AWG - ECM

Aflresco - A fresh look at ECM

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:36:40 -0700

"Alfresco is an open source, open-standards content repository built by the most experienced content management team that includes the co-founder of Documentum. The Alfresco product has a lean, modular component architecture that allows new functionality to be added without any system disruption and is significantly faster than proprietary commercial systems."

http://www.alfresco.org/

I haven't yet investigate it much. Its strongest features at this point appear to be file based repository and light workflow, and not extensive on the web content management front. Therefore, I am not sure I would yet put it in the ECM space.

ECM or Something Simpler?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:53:16 -0700

In The Continuing Disappearance of Document Management, James Till, vice president of Marketing for Xythos Software Inc., describes how the advent of Open Standards such as HTTP, SSL and WebDAV have shaken up the traditional Document Management Industry, as well as call to question complicated Enterprise Content Management (ECM) suite approaches to handling content within your organization.

I too have been stepping back from previous declarations of ECM as the solution, only because the implication is that an ECM strategy equals and ECM product. This is not always the case. In the emerging agile architecture environment, simple solutions that act as a bridges between personal productivity software running on desktops and distributed storage and workflow might fit the bill....

ECM Defined

Tue, 23 Nov 2004 12:04:35 -0800

Introduction

Since ECM is a convergence of once separate technologies and disciplines of information management, it becomes difficult to nail down a definition. A working definition of ECM is however the first step in establishing an enterprise content management strategy, if we are to provide infrastructure to support services to that end.

ECM Definition

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) connotes a unified framework for managing, web-enabling and personalizing delivery of all disparate forms of content across the enterprise, regardless of their classical modes of creation, storage or presentation.

Enterprise connotes a scope that is comprehensive, representing and entire organization's needs for the targeted services. The focus is on "core" services, that is, services at the heart of operations, services that departments have in common, regardless of differences between departments. An "Enterprise" system is one designed to gain the maximum benefit that can be derived from the advantages and economies of scale - in this case, scaled to extend across the entire enterprise.

Content refers to any work-product that can be created, modified, stored or retrieved employing an organization's digital infrastructure. Content refers not merely to the content of web pages, but extends to include all manner of digital objects; documents, designs, templates, data structures, data values, graphics, audio and video files, curricular material, etc. These various types of content, while dissimilar in terms of means of production, targeted mode of output, original purpose, etc, nevertheless share characteristics that enable them to come under the control of a unifying mechanism. They can be digitally stored. They can be transported over a common network infrastructure. They can be described in ways that permit search and retrieval across boundaries of content-type, medium or department of origin.

Management refers to the directed and purposeful employment of an organization's resources; the smooth and efficient handling of tasks related to the creation, transformation, storage, preservation and retrieval of the component elements that contribute to, and result from, an organization's efforts. The ECM approach is inherently robust, for it combines distributed storage with a centrally managed framework. The ECM approach is inherently scalable; a result of its innate capability to incorporate additional repositories (and new content types) into its organizational framework.

The term ECM, does not represent just a product or a suite of products, nor simply a group of technologies. While ECM includes the aggregation of once disparate approaches to the information management (Document Management, Collaboration, Knowledge Management, Digital Asset Management, Web Content Management), the ECM concept represents more than simply the sum of their overlapping characteristics. It is the systematic re-thinking of the approach to the creation, management and distribution of all data stored outside of traditional integrated information systems (ERP, SIS etc.).

Purpose

ECM incorporates and implements the business rules that govern the processes needed to create, acquire, store, index, secure, search, export and transform digital assets. The key goal of an ECM system is to increase the integration and automation of processes that support Internet delivery.

Benefits

ECM joins the organization's digital assets together through the mechanism of a unifying descriptive framework. This is an "enabling" infrastructure, enabling work done in one part of the organization to benefit from similar relevant work performed in another part of the organization. It enables the discovery, description and enumeration of assets produced as a natural result of the university's educational mission; assets that have significant value to the organization itself as well as potential value to a broader market beyond the university.

Source

White paper, written by Michael J. Halm and Michael Pelikan, from Penn State entitled: "Enterprise Content Management Systems: Beyond Digital Asset Management and Web Content Management Systems". I would encourage anyone interested in this opportunity domain, especially for higher ed, to read this excellent paper.

IBM announces new product integration through IBM Workplace

Thu, 11 Nov 2004 15:10:04 -0800

Today IBM made three major announcements relevant to IBM Workplace:

The release of IBM WebSphere Portal 5.1, one of the primary technologies underlying the IBM Workplace platform
The availability of new IBM Workplace Solutions aimed at specific horizontal and vertical business problems
The introduction of IBM Workplace Services Express, an affordable and easy-to-implement offering for deploying IBM Workplace to small-to-medium-sized businesses and departments within larger organizations.

