Introducing Enterprise Content Management (ECM) at School?

When I was in school content management mostly consisted of storing my documents in a three-ring binder. If I could keep the papers for each of my classes organized between the color-coded page separators for a whole semester it seemed like a real victory. Archaic as that may appear today, when you think about it, learning those content organization skills was preparing me for work in the “modern office” of the time. At least I learned not to pinch my fingers in binders or open more than one upper filing cabinet drawer at a time.

Obviously, a lot has changed in decades since I was in grade school. More and more students are using online resources to supplement the learning process in addition to tracking and reporting on their progress. Learning or, course management systems are rapidly replacing traditional methods of content delivery and introducing fundamental changes into how students and teachers interact.

Students using today’s online learning management systems are also developing the skills they will need to succeed beyond the classroom. In less than a few years, IDC expects that over 70% of US employees will interact with their managers remotely. These workers will depend on a variety of content management tools to help them collaborate and work together across distances and time zones. They will probably expect to have access to tools like the one’s that allowed them review a lecture online or participate in a class discussion remotely.

While it may seem strange to discuss students using content management systems at school, that’s exactly what they are doing. Over 85% of higher education institutions have adopted an LMS standard and a growing number of K-12 districts are doing the same. Among the many advantages these systems offer, managing and sharing content online is fundamental benefit. As a result, students are learning how to access, create, modify and collaborate on learning materials at younger and younger ages.

Just as I learned to organize my own documents and later access others in the school library, today’s students are discovering new ways to search for information online and associate it with their own academic histories. As parents already know, it’s not unusual for class projects to be published on web pages these days. In fact, a growing number of students are now maintaining their own web portfolios, often using the same systems that help manage their class work. The concept of re-using content between applications or business processes won’t be foreign to these digital natives.


What does all of this learning management system experience mean for the ECM industry and the workforce that depends on its technology? A significant opportunity for change, I suspect. The common metaphors we use for organizing information are changing as content becomes more complex and abundant. Metadata is becoming more important to content discovery while file and folder hierarchies seem ever more cumbersome. Just think of how you last searched for rich media content (a photograph, perhaps?) on Google (Picasa) or Facebook.

My understanding of storage hierarchies and taxonomies may become as useful as my old three-ring binder as search technologies become more capable and our applications produce more useful metadata. This could be good news for ECM applications. It might allow them to become more flexible and easy to use, just like the web-enabled learning and social networking technologies that students are becoming comfortable with today.

It’s reasonable to expect that tomorrow’s knowledge workers will need to become even more efficient than today’s and ECM technologies should help support that demand. As students continue to gain familiarity with content management via their work with learning management systems, it will be interesting to observe how that experience shapes their expectations in the workplace. At a minimum, I expect that the mobility afforded by web applications will be demanded at the office.

A Web 2.0+/social network-guided education experience may also prepare future employees for a very different office computing and content management environment than we’re familiar with today. Who knows, that might leave hierarchical filing systems and the computing technology that’s enforced them back in the closet with my old binders and hanging file folders. I would at least expect it to increase demand for similar learning management solutions to support continuing education in the workplace. That’s something we’ll need to look into next time.

Until then, you can learn more about learning and content management beginning at www.blackboard.com. Regards, Jim

ECM & Email – The End of File Attachments?

I remember a marketing campaign we dreamed up years ago called “No More Attachments”. It was intended to encourage businesses to abandon attaching documents to email messages long before the concept was mainstream. Back then; most organizations weren’t familiar with social networks or storing much online, except for website pages.

Reading a recent AIIM ECM survey reminded me of the misconceived campaign because it suggests that even in 2009 many organizations remain overwhelmed with managing email. While email is certainly one of the most successful applications ever developed, its popularity and ease of use have created serious IT headaches.

For example, 55% of AIIM survey respondents report they have “little or no confidence” that important emails are recorded, complete or recoverable. (That’s just a small improvement compared to the prior year’s results of 62% “non-confidence”). Considering that US courts regard email as an electronic record, that could become an expensive problem should a business find itself involved in litigation.

In the same AIIM survey 27% of respondents also reported that email attachments were “very unmanaged”. I’m not sure which of these statistics scares me more? I suspect some organizations consider documents and files to be vital records, but if they’re being managed and stored as attachments in individual email accounts that could be a recipe for disaster.

