ECM

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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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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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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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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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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