IBM Workplace Announcement Page

Early Analysis

We have all been watching as IBM integrates its previously disperse applications and middleware. It was obvious to many that they would need to break up the monolithic approach to the Lotus Domino product into more of a web services model. Although, I was hard pressed to find detailed technical information or even screen shots, it sounds like with this upcoming release they have succeeded in integrating their products for complete web delivery. However, the success of the workplace still seems dependent on an integrated suite approach...

Blogging for the EDU Enterprise?

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 17:12:03 -0700

When reading posts relating to the latest 4.5 release of drupal, I came across an interesting post exploring the use of drupal for university wide blogging. Drupal for the EDU Enterprise (40K users?) I was immediately curious as to which University was pursuing this venture. Seeing that the post was from lhl, I followed his profile to his personal blog, the about in turn leading me to his USC personal page. I knew that USC was involved in internet2 and the middleware iniative, on the grid computing front, but had not made contact with anyone from USC participating in the WebISO and directory areas. USC also has a nice installation of [uPortal], http://my.usc.edu/. Apparently they are using Pubcookie instead of Yale CAS. David C., you may run into Leonard Lin at JA-SIG Summer 2004. Anyway, it would be good to follow up with him, about JA-Sig, WebISO, university blogging etc, since we don't have too many local contacts with uPortal and I2 Middleware. Anyway, I am quite interested in blogging as a feature for simple ad-hoc web publishing for our constituents. Students specifically would I think latch on to a blogging service if we were to offer one through Cougars' Den. There are some sites focused on the blogging and such in the classroom, such as kairosnews.org, also a drupal site btw. One drupal contributer, also a teacher, is using technical writing courses at his university to produce open source software documentation. I have seen anything that lends toward collaborative book writing, as easy as a blog, in eCollege. Of course blogging among Faculty and Staff within a university could generate more categorical knowledge sharing than any other currenlty available medium. The truth is, blogging is just the name for the simple publishing, sharing, and conversing of information. Its knowledge management in the most organic sense. Blogging brings something traditionally difficult, web publishing, to just about anybody. I don't think people care about having "home pages" beyond a simple blog with a customizable theme, links, their thoughts, and a simple way to attach images or files. Perhaps its time to start thinking of Enterprise Content Management is more than a three letter accronymn with a large vendor pricetag. Certainly blogging doesn't solve workflow, imaging and archiving and other advanced ECM topics, but I doubt one monolithic solution will do the trick. Worth a thought. Speaking of easy web publishing, I need to write about a next generation Wiki, Jotspot. Here's a great writeup about jotspot from social software expert Christopher Allen. I watched half of the flash demo, and will need to spend some more time with it before sharing my thoughts. It may not be "it", but something as simple as it, could take over the collaborative, workgroup, workflow, knowledge management software landscape easily.

Content Overload

Tue, 13 Jul 2004 14:25:38 -0700

According to InformationWeek, and any IT person with their eyes open... Companies are choking on information employees create

How are companies to bring the plethora of unstructured information under control?

Documentum eRoom Enterprise Delivers Collaborative Content Management

Tue, 13 Jul 2004 14:43:10 -0700

Documentum eRoom Enterprise Delivers Collaborative Content Management -
Documentum, 2004-03-08: Documentum, the leading provider of enterprise content management (ECM), today announced the availability of Documentum eRoom Enterprise 7.2, a highly flexible collaborative environment that introduces new capabilities that address the collaborative nature of content creation and management. eRoom Enterprise 7.2 provides the ability to generate event-triggered workspaces based on pre-defined business rules, enabling team members to securely collaborate within the context of a process.

For example, an organization could automate a request for proposal submission process by predefining a workflow that involves employees from Sales, Finance and Engineering. When the proposal reaches the approval stage of the process, eRoom 7.2 can automatically trigger the creation of workspaces, pre-configured with appropriate memberships, content and tools, to enable distributed teams to work together in a collaborative environment.

"Documentum advances the notion of collaborative content management with its latest version of Documentum eRoom Enterprise 7.2, said David Coleman, managing director, Collaborative Strategies. "eRoom Enterprise 7.2 hits the mark for delivering a structured environment without hampering creativity, enabling organizations to capture all of the valuable content not typically associated in an often rigid business process."

Read the full Press Release.