Readers of my work know that one of my more favorite aspects of ECM is content delivery. Along with mobility, the ability to re-purpose modular “chunks” of content in a variety of formats and contexts significantly enhances the value derived from ECM, increases the effectiveness of communication and quite frankly is just plain fun.

I have blogged about the concept often over the last few years, and originally began writing about it more than 15 years ago.  Many never seemed to quite get it – but slowly over the last few years more and more apps have emerged that clearly demonstrate the value of dynamic content delivery.  The latest is a free app known as Flipboard.

Flipboard is a personalized digital magazine, created by culling social media and content pertinent to the reader.  This is the future of publishing, and it will take off – of that I am sure.  But do not just take my word for it.  Flipboard has received many great reviews, and commentary , that like this post, positions Flipboard not just as an iPad app, but another step forward in dynamic content delivery.  Initial reaction has been so positive that the provider had to ask for patience with potential early “blips in service.”

- My point, I am not enamored with Flipboard per se – but am very excited to see yet another well done app come to the market that helps all of us experience the power of dynamic content delivery. Merge this with DAM and multimedia and the possibilities for new more effective ways to communicate are endless and the boundaries of ECM are stretched once again.

Oh yeah, the ECM nerd in me is again having a very good day.

It has been weeks since I blogged, or even Tweeted on a regular basis. Where have I been?  Dan and I are on the road, consulting on a very complex, grand and most interesting ECM project.  A Fortune 100 company that remains successful and growing in spite of the economy, has managed to achieve such greatness without benefit of a formal Information Architecture and ECM strategy. This project has been the focus of our time and attention of late.  The challenge is great and the potential opportunity huge.

We are dealing with a large and diverse collection of content in various stages of maturity, quality,  accuracy and accessibility. The organization readily realizes that years of ad hoc, manual and individual approaches to content management have resulted in a nearly chaotic collection of content and processes. Many issues exist, from a need for enterprise search and a centralized taxonomy, to strategies for content distribution. But a fundamental issue is the state of the collection of content itself.

Among the many repositories, valuable content resides amongst  dated, ambiguous, unapproved and at times contradictory content. A critical decision has been made to clean up the content repositories before addressing findability. The merit of beginning with the establishment of search and taxonomy, under a series of UIs, and using these to expedite the discovery of dated and inaccurate content and subsequently deleting it was debated, but a fundamental decision was made not to expose users to the “garbage”, but rather, first authenticate and clean up the content and subsequently use the findability tools to expose an “official body of quality content.”

But I am not blogging today simply to relay this experience.  While deep in thought about this situation, I heard a news story that brought this decision point to mind, and ignited in me a chance to blog about the BP oil “spill”.  (Hey its not a spill -  it’s an underwater gusher. Let’s call it what it is.)

Despite many strong opinions about this disaster, I have refrained from blogging about it because the charter of my blog is ECM.  Last week’s news, however, gave me my excuse to express opinion about this disaster, ala ECM.  BP is using a form of ECM and Web 2.0 to control public opinion. They have hired “reporters” to write about the “spill” from a “more positive” perspective. These “reporters” are using phrases to describe their experience watching the clean up effort such as: “…enjoyed the spectacular ballet at sea… dolphins swimming around us. Even a shark came along to watch the show.” (Watch the show? Try struggle to survive, in disgust?  And what’s with “ballet?”).  They have also reported that “… hotels have been prospering because so many people have come here from BP and other oil emergency response teams.”  According to other independent, i.e non-BP owned sources, this is simply not true and the local tourist trade is seriously hurting.

I keep my outrage and disgust about this entire situation in check – the point I want to raise here is this, if left unchecked and un-managed,  garbage such as this could potentially be retrieved as “fact.”  Content authentication and source identification are critical to a comprehensive ECM strategy.

Internet and intranet sites alike have the potential to provide access to a wealth of content, but can contain “garbage” among the “jewels”,  garbage as rank and lethal as the oil “spill” itself. (OK I snuck that in.)

