My most important learning has been definitive confirmation that Microsoft takes a different view of ECM than traditional ECM vendors. The ‘tone from the top’ was set by Bill Gates himself in his opening keynote. He reiterated Microsoft’s focus on the end user as the primary goal of SharePoint and related applications. This vision manifests itself in the expectation that users should be able to own team sites in SharePoint. Here’s a quote from Bill to back this up which came as part of a discussion about the horizontal focus of SharePoint. He said that “you should just allow sites to spring up in a broad fashion”. In my experience, people who want to be successful in their organizations will follow the lead of their boss, which is why SharePoint works the way it does.

A further indication of Microsoft’s unique view of ECM is the fact that this conference is opposite the 2008 AIIM Conference, which tells me that Microsoft is either deliberately trying to draw attendees from that event or simply didn’t realize that AIIM was going on at the same time. It’s probably the latter but either way, to me this is an indication that Microsoft sees SharePoint as more than an ECM application tasked with managing documents and other unstructured content. Bill Gates talked about SharePoint as the place that workers will go to access all of the information they need to do their jobs. This includes documents, structured data from line-of-business applications like CRM systems, tasks, and information about other people. By definition, a platform that is intended to give users the power to create ad hoc information structures is a platform that’s difficult to control. To make up for this, a big focus of this conference is how SharePoint deployment team can reign in the application before it gets out of control.

I am not saying any of this is a bad thing. In fact, it’s probably a very good thing because the vast majority of business use cases are inherently ad hoc. What it tells me, however, is that there are a few very clear use cases that are best supported by traditional ECM applications like Livelink, Documentum, etc. My last blog post discussed the differences in approach and application two of my clients are taking based on the use cases they are trying to address and the tool they are using. To cut a long story short, Livelink is being used to manage a highly controlled process where SharePoint is the platform of choice for a more collaborative process. The analysts in attendance at this conference seem to agree with this (probably to the chagrin of most of the Microsoft personnel in the room), when they universally discounted the records management capabilities of SharePoint and suggested that it is not even in the same ballpark as existing RM tools. I’m not sure that’s true, but there is some legitimacy to saying that a tool that’s only had RM capabilities for a year can’t be considered as robust as applications that have been around for 15+ years.

Finally, I’ve noticed an interesting convergence between the Microsoft approach to ECM and the response by traditional ECM vendors to the emergence of social networking in the enterprise. Open Text announced Livelink ECM – Extended Collaboration at the AIIM conference today. The tool is intended to bring a free-form collaboration layer to the Livelink platform. Here’s a brief synopsis from the news release:

…[the tool] encourages people to work together, while capturing critical project information in an underlying ECM framework. Security, access control, and retention policies are strictly enforced using the native security mechanisms already in place, without adding another administrative layer.

The question organizations have to ask is whether they think a platform rooted in strong records management and content governance (like Livelink) that adds on a collaborative layer is more likely to meet their needs than is a collaborative platform (like SharePoint) that builds out content governance features over time. I don’t have a short answer to which approach is better. I suppose the best I can do is to give you the stock consultant’s response: it depends on what you’re trying to achieve. Over time, we also need to consider whether SharePoint will truly dominate the space or whether there will continue to be room for applications like Livelink to continue to provide strong records management and compliance requirements even if the presentation layer ultimately becomes SharePoint. My guess is that’s exactly how things will evolve over the next decade or so. Let’s chat again in 2018 to see if I’m right.

There will be a lot to blog about over the next couple of days and I look forward to seeing if my perspective changes while here.

The first was to the first ever (and hopefully first annual) AIIM Calgary Chapter Conference, which was a huge success. Over 150 people attended the event and there were nearly a dozen vendors represented in the vendor showcase. A big thank you goes out to the committee which was ably led by Kit Bright and Shelly DiGiovanni. Great work you two!

