As I sit here in the plane, flying back home from Vegas and the chaotic, fun, learning experience that is EMC World, I am taking a moment to reflect on the last year. It was one year ago that I started this blog. I was sitting in Orlando waiting for my flight and I wanted to share my thoughts on EMC World. A year later, I found myself blogging my way through the conference. I don’t want to talk about conferences right now though. I just want to reflect on my first year in the blogsphere.

Word By the Numbers

I don’t care about the numbers much. I care about the message. All the numbers do is tell me if you, the reader, care about the message. They can be fun to look at though.

• 53,000+ Hits
• 700 on my best day, May 22, 2008
• 2,800+, and growing, on my best week, this week.
• 3,000+ hits on my most popular post
• 220+ hits on the topic I care about the most

A Brief History of the Word

It started simple enough, discussions about new features of D6. I started anonymously so that if I got bored, nobody would know. I didn’t get bored. My posts attracted the interest of James and over the course of a few weeks, I got a crash course in public discourse over the blogsphere, and a more diverse audience than I ever expected. The conversation expanded to included others and then it went a little downhill.

That’s when I learned an important lesson. I’m doing this for fun. If I don’t like what others are saying, I not only try not to take it personally, I have learned that I need to, and can, block it out.

It was during this time period that I decided to try and do something with this platform. As many of you may know, I decided to deal with the whole issue of the lack of any ECM SOA standards. One thing that I have experienced repeatedly over the past year as I go from one client to another is that we need better ways to get these systems to work together.

It started simple, Documentum to SharePoint. Now I have to link to case management systems of different types in widespread organizations while still surfacing this content in SharePoint. This has led me to learning more about the need for ECM systems to work with Identity Management and how I can make SharePoint, Documentum, and all other systems play nice.

Speaking of SharePoint, it is the source of my greatest joy and pain on this blog. Over 5% of my hits are on one post, SharePoint versus eRoom. In fact, my highest hits are always on SharePoint. It is a shame really. At first I thought it would drive people to learn more about ECM and how SharePoint is a part of that picture. The posts about ECM and its future? Very little traffic. I bet I can name most of the readers of those posts, which is sad considering the limited size of that list.

Looking Forward

This is going to be a big year. We are going to get some movement on the ECM SOA front. Hopefully the first steps will be in the right direction. I’m not expecting the impossible, but I am hoping that in the fall, I’ll be happy with where things are going.

I also expect it to be a big year for the community. The EMC Developer Network is going to be going live on a bigger, better, and more collaborative platform. I’m hoping that will encourage people that only have one or two posts in them to put in their two cents. We are going to go anywhere as a discipline if we don’t build a bigger, stronger community and work together to build our vision of the next generation of ECM.

People, like Billy C, think that ECM is boring. Let’s change that. Help me and the other active members of the ECM community to build that future. Get involved. If you see something out there that helps you, make a commitment to put something out there to help someone else. Even if it is just a post on a forum, become part of the future.

In a year, I’m holding a party in Orlando. Not EMC World, though that will be near bye. I want to meet every active member of the community. So, tell me now. Are we going to be meeting around a table, breaking bread and telling stories, or are we going to have to take over a large chunk of the conference and show everyone that we are more than just another boring piece of the puzzle?

I love this stuff. I wouldn’t write this much if I didn’t. If you’ve read this far, you must care. Let’s build our passion, spread it to others, and see where it takes us.

Pie…party of 1000…Your table is ready.