Consumers of content need to be diligent in filtering garbage from “fact”, or be assured, as is the case with our client going forward, that systems are in place to control publication.  I am not advocating censorship, but ECM systems need to provide some approach to quality control, tailored to the scope and needs of individual situations. Fact checking,  authority and credentials of authors, and/or providing clear and blatant identification of authorship are all steps that can be taken to at least let the reader decide what is content and what is “garbage”.

In an earlier blog post, I directly addressed the need to authenticate content – of all types. As an issue  fundamentally critical to any and all collections of content – especially those that are “findable.”

In another earlier post I commented on the irony of bloggers who were “unhappy” with a regulation that compelled them to disclose any affiliations or gifts they  received in connection with their blog writing.

I have to say that at least in the case of BP, authors are identified as “BP Reporters”. So at least the potential is there for the reader to use a garbage filter on the consumption of content. – In the absence of content quality controls, such as those being implemented by my client, readers must beware.

Last week the Enterprise 2.0 Conference was held right here in my hometown, Boston MA.  As usual, the E2.0 community was abuzz with Twitter (#e2conf).  But, now, with the show a happy memory, many of us attendees reflect more deeply than 140 characters allows, in our blog posts.  The blogosphere is ripe with conference coverage. Among them I recommend those from Sameer Patel, Jacob Morgan, Rawn and Ron Miller. I will refrain from sharing observations that are redundant to theirs – except in cases where I think redundancy will add to the power of the message.

So that said – here goes.  in keeping with tradition, I  have rolled-up my impression of the conference into an acronym.  This year the conference is characterized as

FAME

OK, to explain the acronym – lets start at the end;

E is for ENERGETIC

More so than ever before, I could not help but feel the energy level of the crowd (Yes crowd, this may have been the most popularly attended E2.0 conference yet), as the spilled out of sessions and milled around the hallways. MAybe it was all that fine Starbucks coffee that was being served – but I think not. Read on…

Now, back to the beginning;

F is for FUNDED

I came away with the impression that most of the attendees were not there for theoretical or introductory eduction – but practical insight on how to succeed with Enterprise 2.0.  Most seemed to be working on real and funded programs, (Which likely was the root of the aforementioned energy level).  I could not help but pick up on this during the various Q and A sessions and one-on-ones that I had.  Indeed, for the first time in 2 years I walked away with no less than 3 real leads – i.e. individuals seeking proposals for targeted consulting.

A is for APPLICATION-focused

The conference responded to the attendees’ focus on real-world issues with a nice mix of case studies, all focused on the leveraging of E2.0 functionality to specific business applications – many presentations in the form of real-world case studies.  My favorite was a group of three panelists all discussing how innovation was managed as a process within their respective organizations, partially based on collaborative software. Innovation Management was a popularly discussed business application at the conference, overall, including 2 of the keynotes.  The crowd was also coached several times by those pioneers of E2.0, the 2.0 Adoption Council members. Their experiences are always a conference highlight.

Lastly,

M is for MATURE

This is perhaps reflective of the other letters in the acronym.  Presentations were far more grounded in real-word examples, workshops were provided by industry veterans, and attendees came seeking practical advice to move funded project forward.  The market has matured.

Both of my presentations focused on implementation issues, each illustrated by real-world examples. The first looked at how culture impacts the implementation of E2.0. (Download slides)

My second presentation, based on a study done with the 2.0 Adoption Council, provided insights into deploying E2.0 in a controlled environment (in this case focusing on privacy issues in the European Union).

In the presentation I broadened the definition and scope of E2.0 (See slide 4) – positioning it within an integrated Enterprise Content Management (ECM) strategy.  (ECM – at least the way I define it.)

