Every now and then, I read a post/article/tweet that makes me slam my head against the nearest hard surface. The culprit this time was an article titled Cloud Content Management to Challenge ECM?
I saw the title and was intrigued. I then read it and realized that the author had started falling for some market speak. I quickly determined that the fault was not completely with the author. Yes, they had fallen under the spell of some marketing and should have been strong enough to resist. The real villian here? Box.
Remove the Cloud
Okay, lets think this through, logically. First, let’s look at Box’s definition of Cloud Content Management. When you look at it, you see them describing a SaaS offering. More importantly, you are seeing them talk about the advantages of hosting it on the internet as opposed to your server room.
What we are seeing is a change in platform, not actually a change in the solution. (Well, they talk about that some, but hold on a second.) When we talk about ECM, we talk about solving problems and making content available throughout the organization. The Enterprise signifies that we are dealing with all of our content, not just images or the content from the finance department.
When you go to the cloud, you remove the firewall headaches and the scaling headaches and make them someone else’s problem. You are still solving the same problem of managing your content. You still have to manage security by creating accounts.
When we started consolidating servers and placing them into server rooms instead of in people’s offices back in the 90s, we didn’t rename anything. The applications and the problems they were solving were exactly the same.
What is changing is the delivery model. SpringCM calls it right when they say they provide a SaaS ECM Platform. PERFECT! A Cloud ECM Platform would also work as a title, though a little less specific than SaaS. You are qualifying ECM, not "Content" or the "Content Management".
The platform should not be in the description. When was the last time you saw Windows Content Management or UNIX Content Management? How about LAN Content Management or WAN Content Management?
Note that Box is pitching themselves more like Google Docs than SpringCM, but you will notice that Google Docs doesn’t throw hype terms around. (Aside from "Google") Box’s pitch actually describes Omnipresent Content Management to some degree, though it is a stepping stone due to constraints imposed by technology.
That said, the article itself cared less about the "Cloud" and focused on the interface.
The Cloud Doesn’t Make the Interface
This is where I blame the author of the article. He does makes a very good point about the standard ECM interfaces:
arcane user interfaces and culture of exclusion that’s associated with older software. ECM has this tendency to lock everything away in its place, and the Web is opening up news ways of working with content that allows us to view and interact with it in a collaborative, constantly refreshed context.
The solution isn’t the cloud. The solution is creating new interfaces. It is leveraging Enterprise 2.0 solutions. It is being created by independent vendors that hope to leverage CMIS to create new, powerful, universal clients for ECM systems.
The web is a great proving ground for the interface technology, but it can live outside of the Internet. Just because you have only seen a feature on the web doesn’t mean it can’t be part of a non-Internet solution. That is one thing the ECM industry has to work on. Separate the applications from the platform and allow the interfaces to evolve more rapidly in response to the changing environment.
The interface may be sweet, but it is actually not a feature of cloud computing. It is a result of clever developers and product managers that have either figured-out what users want, or got lucky.
Let’s keep one thing in mind, many organizations like their firewalls right now because security in the wilds of the Internet has too many unknowns. Check-out this summary of some of the current trends on ECM in the Cloud over at CMS Wire.
To Sum Up
I’ll put it simply. Anyone that buys into the term "Cloud Content Management" probably doesn’t know the space. I understand vendors want to create the next catchy term and make a mark. We don’t have to play along.
If you try and use the term in a conversation with me, be prepared for a million questions. You will have to defend that term to the death. I will spare employees of Box that have no choice, but anyone else is fair game.
Box’s offering looks neat. They have a good vision. Just don’t call it Cloud Content Management.
As promised, here is the “official” announcement of what the iECM Committee is doing this year for CMIS demo at the AIIM Expo. This year we are trying to create a reference application that we can actually use for a long time and grow with new functionality.
We are looking for participants to help us out. Read through and see if you would like to contribute. There is also be a formal presentation on the demo scheduled for the AIIM Conference, and there will most likely be a panel discussion like the one held last year.
Here we go. I copied it here, but you can download the PDF version if you prefer.
“Mission Statement”
To analyze and evaluate the CMIS standard in terms of it usability and the benefits of employing CMIS in the development of new services and applications which leverage one or more existing ECM systems; and to develop experience reports that capture best practices in the use of CMIS and CMIS compliant products.
