SharePoint 2010 and Information Architecture

Information Architecture. It’s is lots of things to lots of people. In the web sense it is all about usability, navigation and search. To the more hard core EDRMS types it is all able the classification and metadata that drives the ability to store, link, retrieve and retire (destroy records).

Most ECM repositories have the capability to take an Information Architecture model and  make it part of the system.

SharePoint, MOSS, Office SharePoint Server. What ever you call it is now a ubiquitous platform that has really hit mainstream usage.

Having been around ECM for awhile I remember the AIIM Conference in Philadelphia in 2006. Wham; There was Microsoft right from out of the blue with a massive presence at the Conference. There was buzz, there was comment, there was concern from other vendors.

Finally in the domain of Information Architecture Microsoft is making a strong play. The public beta for SharePoint 2010 is a real step up in the tools that have been made available to deploy an enterprise Information Architecture framework.

Now there is the concept of Enterprise Metadata Management (EMM) and the creation and deployment of this metadata is above the web application layer which means that we can now build metadata model and taxonomy term sets  that can be consumed across farms and site collections from a central service, rather than having these locked into the site collection level.

Sounds liberating, it is. Now we have the ability to develop the Information Architecture as a service rather than having it baked into the site collection. To some this may not sound exciting but to an Information person this is really excellent news.

SharePoint 2010 Records Management

The records centre in SharePoint 2007 was always a bit of a first step in records management for SharePoint as far as I was concerned.

The limitations still outweighed the benefits and we were constantly looking to other products to supplement the features of SharePoint as a product set.

Now with SharePoint 2010 there is a whole new set of features that makes the management of records in SharePoint exciting and easy to deploy.

Administrators can now put in place the “in place” records practice so that content is still kept in context of the collaboration space. Or if required the document can be shipped to an other repository and a stub left in place in the collaboration location to still allow users to access the document as required.

Just these features are a significant improvement from the 2007 way of how things worked.

The big lever to assist in the records management area is the use of an Enterprise Metadata Management (EMM) service. This service allows administrators to define enterprise content types and enterprise metadata and through the sue of these and content organisers and content rules define the necessary record keeping tools to make the creation and disposition of records in SharePoint easy and painless to the end user.

Go Microsoft is what i can say from the look that I have been able to glean from the SPC sessions that I have been to.

Every Cloud has an IT lining

So I have had a quick look at the cloud and checked out a cloud provider that once was an ASP provider. In looking into this and other providers I got to thinking that every cloud has an IT lining.

Well there is going to be hardcore IT in that Cloud somewhere. That means tin, string, people and process to manage it all.

However, the great thing with the cloud is that you can be in your living room with a Pentium 4 under the living room table and an “Awesome” online brochure-ware for cloud services.

How do I differentiate between the “cloud clowns” and the real cloud providers.

Cloud will be dominated by big brand names, because the level of trust needs to be there to drive the security and comfort that people need to make the plunge will be available through high grade shark type telco and infrastructure or software providers.

Both Microsoft and Google are making a big play into the Cloud space. At the current Microsoft SharePoint conference the “on premise” or “in the cloud” mantra is very evident and SharePoint 2010 has significant multi-tenant features that will allow customers to choose as they se fit as to location and deployment of application. But as we said every cloud has an IT lining, just make sure that your is secure.

SPC303 – SharePoint 2010 IT Pro Overview

The IT Pro has many new features that are Cool in SP2010. Scalability, ease of management and support have been baked into the product.

Powershell is definitely a “must use” tool for SP2010. It seems to feature all over the place and that is not a bad thing.

The biggest change from a software infrastructure is the Services Architecture that now provides for solid and extensible Metadata Management model outside of the Web Application and Farm level; about time I say.

So you can create and manage metadata asset items outside of the Site Collection / Web App / Farm and have them published and consumed across multiple farms, now we are starting to talk about a scalable architecture for information management.

As well as a new and cool services architecture the way that you administer this architecture and other system features has also had a massive revamp and the SharePoint admin now has a good UI to manage all the necessary parts of the software and content infrastructure.

SharePoint 2010 is coming of age and the release is a significant shift in the services and capabilities that are provided. For the other vendors out there it is time to start watching you back.

SharePoint 2009 Conference - Keynoting

Well it is day one of the SharePoint 2009 Conference, with a theme of Connect, Collaborate, SharePoint.

We have had the keynote and the take away from this session is how much SharePoint is a key part of Microsoft’s strategy going forward.