In the end, I would have to say that Maturity was the big take away for me this year. In fact,  as I was presenting  E2.0 and Privacy it struck me, and I stated, that I believe the success of the E2.0 show – characterized by the maturing of its focus and audience,  will be the demise of the show or at least the label Enterprise 2.0. Typical of many nascent technologies – they are couched in definitions and frameworks that position them as  business applications. I draw the analogy to imaging. Circa 1990 imaging was discussed as if it were a business application.  People spoke in phrases such as “we do imaging”;  “I am the manager of our imaging application” . It may seem odd to think of scanning technology as a business application,  as opposed to a way to create and share content within business applications – but I assure you that was the case.  Imaging too had a trade show built entirely around it – less we forget that AIIM stands for the Association for information and IMAGE management.

The focus, attitudes and energy surrounding E2.0 are changing.  I do think that the success of E2.0  will be the demise of the conference, as we know it.  But this is a good thing, and it is actually critical. In its nascent state the market focused on E2.0 as an application: “Does your organization have an E2.0 project, budget, leader/champion?”.   This will fade into obscurity as we realize you don’t “do E2.0″, . you leverage this genre of capabilities to facilitate and strengthen and redefine business applications.  This was perhaps foreshadowed in the subtext of this year’s conference title,  “Business Powered by Collaboration.”

I give the conference 2 – 3 years tops,  before it either fades into history, or morphs into something related – but bigger.  This is not a reflection on the show, but market maturity.  In fact once again, Steve Wylie and crew are to be congratulated for their skillful orchestration and attention to detail.  The show was a huge success, but with success will come obscurity (and likely something bigger and better.)

It’s likely you have been following the pressure Facebook has been getting concerning its privacy policies.  The pressure seems to be working, as Facebook recently announced it will change its approach to privacy and make it easier for users to protect their personal data. This has been an on going battle.  I first commented on the need for better controls in Facebook 3 years ago, prompted by the then reaction of Facebook to privacy violations related to its Beacon advirtisements.  At that time I commented that “mature” uses of 2.0 (especially those that take the form of Enterprise 2.0) have to address the issue of privacy and learn from established corporate practices concerning responsible content management.

Here it is  three years later and Facebook is in a similar situation, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is still resisting the demand to do the “right thing.”  While the ability to set privacy controls within Facebook has “been made simpler,” defaults are still set to “open.”  The ability to disable the mining/access of personal profiling by marketers is still “not that simple.”  Sure, Zuckerman is moving in the right direction, but he is going kicking and screaming, one small step at a time.

But enough critisism on that issue. You can read the many articles and commentary out there, and determine for yourself if Zuckerman and Facebook are doing enough. In this post, I want to focus on one of Zuckerman’s recent quotes in particular. In commenting on the struggle between social computing and privacy, Zuckerman stated,  “The company [Facebook] treads a delicate balance between protecting privacy rights and promoting social networking.”  When I read this quote – I could not help but think of Seth Meyer and Amy Pohler on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update: “Oh Really.”

I have stated for years that as the adolescent  we know as “2.0″ matures, it will become a bit more cognizant of the realities of the real world – for many reason. The issue of balancing access and security is not new, nor unique to 2.0. I have been describing ECM as such a balancing act for over a decade.  I first developed the graphic above over 10 years, as a way to explain how to approach an ECM strategy. At the top  a grayscale bar represents  a continuum between  control/secure and collaborate/innovate. This is framed under the competing business practices of risk management and knowledge management.  This is the highest level design decision you must grapple with when controlling any and all forms of content – social content included. Depending on the context and the point in the content’s lifecycle, the balance between security/privacy and access/collaboration need to be treated perhaps differently, but always proactively.

So, come  2.0  GROW UP.  Social computing – open, transparent emergent platforms – sure they are powerful  and should be exploited, but you cannot throw caution to the wind.  It’s time for social platforms to  take responsibility for what they create – whether inside or outside the firewall.  Inside the firewall, there really is no excuse, not to address this issue head on.