Most mid-large sized businesses require employees to remove email from corporate servers or risk having it deleted after a specified period of time (30-90 days usually). If standard archiving rules aren’t supported, employees usually copy files to local folders on their PC, or possibly store them on portable drives or CD’s. What happens to that vital content then? What if the only remaining copy of an important document was a file attachment?

Email is simply a dangerous place to store important documents. Searching for documents in email clients like, Outlook is notoriously difficult. Trying to do the same in Entourage is worse (trust me). I rely on Google desktop to help get me out of these kinds of problems, but even that doesn’t always work. A well-intentioned IT admin recently updated my email identity to better manage my storage. Suddenly, I could not longer access any of the messages or attachments I could find with Google. Loss and theft of portable data storage devices is an even bigger problem.

I’ve learned my lesson to keep all my documents in an online content management system – no matter what they are about. The fact is, I can find them and share them much more easily and my employer can monitor and classify them, if needed as well. Once my files are stored online, I can skip attaching them to messages and use file links instead. These days, that’s really no different from how I share photographs and other content on the web outside of work.

So much is being written about the benefits and challenges of social networking in the enterprise. I think if employees could simply harness their new web collaboration skills to abandon sending file attachments they and their employers would find managing content could be much simpler. For example, replacing file attachments with links to documents stored in a common content repository significantly eases the burden on mail servers. Businesses could actually monitor and control content access more effectively as well.

Of course, this suggestion presumes that everyone has access to content management solutions. Well, if you don’t, here’s a somewhat radical suggestion. Get your own. That’s right; sign up for an ECM service online, like Xythos on Demand, or even use Google Docs. It’s free! I know that’s not probably IT-approved advice, but it will be an improvement, and your team will gain valuable experience using Web 2.0 tools to collaborate.

The better-known services, including Google Apps, Microsoft’s new SaaS version of SharePoint and Xythos on Demand all employ industry standard security methods to ensure your content remains safe. The rest is really up to you and your team. If you follow accepted workplace practices and don’t share content with unknown parties, you should keep out of trouble. Consider the advice you might tell your child about Facebook, and you’ll be OK.

Once you’ve learned how your own team can benefit from sharing document links, try leveraging your experience to convince your organization to adopt its own sanctioned solution. That way the rest of your co-workers can benefit from being able to find and share files more easily. Don’t forget to ask for a solution that scans email messages as well. That way you can take care of two content management problems at once.

Who knows, maybe AIIM’s survey will show some more improvements in this area next year… In the meantime,  if you run into trouble, let me know. If you end up with some good stories to tell, please share those as well! Oh, I almost forgot. Make sure to get your hands on a plug-in, or Xythos Drive for your preferred email client to replace “paper clipping” with a link to your ECM system. It will accelerate your independence from file attachments almost overnight!

Regards, Jim

Earth Day and Content Management (ECM)

For many of us who are at the office and won’t have the opportunity to plant a tree today, here’s an idea – why not save one instead? The net benefit to the environment is about the same and you may even discover ways to continue the process in the future, which could yield even greater earth-friendly benefits.

So, what’s the catch, you’re probably wondering? Nothing sneaky. I promise. Just some tree-saving ideas I’ve collected from my ECM colleagues here at Xythos that could help get you and your business greener without too much pain or suffering.


Easy ECM Steps to Greener Document Management

• Use duplex printing – in theory, this can reduce paper consumption by up to 50%!
  
• Eliminate banner printing – according to our friends at Gartner, this can yield savings of up to $33,000 per year for a typical 1,000 employee organization.
  
• Exchange documents via the web vs. courier services – this can cut $10-$15 per transaction, depending on your service contract fees.
  
• Adopt a print on demand office policy (vs. print and distribute) - a variety of industry analysts estimate this can produce up to 30% cost savings in mid-larger-sized businesses.
  
• Print to fax servers – for legal and healthcare organizations this is a great way to eliminate printing those pages that don’t require client or patient signatures.
  
• Use web conferencing and ECM to collaborate on important projects and documents – the average business trip can cost over $400 per day per employee and that doesn’t include airfare. Web technologies can reduce the carbon impact of business meetings by over 80%, Gartner researchers estimate.
  
• Store documents and records online – Sure, servers consume some energy but its nothing compared to the amount required to transport, cool, heat and protect physical documents – which of course, had to be printed to begin with!

The best enterprise content management (ECM) solutions have migrated to the web and are easier than ever to use. Web services, like Xythos on Demand make getting started a simple, five-minute task. It’s a lot less work than digging a hole in the ground and you can enjoy the benefits as much as the environment will. Why not get greener and give it a try? Visit the free Xythos Test Drive today.

