This is the event I have been waiting for all day. Mark Lewis is going to talk and hopefully share the story behind the new name for the Content Management and Archiving Group, the Information Intelligence Group.
Information
This is the work part. Posts here relate to the craft of my career and profession.
ECM in the Pantheon of Content Management
“May you live in interesting times” is reported to be a Chinese curse. Well, in the world of Content Management, we are in interesting times. In the last week, I have read about how ECM is growing in stature and read a call for the killing of ECM.
Scary thing, I think that if Peter read Carl’s post, he would state that it supports his point that ECM needs to die.
Pardon me for disagreeing.
Here is the basic problem, because we can’t agree on what to call anything, we can’t agree where anything is going.
- Is ECM Dead? That depends if you think ECM means one repository. If so, then yes. It doesn’t mean one repository though, or at least, it shouldn’t. If we can’t agree on what it is, how can anyone claim it needs to die or is already dead.
- Is WordPress a CMS? That depends on how you define the “Management” in CMS. Maybe it is a Website Management System? Maybe the WCMS is going to go away as what actually goes into a website broadens.
If we don’t agree on the terms as practioners, how can we expect the business users, and the users in the rest of the world, to understand what we are talking about?
CMIS has Arrived, Demo Anyone?
[picapp align=”right” wrap=”false” link=”term=finish+line+olympics&iid=1345446″ src=”e/3/3/a/Olympics_Day_8_e351.jpg?adImageId=12737081&imageId=1345446″ width=”380″ height=”262″ /]The news today? CMIS is now an official standard! I’m pretty stoked about the whole thing. When I started this blog, after I got through my initial list of topics, it was the desire for a SOA-based standard for ECM that provided the desire. Now that my desire has been met, almost three years later, what will I do for inspiration?
Simple, push for CMIS 2.0! In all seriousness, that is a post for another day. I want to focus on the actual release of the standard and the Demo where you can see it in action.
ECM Industry Goals: Move the ECM Industry Forward
I started this on Monday discussing the importance of goals in general, using the setting of goals for yourself as a starting point. The same logic applies to a company, and its industry, as well.
Think about it, why is a company in business? Yes, to make money, but that goal will only get you so far, just ask the gnomes. You have to have something to offer and the ability to convince your customers that you can deliver and still be around in the future.
So in order to inspire your employees and your customers, you create a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG). For example, maybe you want to create the market leading ECM solution. Ten years ago, that was a challenge. No one company had all the capabilities in house and the leadership of the market was in flux. Now, to hit the same goal, you just take aim at the big boys and go forward.
But what does that really get you? Are you leading or just following the trail already blazed?
To Be a CMS, WCMS, or WMS, That is the Question
So I’ve said that that WordPress isn’t a Content Management System (CMS). My point was more than semantics as it isn’t a Web CMS (WCMS) either. That said, I have never said that WordPress is anything but a great tool.
So the question remains, if WordPress isn’t a WCMS, what is it? Maybe we need a new term….how about “Website Management System”?
What is a CMS? Really…
There is continuing debate about whether or not WordPress is a CMS, which I have participated in already. There are two things fueling the debate:
- Lots of WordPress users seem to take the attack personally. This has allowed vocal supporters to drown-out those few with rational arguments.
- The more traditional, non-web, Content Management crowd say that WordPress isn’t feature rich enough to qualify. Of course, nobody has actually provided a comprehensive definition of CMS or a list of features.
So the fight continues. While I am in no way trying to resolve the argument in this post, I am trying to solve the crux of a matter….What is a CMS?
CenterStage or SharePoint? An Early Look
I recently dissected a “comparison” between Documentum and SharePoint. Karma was paying attention and I found myself performing a comparison of CenterStage and SharePoint for one of my long-time eRoom customers last week.
Setting the Stage
A little background. This client has had eRoom Enterprise since 2004. There has been some isolated success in some pockets of the organization, but not everywhere. The initial champions left during the deployment and there was no real concerted push to use the system afterwards. It had grown slowly over time, but hadn’t become a must-use system for many.
Revisting the CMIS Use Cases
A while back, I discussed the Three Fundamental Use Cases for CMIS. Since then, there have been some additional thoughts on this topic. Since CMIS has been officially submitted as a standard to OASIS 🙂 I thought I would look at a couple of those thoughts.
The first was the EMC presentation on CMIS and DFS from the Momentum Europe in the fall. It presented four cases, most notably a Migration use case. This has popped-up in Twitter as well, so it obviously has some mindshare.
The other was a post by The Burton Group, specifically Larry Cannell, on How Will CMIS Be Adopted. Larry focused on the business applications and had some good thoughts, especially regarding CMIS Clients.
ECM and CMS Living In Harmony
So I ranted a week ago about the term CMS. I was more upset how people used “CMS” than the term itself. Assuming that the term has legs, how does it fit in the grand scheme of things, like the world of ECM?
So today, instead of tearing things apart, I thought I would try and help add to the world. This will also let people tear my thoughts apart.
ECM as a Strategy
Enterprise Content Management is not a system. You can’t install it and expect it to just work. You can do that with systems, but ECM is a little more than that. It is the strategy to managing content in the organization. Have content, need control.
I last visited the definition of ECM around the New Year. Pulling the update from the comments and adding the word Strategy gives the following.
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is a strategy for the coordinated management of all content throughout an organization, allowing for people and systems to find and use content from within any business context using platform agnostic standards.
Dissecting a Documentum-SharePoint “Comparison”
Saw a tweet today that was pretty exciting. It was referencing a “comparison” between SharePoint and Documentum. I was initially excited. I’d love to see CenterStage and SharePoint compared. I compared SharePoint to eRoom a couple of years back and wasn’t planning on a comparison with CenterStage until the database/list functionality was ported over.
My excitement was short-lived.
I instead encountered a piece that resembles propaganda more than a fair and balanced comparison. That may sound harsh, but I will defend the charge.
Word of Pie 