The concept of balancing access to content against security is the focus of the IAI Primer: “Enabling Collaboration While Managing Risk.”  (Free download)  The issue is also addressed from many angles in a series of IAI Primers on Enterprise 2.0. (Free download)

I also recently authored a study on behalf of The 2.0 Adoption Council, sponsored by NewsGator, entitled, “Implementing Enterprise 2.0 Within the European Union:  Transparency and Emergence vs. Privacy and Compliance.”

I will also be addressing this very issue head on at the upcoming Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston, on June 17, in a presentation entitled Implementing Enterprise 2.0 in a Controlled Environment:  Lessons Learned.

Want to hear more, and/or debate this point with me? I hope you can attend the talk, (Thursday at 9:30 AM). If you cannot make it, stay tuned, I will be posting my slides and the reaction I get from the audience in an upcoming post – promise.

Two  weeks ago I spoke on a webinar hosted by SpringCM.  My presentation focused on how to take a structured and methodical approach to defining and executing an ECM strategy. You can download the slides I used slides below, and/or if you prefer listen to the recorded webinar here.

As is always is the case when I speak on a webinar , I intended to provide repsonses to all unanswered questions posed by the audience, here in my blog.  Well, history was made two weeks ago. For the first time, all questions were answered during the one hour time slot. (You can listen to the webinar complete with Q and A here.)

So, this follow-up blog post focuses exclusively on the results of the quick polls we took of the approximately 200 attendees during the webinar.

It is interesting to note, right from the start, that  nearly half (47%) of the audience members worked in organizations that had an ECM strategy.

Why is this interesting? For a few reasons. First, it indicates that the ECM market still has lots of legs, and that the need to build a deliberate strategy for leveraging the capabilities of ECM still exists in many organizations . In fact, the fact that the 47% that have a strategy nonetheless attended this webinar indicates, IMHO, that a need to maintain that strategy and weigh new options is a important to many organizations. Again, IMHO, this is a best practice, to keep the ECM strategy green by continuously updating it in order to take advantage of lessons learned and emerging new technologies and techniques (among these today SharePoint and Cloud Computing.)

The value of having an ECM strategy is reflected in the percentage of organizations that have or  plan to have document-based applications between themselves and customers and partners.

I believe it is no coincidence that 48% of the webinar audience indicated that they planned on having document-based applications with their customers and partners. This is likely the same group (note the 1% difference in groups)  that indicated that they had an existing ECM strategy.  An organization might be able to cobble by with a lackadaiscal approach to managing its business content, but when that content is integrated into serious business applications, especially those that involve outside parties, a defined strategy for managing the content is essential.

As mentioned above, SharePoint represents a new offering in the ECM strategy equation. It is clearly a technology that has garnered much attention. So, we asked those webinar attendees that indicated that they had an ECM strategy, if SharePoint was a component of that strategy. The results were a bit surprising. Only 57% indicated that it was.

I say the results are surprising because most other market data concerning the take-up of SharePoint, including our own earlier research, typically positions the presence of SharePoint in organizations a bit higher. (In our own study it was 65% and 23% more planning on it.)  What I believe the results of this poll may indicate is that SharePoint  is still predominately  used as an ad hoc approach to file sharing and simple collaboration, and thus for some, is not positioned as part of an official ECM strategy.  Positioning Sharepoint as part of a corporate ECM strategy requires significant further investment in time, money and effort – involving integration with complementary functionality including process management (e.g. BPM and workflow). This was a topic discussed in more detail on our last webinar.

Given that the webinar included advice on extending ECM into the Cloud, we asked the audience members if their organization had deployed any applications in the Cloud. Not surprisingly, a small majority, 56%, indicated no. Past market research I have conducted on this point has yielded similar findings.

