Keeping Your Content Alive, With or Without SharePoint
Last week I called SharePoint a legacy system and that there were many document graveyards/coffins out there built upon SharePoint. I also said that SharePoint was just the latest Content Management system to host document graveyards. This lead to an entertaining discussion as well as related articles by Ron Miller questioning the point of Content Management and Billy Cripe discussing the need for a new focus for Content Management Systems.
Before moving forward, I want to clarify. I was not slighting SharePoint. If anything, it was a recognition of what SharePoint has achieved as a legitimate Content Management system.
Let’s now take a step back and look at keeping Content alive.
The Tools
I learned years ago that no one tool is right for every job. While this is true in the Content Management space, for many challenges, multiple tools could be effective. What usually defines “success” is the planning and governance involved.
Let’s face it, SharePoint is generating a lot of document graveyards because it is being deployed a lot. It isn’t a weakness of SharePoint. It is the same weakness that existed before SharePoint when organizations threw Content Management solutions over the wall and expected them to stick.
If there aren’t already, there will soon be graveyards built upon Box. It is a sign of success of the platform and a sign of failure by Information Professionals.
Granting Life to Content
Gabor Fari (who should write a post on this topic) and Billy both say that a strong collaborative system, properly designed and implemented, can give Content life. I think Billy puts it best when he says that Content should be exhibited.
I think that this type of system where Content is developed and readily revisited and leveraged is great.
It just isn’t the only way.
A well designed Case Management can give life to Content. Why? Let me give an example…
Let’s say I’m performing Correspondence Management. A piece of correspondence comes in and I have the responsibility to respond. I should be able to quickly locate other items on the same topic or from the same person. I can look at the previous responses and craft the new response appropriately. Meanwhile, metrics can be run to identify trends and see what is happening.
All About Context
What both examples have in common is that the Context of the Content is providing the value. Whether that Context is provided collaboratively or through using proper use of processes, that is the value. The sum of the information around that Content and its Context is the value.
No tool will give that to you. Only a well thought-out design, implementation, and proper governance will give it to you. Sure, some tools will fit some business problems better than others, but the tool cannot provide Context. That is up to the people using the system.
Is it frustrating that there are a lot of document graveyards? Yes, without question. Does it mean that my career has been wasted? Absolutely not. I’ve created many systems that aren’t graveyards and I’m proud of those systems. There are also a couple graveyards that I had a hand in building.
The existence of these graveyards existing universally should be a wake-up call. We as Information Professionals should strive to eliminate them. If you are reading this, it is your responsibility. These systems should not be dumping grounds. If people can’t find what they need or decided it isn’t worth looking, then why store the Content at all?
That is the real question. If nobody accesses the Content because it is buried, why not just kill it once and for all?
Certified Information Professional, A Valid Measure
Yesterday I talked a little about why the concept of a Certified Information Professional is important to making Information Management a real profession and the gap that it is aiming to fill. Today I want to talk about the exam itself and whether or not it is a good measurement tool.
I’m not going to bore you with all the details on how the exam was prepared by outside experts or any of that. While important, that isn’t a true measure. I think the true measure is the opinions of the battle-scarred veterans of the Information wars. Being one, I offer my opinion here to start building a consensus.
Becoming a Certified Information Professional
Today I went out and passed AIIM’s Certified Information Professional exam. There are a lot of thoughts I want to share around this action, but it is going to take a couple of posts. In this post I am going to cover the Why. Later I will cover the What.
The first thing I want to say is that working for AIIM is not the reason I took the exam. My original goal had been to listen to feedback from others before I took the exam. It was always in my 2012 plans. Joining AIIM just moved me from the laggard position to that of the evaluator.
After all, if I was going to be the lead Information Professional at AIIM I should at least check out the certification sooner rather than later.
SOPA, PIPA, and the Battle of Money
Earlier this week I took my blog down for the day to protest SOPA. This was easy for me to do because I don’t derive income from my website and because WordPress made it as easy as clicking a box to join in the protest.
Of course, easy or not, I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t believed in the cause. SOPA and similar bills, both in the past and future, threaten creativity and, more importantly, grant a little too much power to “Big Brother”.
Rather than explain it all to you myself, listen to Clay Shirky on the topic:
That pretty much sums up most of what you need to know, but there is more. [Ed Note: Almost immediately after hitting publish, Clay published a great post about not underestimating Hollywood]
SharePoint, Another “Legacy” Content Management System
After waking up to discover that I had a sick kid, I decided to spend my Martin Luther King holiday relaxing and making sure the kid got some rest. I made the mistake of logging onto twitter and retweeting something by Melissa Webster from today’s Lotusphere 2012 conference:
A.Rennie “Content at rest = cost, content in motion = value”, “Sharepoint is today’s document coffin”. Social ->relevancy, currency
The tweet was read by Gabor Fari who took immediate dislike to the tweet. Two facts that are important to know before proceeding. Gabor works for Microsoft and while I have worked with all major versions of SharePoint, most of my experience is with platforms that were mature when SharePoint was first released.
