Author: Laurence Hart

The 12 Step Program to Help Content Management Professionals

Shotwell'sWe were joking the other day that given the abuse and challenges that we, as Content Management Professionals, suffer every day, that working in the Content Management industry must be an addiction. How else do you explain the long hours and the gradual degradation of our basic humanity?

Hi, my name is Pie, and I keep trying to solve the Content Management/Collaboration problem.

Let’s face it. The average Content Management Professional is not entirely sane. As I discussed in the Jack Sanity Scale of Content Management, the longer we work in the industry, the less sane we become. Sometimes I think the only thing that helps us hold it together is therapy at local establishments.

But there is hope. We can find a cure and at least stop the slide into becoming Peter Monks. To do this, I have outlined a 12 step plan to help anyone who is ready to get out. It is a lot of work, but the road to recovery is not an easy one.

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Box Is Doing More Than Checking Boxes

I want to start off by apologizing to Ron Miller. Ron is a smart guy and I count him among my friends. Ron also wrote something the other day where he was wrong.

Not a little wrong, a LOT wrong.

Ron wrote an article titled Box has always been about looking forward, not back. It is a good article and it covers Box’s three biggest announcements from BoxWorks quite well, but he misses the point. He missed what Box is really doing.

They aren’t just checking Boxes or throwing people a bone. They are preparing to take over everything.

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An AIIM Keynote at a Kodak Alaris Conference

Today I ended up at the Kodak Alaris Global Directions 2013 Conference here in Washington, DC. It is good to see that Kodak’s implosion didn’t kill their imaging business. In addition to talking to people how Alfresco can add value to their Kodak deployment, I got to listen to John Mancini give the day two keynote, Intelligent Information Management – Transforming the Customer Experience.

I must say, it was a new experience watching John talk after having been his Chief Information Officer (CIO). Thankfully he has evolved his talk. When I first started at AIIM, his theme was that CIO’s didn’t “get it”. Now it focuses on the pressure that CIOs are under.

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When Does the Software Vendor Matter?

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Recently I wrote a post discussing the importance of the selecting an implementation Partner in the success of a Content Management project. I even went a little off of the proverbial deep end by stating:

Software is Secondary

…

For the first project, assuming you pick a vendor doesn’t significantly mislead you, success isn’t going to be defined by the product you select.

For someone who works at Alfresco, a Content Management vendor, this seems a little crazy even if it is true. The key words in that statement are “first project”. The reality is that the Content Management System (CMS) you select is going to have a much longer life than the time it takes to implement your first project.

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Selecting Software and an Implementation Partner

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When I was in the UK last week, I availed myself of the opportunity to catch-up with some friends in the industry. There were both product and delivery people in the crowd and we had a good time.

At some point, we hit the topic of Partners delivering software and how organizations should go about the process. We agreed on the right ways to use Partners and promptly celebrated with another round. As a rule of thumb, when that crowd agrees as a group, it is usually accepted knowledge. Even so, we all could readily recall multiple stories of people doing it poorly.

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What Constitutes Industry Leadership?

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File:Aston Martin DBS V12 coupé (front left) b-w.jpgOne of the debates that I have often had with other Information Professionals is the question, Who are the “Leaders” in our industry? This was always up for a good debate because we could never agree on the basic ground rules:

  • What role does the technology play?
  • Do you measure by sales or install base?
  • Do we care what Gartner, Forrester, or others say on the topic?
  • What players are even in our industry?

With all these open questions, it is a debate that usually lasts until someone gets fed up and forces a topic change upon the group by asking, Who is buying the next round?

This is a question that is important for me to address and I thought I would open it up for discussion.

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Making Plans for Alfresco Summit 2013

New PictureYesterday, Alfresco announced the agendas for the upcoming Alfresco Summits. This included our keynote speakers who include, Andrew McAfee, Stephen O’Grady, and Jimmy Wales. I’ve met and reviewed books here on the Word from both Andrew and Stephen. If you don’t know who Jimmy is, go look him up on his website, Wikipedia.

Of course, more importantly, I am going to be speaking at both the Barcelona and Boston editions of Summit. I’m actually very intrigued by the back-to-back nature of the Alfresco Summits. I am used to vendors having conferences in different geographies. Having them back-to-back is an interesting concept. Speaking at both, it means some concentrated traveling on my part, but I won’t be alone.

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The Ugly Truth Behind Compliance and Records Management

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Yesterday, Joe Shepley wrote an incredible post on the simple fact that No One Cares about Compliance. While an overstatement, it is true. When it comes time to invest the money, organizations don’t care.

Sure, everyone sees the need, but they don’t do it. It is too hard, too expensive, and prone to failure. There are too many project with a better promise of success. If those things weren’t true, everyone would be compliant and conferences like ARMA would be celebrations of success, not spent drowning sorrows in beer.

Yesterday, Joe shared some realities from his time in the field. I’m going to do the same.

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When is 30% Better Than 80%?

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There is a basic misconception that is plaguing the Content Management industry. This misconception is that 80% is better than 30%. Without context, it doesn’t seem like much of a misconception, but trust me, it is a problem.

The missing context? What percentage of features that organizations are looking for does a solution have out-of-the-box?

The answer is never 100% unless you are the ONE organization that matches the generic solution template. Still, you can usually find a solution that gets pretty close if you tweak a few internal business rules that are more of a business tradition than an actual need.

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Death of the CIO…No Way

I have been seeing rumors on the death of the Chief Information Officer for a long time now. After just serving a stint as a CIO at AIIM, I can tell you that the concept is silly.

This silliness recently came-up in a LinkedIn discussion and a blog post from an AIIM Board Member, Dan Antion. Dan went into several examples showing the need for a CIO which were dead-on.

I’m going to further illustrate the craziness of not having one.

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