is not what happened for me.

I fell into the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) business purely by chance. Over 30 years ago my career goal was to become a pilot and I achieved that goal after completing my Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering and successfully completing flight training in the US Navy.

I had an interesting career in the Navy, got to see the world, had some amazing experiences, and met some amazing people. Through my experiences I decided that flying for one of the airlines was not something I would enjoy once I retired. In 1988 as I looked at what might be the next big thing, I decided to go back to school and retool. I went back to my alma mater, University of Florida (Go Gators!), and completed a Master of Science in Computer Science.

I was lucky enough to serve as Chief Information Officer (CIO) for a Navy aircraft research and development organization before I retired from the Navy. During my time as CIO I saw how critical the “I” in that job title really was. Information was critical to the success of the research and testing of the next generation aircraft and weapon systems.

After retiring I joined an IT software and services company that had a very robust workflow solution. This is the part where serendipity comes in. The DoD 5015.2 records management standard had just been issued and one of our customers wanted a document management solution, which would also comply with the brand new DoD 5015.2 standard. This was my chance to create a new integrated document, records, and workflow management solution using PC Docs, Provenance’s ForeMost, and our workflow software. This became one of the first integrated document management suites (IDAM as coined by Gartner) on the market and was the first integrated suite to become DoD 5015.2 certified. I guess I was a pioneer of sorts.

Anyway, I went on to become the President of the records management company (which became TrueArc), created AutoRecords and was awarded a patent, and provided the first DoD 5015.2 certified integrated records management solution for Microsoft’s SharePoint 2001 (version 1). I also successfully led the acquisition of TrueArc by Documentum in late 2002.

Over the last 8 years or so I have been focused on creating solutions, which help businesses effectively manage information and extract the most value from one of their most important assets. Although I have focused primarily on leveraging SharePoint as an information management platform over the last couple of years I have been working on effective ways of using Documentum and SharePoint together.

So, as you can see, I never really started out planning to be in the ECM business. In some way I fell into this career. But I really didn’t answer the hypothetical question “Why I do this?” yet. But I will.

In Part 2, I will delve more deeply into the answer to this question…

Technorati Tags: BetterECM,AIIM,Records Management,SharePoint,Compliance,TrueArc

Joining a Very Special Group

I saw Greg Clark’s post over the weekend and realized I had neglected to mention; Starting later in April I am joining a very special group of thought leaders; aka the “AIIM Electronic Records Management Expert Bloggers”.

So, besides trying to climb back up on the BetterECM blog horse and start writing more frequently, I now will have Bryant Duhon cracking the whip to make sure I get my weekly AIIM ERM Expert Blog post in on time. This should be fun and the most exciting thing will be to see what my “expert” colleagues will have to say.

If you have topics that you would like me to tackle or questions you would like me to try and answer please add a comment and let me know. As most of my readers know, I am not bashful and love to take on challenging topics and issues head-on.

This should be fun!

Technorati Tags: ECM,BetterECM,AIIM,Information Management

Will BetterECM Die?

I know. Where has BetterECM been?

You must be thinking “Is this blog going to die?”

Well, 2008 has been a very busy and challenging year. I am finally taking some time off to rest and recharge. I have missed writing and sharing my thoughts and experiences.

I’ve found that writing posts for BetterECM helps me focus my thoughts and gain clarity around the challenges of making ECM better for a global company.  I also plan to share some of what I have been working on.

For those who kept checking and who did not delete the BetterECM RSS feed from their reader, I thank you!

Technorati Tags: BetterECM,blogs

Where In The World Has BetterECM Been?: An Update

Back in August I wrote about the photo safari my wife and I took in South Africa. Well it took some time to work through almost 1,000 pictures I shot and process them. I really enjoy photography and this trip and experience reminded me how much I have missed exploring the world through a lens. Anyway I wanted to share some of the pictures. The sunsets were spectacular!

If you want to view a small subset of the pictures I took I uploaded some of them to Zooomr and you can click here.

Had a little fun with this one.

Technorati Tags: BetterECM, Blogs, Safari, Photography