I’m going to recount some points of the discussion and expound now that I’m not limited by 140 characters. If you want to see the tweets, check both his and my tweets from Jan 16.
My Next Life as AIIM’s CIO
Pretty exciting, eh? Definitely a different, yet very, familiar role. When you consider that I’m joining a pretty good team that just added Cheryl McKinnon as VP of Marketing, you can start to see some exciting, or at least interesting, times ahead.
Now that you’ve read the answer to the open-ended question from a week ago, what else is there to tell you? How about the story behind my move to AIIM and a little about what I see happening in my future?
Failure is Not a Positive
A while back, people from the tech world began postulating about the value of failure. The context was that failure may not be a waste if the lessons can be built upon. One should never use “fear of failure” as an excuse not to do something.
The problem is that now people are talking about failure as if it is a good thing, something to be pursued. It isn’t.
FAILURE IS BAD.
If someone fails once, no biggie. If they fail more often, maybe it is because they don’t have the chops to proceed. Maybe they just suck.
Failure teaches you what doesn’t work. It doesn’t always teach you what does work. You may do something wrong, but if you adjust, you haven’t failed.
If you have truly failed, you need to not only analyze what went wrong, but why you didn’t see it in time. Why didn’t, or couldn’t, you adjust.
Most likely, you need help to learn the right way. Depending on the failure, you may need to add someone on your team.
Better yet, think on your weaknesses, we all have them, and act to get people on your team who can compensate.
Failure is to be avoided. It is a bad thing. Failure isn’t the end of the world, but if you decide that you are willing to fail, you likely will.
The End of an Era
In my last post I mentioned that I have been very busy of late. Well, part of that work has been working towards this…I am leaving the world of consulting. That’s right, after spending almost my entire career being a hired gun, I am choosing sides and becoming a “client”.
More than that, but I am leaving the world of Documentum. This year, for the first time since I started attending in 2000, I will miss the Documentum conference, aka EMC World.
These are some big changes for me. I thought I’d take some time and share.
Consult, Rinse, and Repeat
Five years ago, I was hired to build/lead the Enterprise Content Management practice at Washington Consulting, Inc. (WCI). Over the years, through ups and downs, I became a Director and the capabilities of WCI grew. Today WCI is in a much stronger position, by any measure, to solve the Information Management problems of its clients.
Meanwhile, the repetition started to become obvious. While the technology kept evolving and changing, the core challenges were constant. Organizational resistance, short-term financial goals, and the desire to just “throw” the system over the wall and see what users do with it.
So it became obvious that it was time for new challenges. Of course, there is a side effect…
Leaving Documentum
I am leaving the world of Documentum behind. While that wasn’t a goal, I wasn’t trying to stay in the world of Documentum either.
The next year is going to be critical for EMC and their Documentum line. The Cloud-based Content Management train is leaving the station and this is the year that EMC can grab a spot in first class. It is going to be fun to watch.
Watch I will. Too many friends, colleagues, and clients have a vested interest in the outcome for me not to care. I’ve poured a lot of energy into that world over the years and I’ll always have an intense curiosity regarding Documentum’s fate. I’m rooting for EMC to succeed.
I’ll always care, it just isn’t going to be my problem anymore. At least for now.
The Next Chapter
So what is next? That is the subject for a post in the next week. I’m going to a position that I’ve been wanting for years with an organization that seems to be a natural fit. Since I’ve made the decision, the most consistent feedback I’ve received is, “That’s perfect!”
It likely isn’t perfect but it seemed like the right choice.
Looking Back on Pie’s 2011 Predictions
I have been busy these past few months. How busy? Just look at my post rate. It hasn’t been for lack of topics, I’ve just been burning the candle at both ends.
Well, I’ve been on “vacation” for the past week and feel rested enough to take some time to write. Coincidently enough, I have two posts to write quickly, the first being this post evaluating the predictions for 2011.
As I did for the 2010 predictions, I am going to score them as either correct, incorrect, or partial (50%). The partial is for predictions that were correct in the causes, but the effects were off.
Zen and the Art of Quantum Shopping
I had the good fortune of having dinner with Cheryl McKinnon Monday evening as she was slumming it down here in Washington before heading to the glitz of Gilbane. As we were catching-up, our conversation invariably crossed paths with Lee Dallas’s inspired post on Quantum Shopping.
If you haven’t read that post, go read it NOW. Forget this post. While I haven’t finished writing it, I can already tell you that his post is dramatically better. That said, this post also makes a lot less sense if you haven’t read his post.
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