Steve Ballmer was loud but quite reserved I thought. He was definitely looking to position SharePoint as the platform of the future.

Some of the key advancements in the platform, such as:

SharePoint On Premise or in the Cloud – You choose and deploy. You can have it here or there or in both places at once, connected together.

Metadata management that finally makes sense -Create and manage metadata that can be then used across farms, web apps and down into the site collections.

Business Connectivity Services – This replaces or extends on the Business Data Catalogue and is now two way updating

SharePoint Workspaces – This allows you to take SharePoint and connected business data offline. A very cool feature and one that will allow you to create some powerful composite applications.

Overall a good start to the Conference and there is over 7,400 people attending. Even just being 1/3rd back from the front the people on stage were very small. It was good to have the big, big screens. More later it is now session time ….

Checking out the cloud – a reality check

The Web Archive, also known as “the way back when machine” is a great research tool.

Recently I want to check out so called “cloud provider” and see what they were offering “way back when” in 2001.

Well in 2001 this cloud provider was an ASP provider! No, they did not do Active Server Pages, although they did provide web enablement, they were in fact an Application Service Provider, quoting from the then home page.

“<company> offers comprehensive internet, application and infrastructure management services, in one solution, to keep your business not only in the game…”

If I follow the company from 2001 they moved from ASP provider to “on-demand” and “utility” provider to “on-demand” and “cloud” computing provider.

I commend the company for moving with the times and providing a new story for the same services that have changed some over the years, however they are still offering “old rope” for new.

The cloud is a great marketing story very much like “ASP” and Information Lifecycle Management “ILM”. Where are these terms today? ILM raced in and out like a bad curry. Driven by the storage providers on the back of the records management renaissance, post Sarbanes Oxley reports, whizzed up by the marketing department like a quick soufflé. But now cloud is in folks.

• Cloud infrastructure
• Cloud Application Services
• Cloud storage
• Cloud <enter your choice here>

So we are going to see cloud for awhile. Google Trends www.google.com/trends with a search term of “cloud” show the increase from end 2008 in searches and news stories. We are on the up of the hype cycle, get ready for the rollercoaster ride down the other side. Excitement will abound for some time to come. By the way this article is brought to you by the “blog cloud”, yeah right !

It’s about solving business problems.

Came across a really nice quote today on the MS SharePoint blog site.

“Customers come first. There is a lot of exciting technology in SharePoint but the objective is not a building a computer science project. What matters is solving business problems.”

Right on Jeff, (go here for the full story). It is all about solving the business problems. After all business (in the context of ECM) is all about people working with content in concert with  business processes, as those people try to do their job and be successful.

ECM should be about helping people to be successful by providing them a set of seamless services that enable them to deal with content and the associated business processes in an effective and efficient way.

Given today’s landscape of business problems there is NOT and I repeat NOT one technology to rule them all.

We have a need, more than ever, to find a way to easily combine and in most cases reuse, adapt, federate, combine the technology sets that have been deployed in business to solve the business problem, not just deploy the technology.

Too often ECM is pitched as a single technology suite to solve all problems, this is not the case. Technology is the last piece of the puzzle. In a blog site that I use for just capturing my thoughts about ECM I explain the linkage of people, process and technology this in a model.

But coming back to the title of this blog. ECM is all about solving business problems, I think that we should not lose sight of that and we should strive to get connected to the people and these problems first, after all as Jeff says in his blog we are not building a computer science project!

ECM What does it mean?

What does Enterprise Content Management (ECM) mean? Technology? Theory?

I have always defined ECM as ….

“The Methods, tools and technologies that enable an organisation to manage, process and deliver content across the enterprise.”

To me the words in this definition are really important, the are not just a glib string of alpha characters. They convey meaning and relationship between people, process and technology. Here is some of the thinking behind the key words.

Methods = Methodology. Whether you are using MIKE2 or your own methodology, firstly it denotes that you are using a method, secondly  it has an assumption that you are competent and a practitioner in the method.

Tools = Business Classification, metadata, security modelling, business process mapping for content., just to name a few. It is the tools that make the content hang together and the tools don’t have to be tied to the technology.

Technology = Microsoft SharePoint, Documentum, OpenText, Alfresco  or your own special flavour of combination thereof.

Enables = Just what it means; The combination of Methods, Tools and Technology “enables”, not fixes or delivers.

And of course the vital component that is implied but not stated is competent and capable people. Both from a business and the ECM practitioner side. Without the people bringing this all together it is rather useless.