Despite the success of SaaS-based applications, such as SalesForce.com, for example, many organizations have yet to fully embrace the Cloud. I believe this will likely change in the next year, based on my unofficial tracking of market activity (e.g. related webinars, trade-show presentations, traditional press coverage and Twitter activity.)  In fact this observation prompted me to tweet yesterday “Is it me, or is Cloud Computing the new SharePoint? Is seems to be everywhere.”  The comment sparked a fair amount of Twitter activity and a discussion thread on LinkedIn.

Lastly, we asked about application priorities in the upcoming 18 months. Respondents were given 9 candidate applications to select from. For the most part, responses indicated that a wide variety of business applications are being targeted. The most popularly selected (by40%) application was project collaboration.

Herein lies the value proposition for having an ECM strategy. By establishing an ECM platform (whether a single product, or conglomeration of products orchestrated as a single platform in which best of breed approaches and functions work seamlessly together), organizations can deploy any number of targeted and specific business applications on top of the platform. Even in cases where a turnkey vertical/horizontal application is deployed, it often makes good sense to deploy such an application built on the underlying enterprise platform, to minimize further customization and integration.  This point was further discussed in the last webinar.

So on that note, I’ll remind you that if you missed the first webinar in this series, focused on ECM, SharePoint and  Cloud Computing specifically, you may want to read that follow-up blog . It contains links to the slides and recorded session, as well as many definitions – including – what is ECM.

Even if you are not a techie or ECMer,  it would have been hard to miss all the marketing and press that has surrounded the iPad lately.  Numerous articles have weighed in on whether or not Apple will be a success both long and short term, what this means to Amazon, etc.

Relevant? yes. Interesting? Somewhat, to me. Do not get me wrong. I have been following the advent of iPad closely, but not from a “wall street” perspective. From my ECM-er perspective, the reason the iPad is so important is because it marks the beginning of the end of the old generation of publishing, and the popularization of e-publishing.  The ability to publish electronically – not just create and layout content electronically for a paper-based print run – but content created specifically for electronic delivery, is clearly not new. But, the overall market understanding of and appreciation for the full value of electronic content delivery has been lagging.  The popularizing of electronic-based content delivery, (yes, I think the Apple entrance into the market will help finally raise awareness and market demand overall, similar to the way Google raised the general market appreciation for the value of search) will not only allow publishers to take advantage of e-based delivery, but compel them to do so, and race to leverage the unique powers and capabilities of the media.

ECMers such as myself have been heralding the ability and associated benefits of designing content for e-based delivery for years, (see earlier posts ). Despite the ability to do so, however, the majority of business applications that involve content delivery remain rooted in paper-based delivery. Even in cases where content is created electronically (which is nearly exclusively now), design concerning output is almost always mired in paper-based metaphors.  (A simple case in point, just today I was asked to complete a form – it was available on-line, i.e., I could print the form from my web browser, complete it ala ink on paper, and – are you ready – fax it back. Just days ago I completed another form totally online, but the “publisher” of the form did not leverage any e-based delivery capabilities. I was asked to skip over irrelevant sections. Relevancy of sections was something that could have been handled automatically based on data I had already entered.)

Now, with the popularizing of e-based consumption of content, it is likely that content publishers (taken in the strictest and loosest sense of that phrase), will wake up and actually leverage the publishing media to its fullest value. Dynamic links, multimedia, content in context – by person, geography and time of day, will more readily be embraced and supported by those that provide content – from books and newspapers to coupons and name badges.

The market is at an inflection point, much like it found itself circa the 1980s, with the popularizing of imaging technology. Scanning technology had been around for quite some time before that, but organizations were still mostly thinking in terms of paper.  Imaging was a “new capability” that augmented paper. It was not uncommon to find organizations that were printing content, only to scan it into an online imaging system.  Hard to believe? (Hey, I still occasionally find examples of people doing this.) This mentality is not so different from that of organizations today that create volumes of content online and then design output for paper– either exclusively, or online versions of paper metaphors.