I’ve published a lot on the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) standard since it’s initial public announcement in September of 2008. One problem is that a lot of that content is spread out in multiple blog posts.
Well Thomas Pole, the AIIM iECM Committee chair, and I have written a whitepaper talking about the demo that the committee built for the AIIM Conference last year. It talks about the ups and downs of designing and building the demo. It classifies the demonstration using the three fundamental CMIS use cases that I crafted this past summer and talks about what the upcoming demonstration is going to achieve.
If you want to read it, you can download the PDF version right here.
Did I mention that it has pretty pictures?
The section talking about the future is excerpted below. There will be a more detailed post on that shortly.
Last year, AIIM’s iECM Committee put together a demonstration of the proposed CMIS 1.0 standard for the AIIM Conference in Philly. Well, we are at it again for a bigger and better demo.
How is it going to be better? I am glad you asked. Here is what we are aiming for this year:
- More vendors: Last year we had three vendors (Alfresco, EMC, and Nuxeo) participating. This year we already have four vendor commitments and we haven’t started groveling for more participants yet!
- More CMIS scenarios: Last year we only showed CMIS in the Federation scenario. This year we are going to be showing TWO Federation scenarios AND, as a bonus, an Application to Repository scenario. That’s right, we are going to be switching our front-end application between the different repositories ON THE FLY!
- Real-world use cases: Okay, maybe not “real” world, but we are going to be using the Health Care Industry as a basis for this year’s demonstration. Our meta-data model and use cases will focus on the management of content of a patients health care record. Things will be simplified, this is a CMIS demo after-all, but you will be able to see a real-world application for CMIS that doesn’t involve a generic ECM interface.
- CMIS Version 1.0: This is really just for me. Last year everything was draft this and beta that. I’m expecting a much more streamlined development process this year.
You want more? How about this…there is going to be a session on the demo at the AIIM Conference this year presented by myself and Thomas Pole, the iECM Committee Chair talking about the demo and a whitepaper that will be developed in conjunction.
In the next few days, you will see a more detailed description of this year’s demonstration and a whitepaper that Thomas and I have written about the status of the standard, the story of last year’s demo, and what we are planning for this year.
Exciting times people, exciting times.
I have a confession to make…I’m a fraud. I may know a lot about Documentum and ECM, but when you get to pick your discussion topics, it is easy to look smart and knowledgeable.
Many of you know a lot about implementing successful ECM projects with Documentum, SharePoint, Alfresco, Nuxeo, or any number of systems. You have all learned things that I’ve never even considered when planning for a project.
And the number of things I don’t know about Documentum is mind-boggling. There are new components every few months and there is no way that I, or anyone for that matter, can keep up with it all.
So I am asking for your help. Please think about the projects you have worked on in the past year or so. Did you learn a few things? Did you run into a few hurdles to over come? The odds are that the project wasn’t perfect. Even if it went well, there are things that you would do differently.
Share what you learned with me.
Share it with everyone!
I’ve been working to help re-define ECM these days. It has been a matter of using the term Enterprise Content Management versus creating a new term. My theory is use the term that a lot of people know and don’t start the education process over. John Mancini, the president of AIIM, talked the ECM label on his Digital Landfill blog.
A more important question has arisen…is ECM even relevant as a concept? CMS Watch really kicked this thought process off by saying that the term should be reserved for that rare breed of big, complex, and typically very expensive platforms that actually merit such a grandiose term. For other systems that may aspire to ECM, but aren’t there, Document Management is the term.
I’m thinking Yes and No.
Before we look at Document Management, let’s look at ECM as a platform.
Enterprise 2.0, New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization’s Toughest Challenges
I’ve been following Andrew on Twitter for a while and have enjoyed his posts. So when I heard that the author of the term “Enterprise 2.0″ had written a book on the topic, I was initially skeptical of the value to me. How much new stuff would there be in the book for someone who, while not an expert, was very familiar with the topic? After hearing about some of the hype, I decided to give the book a try.
I am glad that I did.
Aside from having a handy book that I can hand people to learn about Enterprise 2.0, the book helped me crystallize my understanding of Enterprise 2.0 and helped me think of better ways to explain it to people.
So money well spent, but what did I learn?
Bookmark on Delicious
