I was just relaxing with my first cup of coffee, reading the morning news and blogs, when I stumbled across this post by James saying that Laurence Hart will be the lead of a new standards body focused on ECM. The quick answer is that it is not true. James heard it through the grapevine, so let me list some facts that could easily lead to this fact occurring. Note that I met a colleague of James at the conference and we talked about everything below.

The Myth of the iECM Effort

There is a belief circulating around the ECM world that the AIIM‘s iECM (Interoperable ECM) committee is developing an ECM SOA standard. Having been a member of this committee since the fall, with various levels of activity, I would like to say that it does not appear to be the case.

From what I can tell, iECM started working towards an ECM SOA standard, but before my involvement, it seemed to get sidetracked into developing Best Practices. Cornelia Davis was part of the earlier efforts and I would love some more history of the transition.

This is not to say that the iECM committee won’t step-up, but waiting for them is not wise given the ever-increasing need. I stood up and stated this in a public forum at EMC World. I plan to step-up my level of participation with iECM, but it is difficult to justify the time when the efforts don’t seem to be moving forward in the needed direction.

The Non-Announcement

In two different sessions, it was revealed that there is an effort by several vendors to develop an ECM SOA standard and that an announcement was expected this September. Like all forward-looking statements, things can change. EMC did share their vision for this, or any ECM SOA standard and what was required during their Standards session. They did this in the context of pointing-out all the weaknesses of the existing standards.

There is progress out there and it was strongly hinted-at that at least one other major vendor was involved. There is hope. I’ll have a detailed post on this stuff later.

I May Have Mentioned a White Paper

I, and a couple of colleagues, are finalizing a White Paper on ECM in a SOA environment. It talks about standards quite a bit and stresses the need for an ECM SOA standard. I am leading this effort, so this could be the lead part of the rumor.

Looking at James’s post, it points out the needs for several things. I agree with the need for all of them and I am doing what I can to support those efforts where I find them. One thing I am doing is pushing for the documentation of ECM Design Patterns, at least in the context of Documentum . I may even take a leadership role there, if one develops in the community.

Oh, one last footnote to James…I will be talking about your questions you wanted me to ask at EMC World in the near future. You just have to be patient.