Practices and approaches to publishing (i.e. electronic content delivery) have started to change, and will surely begin to pick up speed. I was recently talking to a very good friend of mine who has been in the text book publishing industry as an editor for over 15 years. We began talking about our careers colliding and she shared with me that she was currently working on over 130 e-based books – not publishing the same paper-based book online – but books specifically tailored to take advantage of the dynamics and flexibility of electronic delivery, exclusively.

For those electronic content management technology vendors that have focused on dynamic delivery, there time is here.  I have commented on the opportunity that this represents for ECM many times.

Folks such as MarkLogic, PTC, Tridion, and SiberLogic should find a burgeoning market that “suddenly” better understands their value proposition. Others such as Astoria and HiveFire, may likely reposition their underlying capabilities to more directly address this growing need. ECM bastions such OpenText and EMC (especially with their X-Hive acquisition) are well positioned to re-direct attention to these capabilities they have touted for years, to a mostly blind and deaf consumer.

DITA will become the “new html” and gain far greater market awareness and adoption.  The onus will be on  the distributor of content to become innovative to leverage the new capabilities and to think beyond  8.5 x 11 static media.

So, take a deep breath, we are only getting started – but we are surely entering the beginning of the end of publishing as we know it.

Yesterday I tweeted (@carlfrappaolo) about a Boston Globe article on ECM search company, Endeca. I was going to let it go at that; congratulations Endeca for getting the attention of the Sunday Globe and for having the popular press cover the fact that search is more than just findability and Google, that search can be used as a form of business intelligence (BI).

But then this morning, serendipitously I heard a story on NPR about the dramatically changing world of television watching and the impact that is having on the services provided by Nielsen.  For decades Nielsen has had a monopoly on this market; reporting on the “popularity” of television programs based on eyeballs on TV sets at a particular time.  This data is extremely valuable because it provides potential advertisers with insight on how much a spot on a given program is worth, and to which audience. But television watching just isn’t what it used to be (echo newspapers and magazines).  Television content consumers have  alternative ways to access content (e.g.TiVo and Hulu) via alternative viewing devices that include smart phones and laptops, to name just a few.  (I know my kids are forever watching TV without the TV on.)

The viewing audience, including the way they view is changing. Nielsen customers (i.e. advertisers) are demanding that Nielsen keep pace and monitor these viewing habits. The television ad market is not dying – it is morphing and as a result is potentially more valuable.  Through ECM-based technologies,  it is possible to compile BI on multiple consumer habits, at unprecedented levels of granularity. In the case of television viewing, for example, not only what viewers are watching, but also when, where, what was skipped, re-played and shared.  As Nielsen’s president Steve Hasker put it. “”We’ll be able to tell what type of video they watch, what type of sites they go to, how they interact on those sites, what they buy on those sites, what types of news articles they’re reading.”

That is BI at a far lower and wider level of granularity than Nielson provides today.  Now think this new proposition through. Advertisers, using more ECM-based technology (e.g. e-publishing and DAM) advertisers can deliver more personalized and granular messages, in a timely manner – ads in context. Yes, once again, CONTEXT is king, and BI is the keys to the kingdom.

ECM is at the foundation of great new opportunities and challenges for organizations. I recently completed an article for Ron Miller in which I focus on the circle between ECM, KM and Innovation Management. This triumvirate will soon become a requisite to remaining competitive in virtually any  market. The article discusses this concept in some detail, more than here. Here, I draw attention to the tie between Innovation Management and ECM (in that order). In a phrase: get innovative with ECM.  As highlighted in this blog post, the integration of new content types and new means of content distribution and consumption, coupled with new approaches to BI creates amazing opportunities; truly personalized real-time publishing, contextual publishing and a constant loop of feed back (including web 2.0 emergence) that allows the content provider to continuously fine-tune the presentation and make-up of content.  The future for advertising and marketing is ripe with positive change, and ECM is at the foundation of this.

