Cloud Computing

Career of an Information Professional, from Developer to CIO

imageI was having lunch with a colleague the other day. As I was describing to him the challenges I’m tackling as the Chief Information Officer over at AIIM, he asked me, “What prepared you for all that?” I gave a generic answer about how my last job prepared me but as I think back, I’m wrong.

Everything worked to prepare me.

You often heard it said that we are the accumulation of our experiences. If I had to distill what it was that prepared me for my current position, there are several things that did so over time.

While this is far from the only career path to CIO, this was my path. For many Information Professionals, it can be their path.

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What You Need to Know about Cloud-base Content Management, AIIM 2012 Style

A couple months ago, I spoke at the AIIM 2012 Conference on the topic Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Cloud-Based Content Management (But Were Afraid to Ask). It was fun and I’ve been meaning to share the presentation with everyone but there have been two issues:

  1. The presentation is image heavy and even with notes, SlideShare doesn’t really help convey the content.
  2. The video was under wraps because it was under consideration for the free Best of AIIM 2012 virtual event in June.

Lucky for you, my session was deemed not one of the very best and I can share it with you now. I’d be upset if the quality of sessions at the AIIM Conference this hadn’t been so high. Billy Cripe gave a great presentation on Two Types of Collaboration and Ten Requirements for Using Them and that didn’t make the cut, but you can see that online now.

So, complete with the Q&A session, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Cloud-Based Content Management:

If you take anything away from the presentation, remember this:

  • The cloud is big and evolving. If your solution isn’t available today, it may be tomorrow.
  • You face the same issues if you stay at home as you would if you move to the cloud.
  • Creating new Information Islands is the new big trap. Avoid them.

Watch the presentation to learn more details on those takeaways, cloud terminology, and why Darth Vader is in the default image.  I’m also speaking on Moving Content Management to the Cloud: A Practical Perspective at info360 if you are planning to be there in June.

Please feel free to ask questions or add your thoughts in the comments below.

The CIO’s Role in the World of Consumer IT

Hardly a week goes by when I don’t come across an article saying how the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is going to be diminished or that the IT budget is going to move to other departments.

imageThis just seems nuts. In a world where information is growing exponentially, the expert in helping an organization get value from information is going to be marginalized? As I see it, that is dead wrong.

The CIO of the future is going to have to be agile, knowledgeable, approachable, and working in step with every aspect of the business. From experience I can tell you that each business unit isn’t going to wait for their turn. This means that CIOs are going to actually have quality deputies to help out. This implies growth, not the opposite.

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The Connected Era, The (Pre) Post-PC World

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I wrote a couple weeks back about not reading too much into the current mobile sales numbers. While Mobile devices are out-selling PCs, that doesn’t tell the whole story. People have multiple devices and replace their PCs much less often.

imageThere were a few responses. Dan Antion related his own recent travels without a PC and how we are moving Beyond the Chasm with mobile devices. Ron Miller took a more conciliatory approach that when he said that the term Post-PC was still open to interpretation.

To help illustrate my point, Dan Levin of Box tweeted that on his weekend trip, the 12 humans had 26 devices. I didn’t ask but I suspect that there were no laptops. Of course, going on a weekend trip, why take anything other than mobile devices? Of course, exceeding a 2:1 ratio is pretty impressive, especially consider that kids were in the count.

This anecdote lends itself both sides of the equation. It shows that by simply surpassing PC sales, mobile hasn’t done enough to move into the PC era as there are more mobile devices than people in many households. On the flip side, it clearly shows the proliferation of mobile tech.

Of course, 10 years ago, there may have been zero devices on that trip unless you counted the dumb cell phones. While some mobile devices are replacing the use of PCs, especially for travel, it is also filling a void. People now use a PC AND a mobile device, depending on the situation.

We aren’t in a Post-PC era, though will get there eventually. That doesn’t mean that Mobile support isn’t critical. It is critical because people always want to be connected. That is the key, connectivity. The whole Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) concept is really what is defining this era. The devices people started bringing were smart phones and Macs. Now it is tablets.

The shift to mobile is just part of the puzzle.

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It’s 2012 and We Are Still Working on Process

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There are two great frustrations in my overall career. The first is that there is more unmanaged content now than there was when I started. The growth of Content Management just isn’t keeping pace with the growth of Content.

The second is the fact that we are still trying to automate the same types of processes now as we were when I first started in this industry in the 90s. My first project was a Correspondence Management System. Call it a mail room solution or whatever the latest slang dictates, the problem is the same one I was talking to a large agency about solving in January!

People are asking me to speak on Process and why projects go wrong. Cloud and mobile are dropping as stand-alone topics. They are becoming part of the discussion around how to solve the old problems with addition of these new tools.

Reinforcing the issue are a few fun facts from some recent AIIM research:

  • 45% of scanned documents are created digitally
  • 77% of invoices that arrive as PDF attachments get printed
  • 31% of faxed invoices get printed and scanned again

Depressed yet?

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Looking Back on Pie’s 2011 Predictions

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image 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.

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Nuxeo World 2011, A Healthy Start

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I had the pleasure of flying to France to speak at the second Nuxeo World last week. While my primary purpose was to deliver a quick little keynote on Content Management Trends (slides and CMS Wire article), I had ulterior motives:

  • Where are they going?
  • Do they know Records Management?
  • Are they capable?

I had enough of an answer on each question to enter into a partnership with Nuxeo, but this was all about long-term planning and strategy. I thought I’d share what I learned while letting them learn that there are pros and cons to the publicity that they get by working with me, just ask EMC (who has accepted the balance).

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Nuxeo World 2011: Opening Keynote

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Attending Nuxeo World this year as a day 2 keynote speaker and as a sponsor. Those two facts are related but not tied together (My company didn’t pay to be a sponsor in order for me to speak).

As I didn’t write an rules post, using this paragraph. As with EMC World, I will try and take notes. Errors and omissions are likely mine. I’ll be using the normal disclaimer.

If you want to follow on Twitter, follow #NxX11.

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Content Management, the Cloud, and Disruptions

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Not too long ago, I made a snarky comment about the cloud on twitter. I don’t know why anyone noticed as I make snarky comments all the time. This time, someone did notice and asked me if “cloud” was my least favorite word of all time. I gave both a snarky and serious response. The short version is that I don’t hate the word, just the overuse of the word.

I recently talked to a vendor that had started recently with the word “Cloud” in their name. After seeing their product, I realized that their product as cloud specific as Linux or Windows. They just used the term because it started meetings. I could have made use of their tool on multiple projects over my career, before the cloud.

So let’s look at the reason I made my snarky comment. It all started with an article, and like my best snarky comments of late, it involved Box….

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Don’t Discount the Cloud Guys

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Was going to have a multi-rant post, but I’ve decided to slice and dice. I thought I would start with a warning for all the Content Management vendors.

Never discount the cloud guys. They are dangerous. Today they may just be file-sharing or basic document management but tomorrow they’ll be the de facto cloud content repository. As fast as you think you are moving, they are moving faster.

Those flying cloud monkeys have no problem throwing new features up there at a pace that will make your head spin just to see what sticks. They don’t need to make a profit today as they are working to make profit in the future. The source of that profit? Money that is now going to all the other content providers.

How do you beat them? Simple, fix your pricing structure to a metered/usage approach and move to a secure cloud, now. Older vendors know the market better, so if they get the architecture figured out fast enough, they can take the cloud monkeys down.

Oh, and fix that user interface and work on a mobile strategy. Both of these can be handled with agile development processes that you can use to match the cloud guys.

Yes, the cloud guys aren’t there yet, but they are driving a Veyron.