Workflow, Efficiency and Content Management (ECM)

My cluttered desk challenges me. It holds information I need, but not always where I can find it. It delays decisions I should make, letting me push documents onto its far corners. My desk is my accomplice in inefficiency. In fact, it’s probably fair to say that anything that lands on my desk is guaranteed a slower passage to its destination.

Why is this so? I think its because I work in two very different, yet related environments. My desk resides in the physical world offering me a location to work and occasionally store items. However, most of what I do these days takes place in a virtual environment dominated by email, web collaboration and electronic documents.

This virtual environment has grown stronger over the years and today it is very difficult to ignore. It is constantly changing and demanding more of my attention. I enjoy this environment because it allows me to respond swiftly to requests and it rewards me with rapid feedback of its own. Best of all it can go places my “old” desk cannot.

Important documents, such as things that I need to sign still arrive on my “old” desk, but I tend to leave them until last. Worse, they sometimes get mixed up with all of that unimportant stuff, like physical mail, which I rarely open any longer. We’ve migrated expense submission and approvals online, so there are just a few business processes left to land on my desk that really matter to me.

This is my challenge. These last document centric processes need to migrate online so that I can become un-tethered once and for all from my “old” desk. I will become instantly more efficient, once I can review, edit and approve these final documents and files on my laptop or, what ever other web-enabled device I choose. (Yes, I reviewed ad copy on my iPhone just last Friday!)

The truth is, I’ve already become somewhat of a remote contributor, not visiting my desk for days at a time. Getting these last few processes online will make me a more honest telecommuter. I’ll be able to stop trying to hide from the folks who put forms and invoices in my “old” mailbox. I’ll stop pointing to piles of folders on my desk suggesting that their presence on it marked progress.

I’ll begin with one process at a time. I’ll develop simple routing and approval workflows for our marketing invoices for example. The first step will include scanning and classification, at least until our vendors adopt their own electronic bill presentment solutions. That should accelerate the review process and possibly even allow our AP team to consider early payment discounts.

A few more steps like that and I’ll be off of my “old” desk for good and ready to become a true digital nomad.

Now, I meant to keep this post simple and personal just to show how quickly basic ECM features can help me, and possibly you as well.

I also wanted to let you know that some of our own business process experts will be reviewing the subject of workflow in more detail during this week’s Virtual Coffee Break web seminar “Using workflow to accelerate business processes and save money.” It only lasts 30 minutes. So, it might be a good way to help you get started towards a cleaner desk too!

If you can’t make the live seminar, don’t worry. It will be recorded and available for you to view from a virtual desktop of your choice anytime afterwards. (You just won’t be able to get live answers to the questions you may have…) just visit www.xythos.com after this Wednesday.

OK, time for me to finish cleaning off the rest of that desk. Jim

Working Together Remotely

Are you getting tired of out of the office reminders from co-workers when they’re not on vacation? I can understand not wanting to read email or other correspondence while we’re away at the beach, but I’m not sure that business travel, off-site meetings or even being in different countries should mean that we’re unavailable anymore.

The mobile enterprise isn’t just about not being in the office. It also demands that we adopt new behaviors. I think this represents an impass that many organizations find themselves at when it comes to supporting mobile and remote employees. Employers are still not always comfortable believing that work is being performed as expected when they can’t see the process taking place with their own eyes. Employees can contribute to the potential misconception by not using today’s common workplace tools designed to address presence-related issues.

When I’m out of the office I make an extra effort to be responsive because I don’t want my co-workers to consider that distance or even time zones (generally) should inhibit our ability to collaborate, even in an ad hoc fashion. The new behaviors that I’m trying to learn need to go further though. While I’m never far from my email I know that I should be using IM more, especially for rapid-fire discussions around content that I’m working together with others on. Using basic workflows might also help reduce the time I waste searching through email and RSS would be a much better way for notifying me about web site updates.

So what’s all of this got to do with enterprise content management? That all depends on how you choose to manage it I guess. From my own experience I’ve learned that it’s all got to work together without much hassle or “mobile me” isn’t going to succeed. My workflows must send messages to my blackberry or iPhone. My documents need to all be stored in a web-enabled repository so that I can share secure links to them with co-workers. Managing and sharing content must become seamlessly integrated with my own mobile work style or I’ll have to put that “out of the office” notice on my door again the next time I leave.

How’s mobile content management working for you?