OK, I admit it. I do not spend all my weekends sitting around thinking deep ECM and KM thoughts. I enjoy hanging out with the kids and indulging in some mindless TV watching.  Its amazing though how the KM/ECM geek in me will sometimes connect the two – mindless TV and ECM/KM that is.

Last night I was wrapping up the weekend watching The Simpsons with my 2 daughters. Sure, occasionally there is a poignant message or two – usually lost on the kids. But in last nights episode there was a strong and important message directed right to every KM, ECM and E2.0 manager. Intentional or not – it was there and you did not have to think to deeply to catch it.

The Simpsons find themselves in Machu Pichu (don’t ask why – its not worth it). The narrator is explaining the significance of the site and states something along the lines of “This great civilization built a great wall around its people to protect it from the outside and keep their culture pure. But great walls also lock out knowledge, (Seriously that is the word he used.) and as a result the Incas were not adept at understanding the rest of the world or dealing with change. When the conquistadors appeared they were confused, ran and were destroyed.”

OK – you all got it right? “But great walls also lock out knowledge.” (Yes, the historical accuracy is off here – but the tie to ECM, KM and E2.0 – nonetheless poignant and worth reiterating.) “But great walls also lock out knowledge.” I spared my kids the thought that popped into my mind, “EXACTLY and that is the mission of every KM, ECM and Enterprise 2.0 manager”, to manage the BALANCE between security and collaboration. It is a topic I have spoken, written and blogged about many times. IAI published a primer on this very subject. I am currently in the process of working with Susan Scrupski, and members of The 2.0 Adoption Council on this very issue.

A group of the Council members who had to deal with strict privacy laws in Europe could have taken the “Machu Pichu” approach and erred on the side of security. But in the interest of collaboration to support agility and innovation, they worked a bit harder and used techniques and technologies to strike a clever balance between security and collaboration.  Sure – some of us may look at such approaches and say “D’oh”, or even “Duh”, but far too many have yet to really embrace this balancing act as the primary focus of long term success in the world of Knowledge Management, ECM and E2.0.

If you haven’t, I again invite you to read the primer on Content Security, and the 2.0 Adoption Council report when it is available next month.

In 1964, Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase ” The medium is the message.”  I have often quoted McLuhan in my writings and presentations, in agreement.  But, I fear far too many take his message the wrong way, which can and has lead to serious repercussions.

Yesterday I was watching to a video podcast interview between two colleagues.  Both will remain anonymous.  Who they are is not important.  Their posture and what they said are important. Both are noted industry advocates in the ECM and Enterprise 2.0 space. Both provide advice to the market, which is what concerns me. One of them made a statement that was simply naive and misleading, and the other one did not correct or modify it.

My angst is grounded in the further worry that history will repeat itself, and not in a positive way. The interview was focused on the use of collaborative social technologies in an Enterprise 2.0 setting. The comment made that caused my concern – and I paraphrase – was that many enterprise users are using tools such as Twitter (Twitter was specifically mentioned in the discussion),  without any real thought as to the management of the content created.

There were two distinct points made that were misleading – possibly downright wrong.

1. My colleagues casually pondered who will “own’ the content and if indeed it will be considered subject to discovery. I believe that the courts, at least in the United States, have already ruled on this. As I stated in an earlier blog post, in a class action suit regarding patient/individual privacy rights, the courts ruled that content in “FaceBook, MySpace, instant-messaging threads, blog posts and whatever else the plaintiffs might have done online” was discoverable. The plaintiffs’ objection that this violated the plaintiffs’ privacy was shot down. These tools and their content were viewed as public, not on a private network, but the public world wide web. Who “owns” the content.  Apparently Twitter, in the example given by my colleagues, and, Twitter content is “public” content and therefore discoverable.  There should be no speculation about this.