Content Everywhere, what do you do with it ?

Yes I do like Apple design it is sleek and really functional. The Apple nano has gone beyond just Video playback, now you can create your own videos.

What do we do with all this digital content. I was talking to my teenager this week showing her my new PDA phone with the 2 MP built in camera and I was thinking then that no matter where you go someone has a camera. Now with the nano we have mobile video as well. With all the digital cameras and now mini video capture out there we must have massive digital crypts in personal computers and hard drives around the world.

Those that are savvy have their pictures hosted up on Flickr or Picassa Web or photobucket and other digital online mechanisms. Now with digital YouTube will be even more essential for storage and maintenance of Personal Video Streams (PVS).

But there is still a vast amount of digital pictures' and now soon to be video that will spend time as the forgotten footage. Information overlaod is not decreasing it is on the rise at an exponential rate.

Insert Map, Search and Post

This is why I love Live Writer. Using Live Writer I click on the insert map do a search for New York and wow map inserted. Don’t like the initial size pull it out larger, done.

This is really easy and very productive. I am not interested in the technical wonderment of blogging anymore, I’m more interested in the content and getting it out there, when I can. Live Writer has really made this possible, it is simple elegant and complete.

I hardly need to go to the blogger web interface anymore and can do my blog entries offline. Would you like to have a look at Live Writer then go to Windows Live Writer website to know more and download, enjoy.

Browse and Search

There are two types of users in the information world. Those who browse and those who search.

The browsers are those that have been brought up on a information diet of File Servers with folder structures. Even though they may spend endless hours getting nowhere they are comfortable with the way that they go about looking for things, because they have always done it this way.

Meanwhile the searchers are frustrated with the inability to Google (or Bing) across the fields of files and folders with a single uber-like query. These users will typically go to a “zone” of where they think the information is and then drill their search from there. Or if they are smart they may use the OHI search engine.

OHI search engines are a highly complex and adaptive set of interconnected nodes powered by the most advanced neural network algorithms currently available.

Namely it is the combination of people connections and the human brain, it is the Office Human Interface.

“Hey Joe where is that document on the sales forecasting from last quarter”; click, whirr, boom, a precision answer is computed and delivered in a split second, or if the data cannot be acquired a reference node (person contact) is linked in for further query. Stunning results !

But in an age where total company time may not exceed 2.5 year on average, search is going to be a big requirement going forward.

My prediction is that with on coming generations Search will become predominate as the browsers retire out and the new collaboration software repositories such as SharePoint become more the norm. 50 years on some will be blogging about “Search and implants”.

Process and People

Once again I have been re reading around Feature Driven Development (FDD). It is an agile software development methodology and one that I like a lot in the world of process.

However I was reminded when I reopened the book “JAVA Modeling Color with UML” by Peter Coad, Eric Lefebvre and Jeff De Luca that process methodology is there to assist in the execution and production of results, not there for the sake of the process itself. After all we are all paid to produce results,  a working product fit for purpose.

Process execution just for the sake of it can soon lead to process pride. Having hundred of steps to execute in any process will soon kill productivity in any project and people will become slaves to the process rather than the process supporting the people to execute and deliver the results we need.

There is a real balance in the “enough process” that requires strong leadership and mentoring by technical and non technical management. It all comes back tot he people in the end.

Quality people can rise above bad or no process and make a difference. As I often say “Monkeys into the process still equals monkeys coming out of the process”. Focus on the people give them enough process and watch the results.

MS SharePoint Conference 2009

Connect, collaborate, SharePoint. Well SharePoint 2010 is coming and the great unveiling is happening in Vegas 12-19 October 2009.

I will be heading over there with a couple of Principal Architects from the company to get a good view on the “new” SharePoint.

For those that are interested here are some URL’s re 2010.

SharePoint Conference Site

http://www.mssharepointconference.com/Pages/default.aspx

SharePoint 2010 sneak preview

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/default.aspx

Based on the partner internal previews that I have seen previously through Microsoft I am excited by the new functionality that will be delivered by 2010.

Mind the gap – Job vs. blogging

Well it feels like i have fallen into the gap. A change of job and focus over the last couple of months have taken up a lot of time. Hence the blogging has been suffering.  I have been spending time managing 5 teams that deliver technology solutions across everything from ECM to software development.

It has been demanding but great fun to get in an get things working again. What I always know is that if you give people some clear direction and the expectations then they have an environment to succeed.

I will be making an effort to keep the blogging up, although my focus is not directly in ECM today. But a little here and a little there will make a difference.

