Author: Laurence Hart

The Next Generation of Content Professionals

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imageLast week I took on the fool’s errand of trying to define Content, in relation to Data and Information. While there are many discussions to be had before any real consensus is reached, assuming that it is even possible, the key point that few people disagreed with was that Context was critical.

Content is Information that requires Context in order to derive its full meaning and value.

I want to extend this discussion into what it takes to be a Content Professional. After all, to work with Content we have to understand it. In order to understand Content, we MUST understand the Context, and world, in which it lives.

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Alfresco Summit: One Down, One to Go…

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SpeakingBarc4I am flying back from my first Alfresco Summit (with my second next week in Boston), and I was impressed. Sure, I have to say something nice about my company’s annual conference, but I could have gone with any number of positive words.

Fun, educational, worthwhile, informative, entertaining….

While they are all true, I’m sticking with impressed. This isn’t my first conference in the industry by a long-shot, so if what happened in Barcelona impressed me, then something interesting had to happen.

I was impressed by the collection of smart people and by the almost universal level of excitement in the future of both Alfresco and the industry. I’ve seen this at a couple of conferences in this space, but it has been a long time since the excitement was this real.

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What is Content?

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A couple months back, Deane Barker wrote an article where he declared himself a Content Management Professional. This is a true statement by every definition of the term I have ever encountered. If that was all there was to it, this would be a boring post.

Deane then made the mistake of defining Content.

I can’t really fault Deane because I am going to make the same mistake in a few paragraphs. Everyone in the Content Profession eventually writes about the very nature of the work we are doing. Some do it to establish a reputation as a leader. Others do it in order to support a point.

I do it out of hope that by coming to some sort of agreement, we can better solve the Content problem.

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Healthcare.Gov Fiasco Shows the Problems in Federal IT

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TMS-Statler&Waldorf-BalconyBoxI’m writing this post as a rant. I am tired of hearing people who have never worked in Federal IT try and come forward with ideas about what was wrong about the way Healthcare.gov was developed. I have one statement for all of you who think you could have done better.

You would have ALL failed miserably.

Federal IT is broken. Hell, all of Federal contracting is broken from what I’ve seen, but I want to focus on the IT side for now.

Before I get started, a quick reminder of my background. My first Federal project was back in the late 90s as the tech lead for the Secretary of the Air Force’s correspondence tracking system. Over the years, I have worked on a multitude of projects and managed many more while I was the Director of Technology Solutions for Washington Consulting . I’ve responded to many proposals and run Federal IT projects through the wide variety of hurdles that they face.

I can tell you right now, I am impressed that Healthcare.gov even boots up.

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Making Records Management Simple at ARMA

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Next week I will be at the ARMA Conference in Vegas. While I will be there in support of Alfresco, I have a secondary purpose. I want to brainstorm with attendees on how we can make Records Management (RM) simple.

The reason is straightforward. Adoption of RM systems by end-users is horrible. We have spent most of the past two decades forcing non-Records Managers to act and think as Records Managers. It is a failed approach. We need to work on creative ways to shift from a world where success is the exception to where success is the rule.

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Making Ada Feel at Home

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Today is Ada Lovelace day, and I am a man. That means that I can never truly understand any of the challenges women in technology face. I can tell girls about all the women who have changed the world, but outside of my family, my impact will be limited.

I can make sure that the girls that choose a career in technology are welcome and encourage them to stay in technology. I make sure that every industry group with whom I participate is welcoming of all participants.

At least I thought that was the case.

Reflections on an Invite

After one local event this summer, I was sitting at a bar having a drink with the organizer and one of the participants. Both were woman. We were discussing the turnout and why it wasn’t as high as we thought it should have been. One of the thoughts was that the offer of free drinks wasn’t called out in the meeting description.

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Context Plus Consumer Gives Value to Information

The other week, AIIM hosted one of their InfoChats on twitter. The topic was the Value of Information. We skirted the actual answer and failed to deliver on the actual topic. We spent a lot of time talking about cost and not value. Chris Walker wrote an excellent piece on the challenge we faced during the chat over on his AIIM blog.

Why did we have so much trouble? I posit because Cost is easy to quantify, Value is not.

Value varies based not only upon the actual Information, but on the Consumer and the Context of the Information.

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The CIO, CTO, and Managing 21st Century Assets

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There I was, strolling into Ted Friedman’s Gartner Symposium talk on Information Governance with low expectations. Ted is smart, but Information Governance is old territory for me. If it was anyone but Ted, I would have spent the time researching or writing.

So glad it was Ted. So glad I attended.

It wasn’t any particular insight that he expressed. As a whole, the talk covered familiar ground, balancing the needs of Information Governance with the practical needs of the business. What struck me was a comment how Information Governance seems to be simultaneously owned by both everyone and no one.

If Information is an asset, shouldn’t it be given equivalent priority? Money is managed by the Chief Financial Officer and people are managed by the Chief People Officer. What about information?

D’OH!

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Sacrificing Today for a World Tomorrow

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Last week I was at the Monktoberfest event after Cheryl McKinnon, and others, insisted that I HAD to attend. Any conference that focuses on developers, community, craft beer, and social was already appealing. When you factor in the large numbers of recommendations, I had to attend.

Monktoberfest soared above my expectations.

It was really a three events into one, and kudos to RedMonk and Steve O’Grady for putting the event together. It was a place to meet and converse with smart people in and adjacent to the Open Source ecosystem, to try some great new beers, and to hear about how technology can, and should, change the world.

One such talk, given by Alex Payne, brought up an extremely interesting topic that spurred a lot of discussions. [Note: Reconsidering Startups is now available for watching.] He questions the setup of the Silicon Valley “startup” ecosystem and how it seems that it was more of a model of disruption to help capitalists and not the world.

This raised the question, what is our ethical responsibility as “innovators”?

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Why CMIS 1.1 Is Pretty Awesome

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Before I get to the meat of this post, I want to start with a confession. I have been a slacker. If you look at my word cloud to the right, you’ll see CMIS as a big piece of the proverbial Pie. Even before it was a public term, I railed for the need for a standard in the Content Management space.

Now that the first update to the Content Management Interoperability Standard (CMIS) has been out for nearly three months, why am I just now blogging about it? Now that  browser binding, retention, holds, and type mutability have been added to CMIS, why am I not proclaiming the wonders of CMIS 1.1 from every rooftop.

I…uh…got busy.

What I want to do today is talk about why this update means everyone should be looking deeper into CMIS and reconsider it for every Content application created. In fact, as much as the need for standards in Content Management existed when I started writing about them, it is even more urgent today.

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