CMIS

Using a Platform for an ECM Strategy

As I covered in my last post, Implementing an ECM Strategy without a Platform, you don’t need an Enterprise CMS Platform to implement a successful Enterprise Content Management Strategy. That doesn’t mean that you can’t use one or that using one would be the wrong approach. Just like there is no one-size-fits-all CMS, there is no single way to define and implement an ECM Strategy.

I am going to look at this in two stages. The first is going to focus on the purpose of and foundation for an Enterprise CMS Platform. The second is going to look at what capabilities a CMS needs in order to be a Platform.

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Implementing an ECM Strategy without a Platform

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It has been stated here at the Word, and elsewhere, that Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is a strategy. You can’t buy Enterprise Content Management. You can buy products that support an ECM Strategy, but without a blueprint, it is just a bunch of stuff.

Semantics aside, do you need a central Content Management System (CMS) to serve as the basis for implementing the strategy? This is a subtle way of asking if I need to buy a big honkin’ CMS which just happens to be marketed as ECM. I prefer to call those products Enterprise CMS Platforms. The term ECM Platform is so 2010.

The thing is, you don’t need an Enterprise CMS Platform to implement an ECM Strategy. Heck, you can do it with what you have now.

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Darwin’s take on JCR and CMIS

There has been a lot of talk of late regarding the demise of the Java Content Repository (JCR) specification and what to do when a standard does die off.  Much of this is blamed on the emergence of CMIS as a standard, but that is just a contributory factor.  Many Content Management specifications and standards have withered over the last decade without a standard positioned to replace them.

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Reflecting on Pie’s 2010 Predictions

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Last year I succumbed to the pressure of being one of the only bloggers to NOT have predictions for 2010.  So on the last day of the year, I threw together a post with some predictions.

As a side effect, I have to evaluate them now.  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.

So, let’s dive into the juicy goodness.

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Thinking on the Future of Content Management

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I’m sitting here reflecting upon a very productive Gilbane Conference in Boston this week.  It was good to talk to people and see what people were thinking about in the Content Management industry. Engagement, Search, and Social were big, overlapping themes in the conference.

I was at Gilbane in order present my view on the future of Content Management.  I thought I would share the slides here and talk a little about the recent research on the same topic from AIIM.

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License Fees Blocking the Future of ECM

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So in case  you’ve missed it, I’ve been talking about how fixation on license fees can have a negative impact on on both the customer relationships and on product development.   There has been a reason for this conversation, the need to transform Content Management into a commodity.

This was discussed at the EMC Writer’s Summit event earlier this month.  Led by Andrew Chapman, we tried to identify what we could accomplish if Content Management was commoditized and was just there to be used.  Johnny Gee followed up this discussion with a post about ECM as a Commodity, sharing some of his thoughts in more detail.

Before talking about the license fee impediment Content Management Commodization, I’m going to touch on the Commodity issue a bit.

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ECM, Wanted Dead or Alive?

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image One thing that I have been meaning to do is to dive back into the state of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) as a useful term and the challenges facing its use. I’ve also been meaning to draw attention to some of the excellent posts in the new AIIM Communities. I am going to try and address both deficiencies today to some degree.

Let’s start with ECM, because that has been the point of my career for over a decade now. When we last saw it, I was talking about its future and how it is moving to becoming Omnipresent Content Management (OCM). While the term “Universal” is also apt, Oracle already stole it.

Before we get into more detail, and leave Steve McQueen, the question really is, Where does that leave ECM?

Content Management vs. ECM

Okay, this is the finale that Peter Monks has been waiting on, and baiting me about, for quite some time. Let’s hash it out.

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What ECM Vendors Can Do for Case Management Solutions

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image I just wrote on why we need Content Management for effective Case Management.  It really is more of a background into defining the challenges.  Now I am going to focus on how Content Management vendors can help solve this problem.

This is a little like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped.  Most of the vendors out there have announced Case Management strategies.  After my comments on EMC’s approach, many have felt that I thought that Content Management vendors should stay out of Case Management.

That is completely wrong.  They need to be involved.  So lets talk about the how…

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CMIS 2.0, The Next Generation

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image It has been a month since I talked about CMIS, and that was focused on celebrating the release of 1.0 and the AIIM Demo.  Well, the time has come to look to the future and start thinking what we need out of CMIS to help where we need it…the future.

Short List

I’m just throwing a list of business cases that we need support for in CMIS.  Specific features may not be all listed, but I will be listing some to give an idea.  The goal here is to stimulate everyone’s collective mind and think about what we need in the next version.

  • Semantic Support: I was working with some interested parties several months ago and realized that I could force many Semantic requirements into the current model.  What was missing was the ability to query off of relationships.  This will allow for more advanced relationship management.  Mind you, more support for that management directly off of the CMIS domain model would be nice as well.
  • Records Management: Right now, you can apply policies to a piece of content.  In theory, that policy could be a retention policy.  Some enhancements to policies might be nice in order to identify RM policies versus generic policies.
  • Support for Defined Data Models: One thing that was readily apparent when building the CMIS demo was the challenges in managing the same metadata model against different repository implementations of that model.  There were variations in naming and other details.  It would be a great advantage if I could query the repository to determine if they support the needed data model and then just use it.  This happens now when you use the field “cmis:id”. It maps to the real name underneath the hood which isn’t always “id”.  For example, “r_object_id” is the actual field name for “cmis:id” within Documentum.
  • Create Content Types: Component Content Application developers, this one is for you! Leveraging off of the previous item, it would be cool if you could, through CMIS, create a new object type based upon a document or folder.  This would allow custom applications to have a generic CMIS script that would create any custom types needed by the application.  This will add an important abstraction for those using CMIS for multi-repository purposes.
  • New Bindings: Heard several ideas in the last year.  WebDAV and JSON were two.  If I had to pick one, I’d lean to the latter for creating advanced apps, though WebDAV has the distinct advantage of working well with desktop applications.  The number of overall bindings is only limited by those working on them, so get involved if you want a new one.

I’m sure that there are more, but I think those are the important ones.  It helps the web-heads, the ECM types, and the solution providers.

More on CMIS Needs

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An ECM Keynote for 2010

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I’ve been talking about a lack of leadership and vision in the ECM industry.  This is evident when you attend keynotes at various conferences.  Most keynotes at industry conferences are focused on what has been happening and what is happening now.  John Mancini’s keynote at the AIIM conference was as close as it gets these days.

Of course, AIIM can’t deliver the future, they can only point to it, so what do we do? We wait. What are we waiting for? Well, I’m not waiting right now.  For your consideration, I present to you a keynote on the future of ECM…..

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