ECM on My iPhone with Xythos!

Finally, there’s a native application for managing enterprise content on my iPhone. That’s right, I’ve begun using DAV-E to access and share the content I’ve stored in Xythos Enterprise Document Management suite (EDMS) and I’m finding it quite useful. Even as a first edition, DAV-E offers some powerful functionality that will encourage me to leave my laptop at home more often.

Now, I know some of you are thinking “managing content on an iPhone – Really?” I understand. As a content creator, I wasn’t expecting to do much editing, or creating just because I can access all of my files with my iPhone. That wasn’t really the reason I was excited about DAV-E to begin with. Instead, I wanted a content management solution that would simply allow me to control access to, and share my content whenever and wherever I might be.

While those aspirations may appear simple, I had never achieved them before without a PC. So being able to review, approve and distribute content hasn’t always been easy for me and sometimes, practically impossible. Sure, I enjoyed using ACU’s portal based access to their version of Xythos last fall, but that didn’t help me with my own work data. A native iPhone app offers unique advantages that Safari versions can’t match – particularly when you’re out of WiFi range. This is an area where my iPhone completely outshines my Macbook, as it doesn’t have a 3G card in it.

If you’re still wondering how important simply accessing and sharing content can be, consider what most people are already doing on social networks like Facebook and those dedicated to sharing photos like Picasa. My content sharing needs require a degree of security and flexibility these sites don’t provide such as, file level access controls, document tracking, version control and more. Basically, I needed a “button” for my vital business content just like the ones for Linkedin and Google I already have on my iPhone.

DAV-E delivers. Now, I can access my Xythos folders from anywhere. The next time my boss calls about a report when I’m at the beach, I’ll be ready. With DAV-E, I can send email messages that include Xythos files links, manage permissions and contribute content to Xythos blogs or wikis in ways I hadn’t even considered, such as using the photo upload feature.

I wonder what the makers of DAV-E will add next? Audio and video uploads? Oh, I almost forgot to mention, DAV-E offers a file cache too. You can set the size of the cache and use it to work offline for those times when you can’t event get iPhone access, like on the plane. DAV-E should work with most WebDAV servers and Xythos implementations. Of course, you can test that out for free with a Xythos on Demand account too. You can also get the free version of DAV-E here.

Try it out and let me know what you think.

ECM Plug-ins and Integrations Popular at Educause 2008

For once, a fall conference in Orlando didn’t include 90% humidity and matching temperatures, The unseasonably cool weather made it easy to get between hotels and the convention center, where the activity level was definitely creating some heat! Sure, there was talk of budget challenges, but most of the IT Execs I had a chance to chat with seemed eager to learn about new solutions that could help them combat rising costs and improve services across their campuses.

There seemed to be plenty of interest in the latest academic learning solutions, judging from the consistent crowds over at the Blackboard booth trying out the new Bb 9 Suite. I also listened to a growing number of conversations related to back-office automation. A couple administrators I spoke with said they almost welcomed the tough economy because it was finally forcing their institutions to take a serious look at the business processes in search of improved efficiencies. As one executive said to me “unlike banks or other commercial organizations, we haven’t experienced the same pressures to update how we manage the “business side” of education”.

This might explain the considerable interest we heard regarding ECM plug-ins and integrations this year. Scanning solutions designed to integrate physical document processing into electronic workflows captured a lot of attention. Outlook plug-ins intended to more closely tie administrative activities with content repositories were also popular. The overall interest in administrative solutions might even indicate that institutions are recognizing they can leverage their experience with academic content management across other parts of the enterprise, just like other businesses.

The excitement around integrating other business processes with a common content repository wasn’t limited to administration either. Interest in multiple learning management system integrations including Blackboard, Moodle and Sakai continued. However, the ECM integration that most attendees seemed to be talking about was a Zimlet. In both the Xythos booth and Yahoo’s Zimbra booth activity around the Zimlet demo’s was quite busy. Perhaps the potential benefits of ECM and email integration can be even greater when the process is accomplished using 100% Web 2.0 technologies instead of just thick clients.

I even learned about a real-time (synchronous) collaboration tool called Dimdim that employs the same Zimlet type of integration and would appear to be an ideal complement to asynchronous collaboration tools like ECM and email. What each of these products have in common is embedded support for open technology standards including flexible and open API’s. This might explain the enthusiastic response their integrations were receiving at Educause. I was already hearing attendees talking out loud about how they could create their own mashups using them in their portals and elsewhere.

We’ll post recording’s of more of the presentations and activities from Educause 2008 shortly on Xythos.com. In the meantime check out educause site to learn more about what happened at this year’s event.