Playing in Pairs

Carrying on with the music theme. I went to a concert that my daughter was playing in on the weekend. What I found fascinating was not just the music but the way that the people in the orchestra played together.

If you have watched before you will note that there is this thing called the music sheet. It is really easy to play if the piece only takes up two pages. But what do you do as a player if the piece is a symphony ? Well if you are solo you have to stop playing, turn the page, find your place and start playing again. So in the orchestra they play in pairs. For example the 1st and 2nd violin work as a pair. The 2nd is covering the 1st and ensuring that the page is turned at the right time. It’s a nice piece of team work where the goal is beautiful music for the audience.

Again I see strong parallels between this and day to day project delivery. The essentials however are dedication, the focus on a common goal and the desire to work as a team, not just a collection of individuals.

Unfortunately not everyone wants to play in pairs. If that is the case I suggest you take up tennis singles.

Teacher, Pupil, Participant

Two of my daughters are learning to play the violin. They have a great teacher that really has a good mix of encouraging young people to “get it right” in a nice way.

Another daughter that I have plays the flute and is participating in a youth orchestra. The violin teacher, who teaches my two other daughters, is also a lead (teacher) in this youth orchestra for the string section. As a playing member of the orchestra she is also a participant and under the control of the conductor a pupil in overall composition and delivery.

Reflecting on this I began to think about roles and functions and skill. In any ECM project there is not the one person that does it all. There is a team of professionals that bring skill to the project and during its life act out the roles and functions that are required to ensure successful delivery.

What I have realised through music is that  during the life of any project the opportunity for each and every person to play out the role of teacher, pupil or participant in the delivery of the final production is real and available, we just need to recognise that all roles are valid and useful and be mindful when to play the right one.

“Post Event” definition disorder

Well this is going to be a left field post fitting into the “other loosely related” category.

I was reading some Q & A of Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, and the answer to the question to question three got me thinking about explanations. The question heading on the website was;

In what way are our explanations of success “crude”?

Well this got me thinking about how an explanation is formed. Often after (post ) an event ,we as individuals, or collectively as a a group, try to make sense of the event through a definition of what happened and how it happened, from this definition then comes the explanation of the “what” or the “how”.

Now the really intriguing question I have is this? Does the definition and therefore the explanation based on this definition bear any relationship or have in it any correlation to what actually happened ?

In some cases, Yes. In others the explanation is based on a definition assumed, therefore is just that, an assumption.

Now what is that assumption based on. Is it culture, upbringing, past experience, our personal world view, religious belief, in fact it could be all or some of the of the above.

So thinking on this further I thought that is the explanation of a defined or perceived or assumed definition is not based on hard and quantifiable facts that are sterile from assumptions and the nuances of personal belief, then do we have a “definition disorder” that can affect either the individual or the group as a whole.

Try a debate on a controversial topic some time post an event and see where people are at, they will tend to polarise, interesting!

But then again, maybe my definition and explanation is a manifestation of the disorder itself.

;-)

Chaordic Systems

Chaos <-----> Order and somewhere in between is Chaordic. A not quite out of control or in control system that provides enough support for people to get by.

To give a real world non IT example of this concept let me describe to you Kinshasa which is the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This is a place where you would say, coming from the west, “This place is in complete Chaos!” There seems to be no regulated transport, rubbish lays everywhere, people seem to go all over the place and there is to our ordered western thinking “no structure”.

However given a couple of days, if you are observant, you begin to see the order in the chaos. The Chaordic system which is to us broken, is to them workable. For example, three types of transport; Buses, forget them; Mini Vans, the real people movers,  full of soldered bullet holes with no glass windows and finally private cars (taxis), now there is travelling style, but watch for the potholes. Rubbish somehow does get collected and on the whole commerce and daily life seem to get by.

This description is rather like some corporate information systems that I have seen. Differing types of transport, which you soon learn the best to use, this repository that one, differing modes of getting there. Garbage collection of a type depending on the precinct that you live in, and currency in the information through finding a way and working out what is useful and what is not. Not the best but chaordic in nature. This type of system is out there and possibly closer to you than you think.

Open Text acquires Vignette

Dateline 6th May 2009. Open Text announce in an Open Text acquisition press release the acquisition of Vignette on of the leading WCM players for the old days.

