WCM

A New Conference Experience for Pie

It has been an interesting year so far as the CIO of AIIM. My world is subtly difference. I’m still acting as an Information Professional for an organization but there have been a few key differences:

  • Only one client
  • I don’t advise, I execute
  • The problems faced are mine but I can address them

There are lots of other differences, but those are the significant ones. This experience is also affording me a new experience.

I’m attending a technology conference as a client.

I’ve attended a lot of conferences either as a technology partner or a company trying to sell something. When I was neither of those, I was at an industry event like the AIIM Conference for networking and learning.

This is a new role for me, except for the part where I expect to be busy.

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SharePoint 2010 for Web Content Management, Pros and Cons

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image A couple of years ago, I attended a discussion on using SharePoint/MOSS 2007 for Web Content Management and wrote a well visited post, SP for WCM, The Movie.  Well, as you may have noticed, Microsoft released a new version this year and they are starting to market it heavily with SharePoint Solutions for Internet Sites.

Well, this week I participated in the SharePoint Symposium 2010 as part of KM World.  Specifically I was part of the panel discussing the question of whether or not you can use SharePoint for WCM.

I’ll give a simple answer at the bottom, but I’m going to share the thoughts and opinions that were shared by others and myself.

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Upgrading to SharePoint 2010

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No, I haven’t converted into a SharePoint fanboi.  I am merely acknowledging that it is here to stay, at least for two more versions.  Realizing that, my company has been doing quite a bit of SharePoint work in the past few years.  We have recently been looking at SP2010 and just upgraded a customer to the new version.

This dalliance with SharePoint has not gone unnoticed by some people in the local area.  I was asked to co-present with Wyn Van Devanter to the Washington, DC Web Content Mavens group on what web managers need to know before making the move from 2007 to 2010.

I thought I would share my slides and offer a few additional notes for people.  For the record, Wyn tackled the first part of the presentation and I handled the second portion.  We could probably each speak to the other half, but we each presented to our strengths.

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ECM in the Pantheon of Content Management

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“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.image 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?

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The 2009 Magic Quadrant for ECM

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[Note that my post on the 2010 Quadrant is now available.]

Thanks to the Documentum voters splitting their time between two topics, discussing the recent Gartner MQ for ECM is today’s topic.  The voting was an interesting little diversion that I’ll revisit later.

I’m going to talk about the report here.  The recent controversy around Gartner is a post for another day.

Staying Out of Trouble

image Last year I was threatened (my word) by Gartner for putting a copy of the MQ here.  I was also chastised for several other nitpicks. So I will only link to Oracle’s courtesy copy of the 2009 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management this year to avoid wrath.

One thing to remember is Gartner really doesn’t want you to compare a vendor’s location in the MQ from year to year. That is both well-advised and unrealistic.  To be fair, as the measurements and industry change, scores change.  Movement isn’t just dependent on vendor action, or inaction.

However, we are human and we like to perform comparisons. I have a copy to perform the comparison for my own interest.  The link I had online to last year’s report is no longer valid, so you’ll have to take my Word on it.

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EMC and Web Content Management

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I made a few observations the other week about the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management that came out recently.  I, and others, criticized what it was measuring (though one blogger defended the MQ). I made the following comment in my dissection:

Personally, I think EMC (Documentum) and IBM (FileNet) are Niche Players in the WCM world at best.  Why?  Their WCM products sell into a very specific niche, those companies that already have, or are making, investments in their EMC or IBM platforms. If you know of either product winning a pure WCM bid, let me know.

Well, no comments on them winning a bid.  Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, just means that people that know of such wins didn’t read the post or care to comment. My point still is that EMC’s, and IBM’s, WCM offering is not the “Challenger” as the MQ seems to suggest.

Let’s dig in a little.

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Am I Buying a WCM Solution or Stock?

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The Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management came out for the first time this month.  I say the first time because it was always a Market Scope before the 2009 report.  If you look at it, you can learn many things.  The one thing you won’t learn is if any of the products are right for you, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Jon Marks did a good job of comparing Gartner’s and Forrester’s latest rankings and highlights how a “Niche Player” may be worth considering. CMS Watch has stronger words on the topic, talking about some of the differences between their methodology and Gartner’s.

I have a few of my own thoughts to add into the fray…

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CMIS, Beauty Is More Than Skin Deep

Kas Thomas wrote a post about how CMIS could be called DMIS as it is more for document management systems than content management systems. This hit me on two fronts. The first is with the concept of “CMS”.

Why is it that when I talk to people about “CMS”, they are almost always referring to Web Content Management? Seems to be a pretty narrow definition of the use of content. Along the same lines, many “Information Architects” that work with these “CMS” applications seem to be senior website designers. I’ve met Information Architects that I felt deserved the title, but they dealt with things beyond, though including, the web.  Enough of that, for now, on to the main course…

The second, is of course the slight to CMIS. That is the focus today. While I encourage criticism of CMIS as criticism is important for growth, I don’t want misconceptions to perpetuate themselves.

Sticks and Stones

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Vignette is Losing at Musical Chairs

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So I was just casually heading over to look at an older Big Men on Content post when I saw their latest.  It seems that Interwoven was purchased today by Autonomy.  Uh, WOW!  Okay, maybe a bit of an over-reaction, but with Vignette in a death spiral, what is next for them?

Before we get to Vignette, lets look at the news itself.

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Tony Byrne Visits the Web Content Mavens

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Happy New Year Everyone!  It has been a while since my last post.  Things have been returning to normal and I took some time off during the holiday season to hang out with my wife and boys.  Upon returning to work, there was the normal small post-holiday backlog accompanied by the chaos that is the Presidential Inauguration.  I understand that it is an important event in American history, but the loss in productivity for what is essentially Obama’s first day of work is staggering.

Maybe I should request a parade on my first day of work the next time I decide to start interviewing for a job.

In the midst of all this, on Wednesday evening I had quite an enjoyable evening at the monthly Web Content Mavens event here in DC.  It was, as always, a fun time talking to various people about their challenges implementing WCM and ECM systems.  I even ran into a few Documentum people.  The highlight of the night was listening to, and talking with, Tony Byrne, founder of CMS Watch.

I like Tony, and not just because he has bought me a beverage or two in the past.  Tony doesn’t mince words.  He tells his honest opinion in his drive to educate people on the world of ECM.  Previously, he had spoken to the Mavens on Social Media, but tonight was focused on the Web Content Management (WCM) marketplace as it stands right now.

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