Documentum

The EMC Writer’s Summit, 2010 Style

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For those that are unaware, EMC hosts writers in the Content Management space for a 1-day gabfest about once a year.  Last week was the third one, so I guess we can officially call it annual.  This is an invite only event with some of the expenses paid.  That may lead you to wonder about what was discussed and if it was biased…

Well, it wasn’t biased or tilted at all.  First of all, kudos to EMC for inviting me.  I wasn’t the nicest person on the block after EMC World, but they still went out of their way to make sure that I was able to attend.  Their were no conditions placed upon me, and my degree of rabble-rousing was left to my own discretion.

The best part was that aside from a short intro by EMCs Whitney Tidmarsh on “Why IIG” and the changes taking place within IIG, there was no EMC focused topics or discussions.  There were some EMC opinions put out there, but they were contributions and not dictates.

All-in-all, it was a great event that spurred some great discussions and debates.  I’ll be talking on some of the topics over the next week or so here.

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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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The ECM Innovator’s Dilemma

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So I promised an ECM specific follow-up to my book review on Christensen’s book The Innovator’s Dilemma.  There is a lot to talk about, so I’m not going to blather on with a long intro (though this sentence seems to be compounding the issue) and get right to it.

Or not…I have some disclaimers/notes:

  • Going to try and use as much of Chistensen’s terminlogy as possible.  This isn’t to say that he has a perfect model, or even 80% model, of what is happening.  It just helps to keep the terminology consistent during this particular post.
  • Every Content Management company is different and the observations will not apply universally.  Every company reacts differently.  That said, if I didn’t think that this applied to a large number of vendors, I would have targeted this post at particular vendors.

NOW we can get started.

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Quality of Documentum Over the Years

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I recently received an email from someone whom I will call…Socrates.  He asked a question and I wanted to share it for discussion publicly.  First the question, then my reasons for the public discourse.

Laurence, I have been working on Documentum since version 2. I am now working on DCM 6.5 sp3. I find that the quality of the product is going down every release. What do you think?

The reason that I am bringing it up publically is because I don’t have a clear-cut answer.  As with products from most vendors, some releases are better than others.  I also only have direct experience with Documentum since the 4i release at the end of ’99.  To top it off, I haven’t used every component, much less every component of every release.

Of course, I have some concerns.  I saw Rick Devenuti speak at EMC World and he seemed preoccupied with addressing quality issues.  Whether these are long-standing or new is something we can discuss at the end, where I have a couple more thoughts.

In between, I am going to share some of my “quality” stories here, both good and bad.  I’m hoping that Johnny, Scott, Lee, and Robin all chime into the conversation.  Please do so yourself.

Remember, there is no “right” answer.  We are merely looking for experiences.

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Change of Publishing Strategy with my Tips

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I have published a fair number of Tips over the life of this blog, pretty much all centered around Documentum.  While I am not going to change my writing of Tips, I am going to do a few things:

  1. Publish Documentum Tips on the EMC Developer Network: I started a blog there, Pie on Content Management, which I have infrequently used.  I am going to keep my tips there so that they are searchable by the community by the average user.
  2. Link to Remote Tips: As I create these new tips, I will continue to add links to them from my Tips page.  If I create other Tips posts in other locations, I will add those as well.
  3. Notification: If you don’t follow me on Twitter, you can still track the tips.  I will try and keep the alert on this page updated with any recent remotely posted tips.

I have just posted my first tip on the EDN titled Tips: Installing Documentum 6.6 on SQL Server 2008 and 64-bit.  I recently performed this feat and wanted to share some specific things that I learned.

Enjoy.

Be Nice, It’s a Small World

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Over my career, I have seen quite a bit of turnover on my various projects and companies, from both sides.  Normally, things remain professional, and the companies and clients involved are impacted as little as possible given the circumstances.

Let’s face it, if an architect leaves, it is hard to replace that skill and knowledge.  Regardless, attempts are made to try and minimize the change.  Obviously there is not a lot transition when someone is fired versus their resigning, but that is hopefully a case of addition by subtraction.

Every now and then, you come across an example that reminds you of the importance of the social skills you learned in kindergarten.  Before we get into that though, let’s look at the reality of our industry.

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My Day as Mark Lewis

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Another quick little post.  Working on some other posts, but I wanted to get this out.  This is a list of things I would do if I were in charge of IIG and had the funds to do what I wanted.  Obviously I am not going to have that job or the funds, but this is fun.

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The Mark Lewis Keynote and Other Videos

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Quick post, but I wanted to share a couple of things….

So the statement that I heard that started the downward spiral at EMC World/Momentum, was one word (technically 2, but “of” doesn’t really count) off.  That is, what I told people I heard is what I thought I heard, but I missed an important word.  Here is the quote:

What most of you did who are using ECM was building Case Management.

I didn’t hear the word “Most”.  As some with EMC insisted that wasn’t what Mark said, I didn’t include that statement in my initial post. The goal hasn’t been to cause a riot, but to provide feedback.  Mind you, this “revelation” doesn’t change the message that followed or the product family being called Intelligent Case Management, but it set the frame of mind.  Mind you, the statement is still not true for me, but it isn’t definitive.  He could easily be 51%, 80%, or 99%.

Here is the keynote in five parts.  You can view the quote itself in Part 2, at the 7:20 mark.  You should watch the whole thing though and not focus on any single line.  I was just trying to get the quote right.

Part 2:

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Composite Content Applications, Dispelling the Case Management Confusion

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I’ve been working on a cool post about some positive content technology coming from EMC, but that needs more time to gel as I play with the tech, so I’m following-up with a post about where some of the focus on Case Management within EMC’s Information Intelligence Group (IIG) originated.

During Rick’s keynote at EMC World last week, he stated that Composite Content Applications (CCAs) were equivalent to Case Management.  At that point, I had my second “You gotta be kidding me!” moment of the conference.  It helped solidify the feelings in my analysis of the “strategy” at IIG.image

In later conversations, I learned that line of thought came from Gartner.  At first it was a guess, but then it was confirmed.  I decided against covering this point in my previous post because I hadn’t read the source material, and I didn’t want to accuse EMC falsely.

Well since then, I’ve gotten to read three reports on the topic, and I can say that EMC got it wrong.  The reports I read are:

Let’s look at the reports briefly, starting with the list of ten.

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CenterStage, the Latest ex-Collaboration Tool from EMC

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I had a mission at Momentum this year that I had to perform for some of my eRoom clients.  I had to determine the viability of CenterStage as a replacement for eRoom.  Two facts answered my question:

CenterStage 1.1 is scheduled for GA in Q4.  Calendars are a year away.

Really?  Where have I heard that before?

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