I believe part of the reason these individuals got it wrong was that they confused Web 2.0 tools with Enterprise 2.0 tools.  This is an issue that also caused frustration for me and Ron Miller during the recent Enterprise 2.0 conference, an issue we both blogged about.

2. The second statement that caused angst was the more serious one.  In further discussing how and why organizations should take a proactive approach to managing Twitter content (again – I am being liberal here in accepting their example of Twitter as an Enterprise 2.0 tool, my commentary is more focused on Enterprise 2.0 content – not public-based Web 2.0 content),  a statement was made that organizations need to take a specific look at the Enterprise 2.0 content and develop a management strategy specific to it.  A comment was made along the lines of “You should not want to apply the same rules and policies to the Twitter threads that you do your contracts.”  WRONG.  As stated in the title of this blog post, it ain’t the medium it’s the message.

This perspective and advice was the same naive opinion that got too many organizations in trouble with e-mail.  You should not have a different management policy for e-mail, or blogs, or microblogs. The medium or format should not dictate policy (other than acceptable use of the tool of course). It is the content that matters no matter what format or tool it was created in.  My two colleagues made somewhat light reference to “Twitter streams” as if they could not really contain any mission critical content.  This was the same way many felt decades ago when e-mail was emerging as an “unofficial and casual” means of communication.  If commentary regarding contract terms (sticking with their example) are made in a Twitter stream then they should most definitely be subjected to the same policy and scrutiny as the contract – just as any relevant and related e-mail is now subjected to e-discovery.

Do not trivialize Twitter or any other form of Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 created content.  The tools used do not determine the value of or discoverability of the content – the content does.

More than once I have blogged on the emergence of ECM as a specialized obscure practice within techno-geeks into the limelight of critical business applications. In my last blog post (“ECM It was the Best of Times, it Was the Worst of Times) I discussed how according to popular news sources, ECM was responsible for radically redefining entire industries such as newspaper publishing, leaving a wake of unemployed people and extinct businesses, but also at the same time promoting innovation and giving rise to new industries and burgeoning business models.

Today, in perusing The New York Times Business Section, I was again pleasantly impressed with the degree to which ECM makes business news. On page one (continued on pages 3 and 7) for example, the Times reports that Google is getting into the e-books business with a mission to take on Amazon and Kindle.

On page 4, The Times covers Google Wave, a “latest” Enterprise 2.0 application. (OK the Times may over state the value of Google Wave (see Dan’s commentary at IAM Alert: The Whimpering Google Wave), but ECM is nonetheless being covered in this reputable high profile business periodical. On the same page, Plastic Logic, a Kindle rival is also introduced, and e-heath records are positioned as a clear technology winner in the government’s economic stimulus package.

Page 5, covers the Hearst Magazine’s strategy for successfully balancing paper-based and web-based magazine publishing.

Page 6 includes an article about an author who used Twitter to test works in progress. Based on collaborative feed back the very first sentence of a novel was changed – amongst other edits. The eventual publication, was then specifically formatted for publishing on Kindle.

WOW – that’s a lot of ink in one Business section devoted to ECM.  OK, maybe the articles do not directly draw the correlation to ECM, but the topics they discuss: e-publishing, dynamic content delivery, e-ink, digital paper, online collaboration – are topics ECM veterans such as myself are well familiar with, and have been heralding the power of for many years. With the broader business community now catching up, this should spell a bright future for ECM practitioners. Business executives hopefully will now better understand these concepts, and want to further explore the powers and capabilities of ECM technologies within their domain, to drive new business models, increase innovation, streamline costs and processes, increase effective communication…

As I said in the last blog post, “this glimpse into what ECM can/will be is nothing short of amazing. I dare anyone to view this and tell me that we are not experiencing “the best of times.” Indeed, to further quote Dickens, “we had
everything before us…”

But only those that “get it” will be able to leverage these capabilities before they morph from competitive advantage to simply a cost of doing business. Building such strategies is what we at Information Architected do with a passion – simply because it is so powerful and fun.