The impact that SharePoint will have (and has already had) on the ECM landscape continues to be a hot topic and this was the subject of my presentation. SharePoint and the Future of ECM led to a lively discussion about whether Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 can really be considered an ECM tool. In a nutshell, my take on this question is:

1) SharePoint is a big deal;

2) SharePoint really is an ECM application;

3) There is room for everyone: Traditional ECM applications will survive and thrive.

Check out the presentation and please let me know your take on this issue.

The second presentation was to a group of senior managers from small to mid-sized companies. This group gathers regularly as part of the Renaissance Executive Forums program. We discussed the issues surrounding the management of knowledge in smaller organizations and had a great discussion about both traditional ECM tools and the use of emerging ‘Enterprise 2.0′ apps like Facebook.

You can find the presentation here. I hope you find it interesting and again I’d appreciate your feedback.

Doculabs asks 10 very good questions that all organizations considering an ECM implementation should be considering. I won’t go into all of the points here but I will highlight I thought were a few salient ideas. First off, James got things started with a bang by repeating what he says he hears all the time when discussing MOSS. “Sounds great,” they say, “I just don’t want another Lotus Notes.” What he means by this is that Lotus Notes was (is) an excellent tool for workgroup level collaboration but becomes a management nightmare when trying to scale it enterprise wide without proper planning.

So, given that, what is the best way to deploy MOSS? First, James suggests that a MOSS deployment needs dedicated resources. This is significant. Because of the MOSS has been positioned as an easy-to-use tool for information workers, there is a tendency to think that departmental-level personnel should be empowered to create new sites as they see fit. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, it just won’t likely scale well (from a usability perspective, not a technology perspective). I agree with James’s suggestion to draw a line in the sand when multiple workgroups start creating environments with a high degree of commonality. At this point, create a centralized support team and start work on an enterprise taxonomy.

In terms of the relationship between MOSS and existing ECM systems, Doculabs advocates a co-existence strategy. This is based on their belief that MOSS, as it currently stands and considering only out-of-the-box functionality, is probably not ready to be the one system of record for an organization. This is not a one-size-fits-all approach; as was noted earlier SharePoint may very well fit the bill in certain use cases where collaboration is the key requirement. It will likely evolve over time but, in Doculabs opinion, there will be a place in the market for fully-fledged ECM tools for a long time to come.

This is consistent with what I have been seeing from my clients as well. Most recognize the power of MOSS but also realize that more robust records managment requirements are likely going to require a more mature tool for the foreseeable future. Co-existence can help provide a ‘best of both worlds’ approach that satisfies most if not all business requirements.

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Dave ran a bit short on time (AIIM runs a tight ship) and was only able to talk about two of the three case studies he had to present. His first example was about the IS department of a global investment firm based in Chicago. They had no incumbent document management solution in place and decided to use MOSS exclusively; their plan is to replace their disorganized network share with SharePoint. Dave reported that the users found that they were better able to find documents and appreciated the ability to collaborate using discussion forums and other tools. A question came up about the training and change management requirements for a MOSS implementation of this kind. Dave didn’t have a lot of information on this but indicated that things had gone well.

My take on this is that IT users are far more likely to willingly adopt a tool like SharePoint because they’re more likely to embrace new technology. In this case, it also seems like there was a very strong use case for SharePoint and it solved a pressing business problem. This approach ties in to what Peggy said in her opening remarks; ECM is most successful when groups act locally while thinking globally. If this is the case here, the structure created for the IT group will have been built with scalability in mind. It would be interesting to be able to look into a crystal ball and see whether this solution is successfully deployed to other functional areas in the organization in the future. This is the big challenge for many ECM deployments regardless of platform. It also brings us back to the question that keeps coming up; whether MOSS can handle some of the “heavy lifting” ECM requirements like records management and integrated compliance. In the case of the IS department, these considerations are either non-existent or at least secondary to enabling collaboration, which has led to a successful implementation. My feeling is that MOSS will get there eventually, it’s just not there yet based on the cases I’ve seen.

Dave’s presentation and all other presentations will be posted on the AIIM website and I’ll provide a link when it becomes available.

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