“Vignette shareholders will receive US $8.00 in cash plus 0.1447 of an Open Text common share for every Vignette common share which equates to approximately US $12.70 at close of market on May 5, 2009. This represents a premium of approximately 74% above the 30 trading day average closing price of Vignette’s shares and approximately 41% above the most recent closing price. This values the transaction at approximately US $310 million.”

I had recently put up a post called where have all the vendors gone, dated the 17th April. At the end of this post I posed what will happen to Vignette, well we now know don’t we.

Open Text now eat the big V and the question is will they get indigestion over this dinner? Open Text have been on the acquisition trail over the last couple of years.

Given that 28% of Vignettes 2008 revenues were from new licences what have Open Text bought? A bunch of service contracts and the opportunity to convert customers?

However these are perilous times where customers will look to options. Good luck Open Text and goodbye Vignette, you were a leader once.

Oh my, ECM hug a tree

Well has ECM gone green or what.

Does this mean that I am not allowed to be an ECM "petrol head"? Does that mean that Open Source is better for the planet and that ECM Large suites are the information gas guzzling bad guys?

ECM - Are we heading for Green Information? Are we running out of trees?

Well from the all about paper web page it states that we have more trees in the US than there were 70 years ago, see here. 2.5 billion trees are planted every year and forest growth has exceeded harvest each year since 1940. Now does that mean that the US would get mega carbon credits ? Let's not go there.

But what about all the power that we are using with this online information. How is this power supplied, coal, water, nuclear ? Does this affect the green nature of my information?

Hmm, I guess I better print this out and think about it some more !

Oracle / Sun. Pass me another company, Burp !

20th April 2009, Oracle looks poised to acquire Sun Microsystems, pending Sun stockholder and other regulatory approvals, see Sun release here.

Wow pass me another company, burp ! The initial thoughts are that both companies will operate independently, yeah right !

Over time we will see the parent push culture and direction into the Sun camp. How will this all play out?

The acquisition gives Oracle a commanding position to battle up against the likes of IBM from the app to the bare metal, in theory a nice end to end story.

Acquiring the JAVA rights is a key software positioning that should not be underestimated as Oracle will strengthen its middleware play in in the marketplace. It also gives a strong Microsoft compete story in the application development space and office applications. But the question is how well the acquisition and the integration goes. Will the burp be passing gas or will a deeper organisational indigestion set in. I have not crystal ball, so let’s see how this pans out.

 

Going live with Windows Live Writer

The previous blog entry “Where have all the vendors gone” was produced and published using Microsoft Live Writer. I must say the whole process was a delight. I was using the 2009 version of the Live Writer product.

Shown above is a direct ALT-PrtScrn and Paste into the blog entry from the Help | About Windows Live Writer menu. This is not mind blowing, I agree, but it really effective and gets across the ease of use that I have found with the product.

The hyperlink at the top of this post was placed there one click, select previous post option,  fast and painless.

This version is light years ahead of the previous versions of live writer that I have used, where I have struggled to get the content and images in the right place for the template that I was using. But now I have been able to download the template, so that I get a preview of the actual layout of the blog entry, even before I go near the web, fantastic.

Setup was easy and getting the templates was as simple as pointing to the blog and enter my logon details. Then I was asked if I wanted the theme downloaded and away we went, simple and easy are the words that spring to mind. I will be giving the writer a bit more of a squeeze in the coming weeks.

If you are interested to get a look at the software go Live Writer

Where have all the vendors gone

Where have all the vendors gone long time passing, where have all the vendors gone, long time ago.  Gone in acquisitions, everyone…….. (think where have all the flowers gone).

Well over the last three years we have certainly seen the share of M&A activity in the ECM space with top right hand names such as Hummingbird, FileNet and Stellent all going the way of acquisition. Here is a non definitive list of some of the acquisitions that have happened 2006 to 2009.

Date	Company / Product	Acquired by
Jul 2006	Hummingbird	OpenText
Aug 2006	FileNet	IBM
Nov 2006	Stellent	Oracle
Oct 2007	Meridio	Autonomy
Jan 2008	FAST	Microsoft
Mar 2008	Tower Software	HP
Jan 2009	Interwoven	Autonomy

 

This table in itself makes for interesting reading and we must ask what about the likes of Vignette ? how are they going to fair in this rough and tumble year?

CMIS live example

Three ECM vendors and the AIIM organisation have collaborated together to design and deploy a live example of federated search utilising the Content Management Integration Standard (CMIS). This is being demonstrated at the AIIM Conference in Philadelphia in the US.

This example is also available on the web at this location:

http://www.aiim-iecm.org/CMISDemoE/Default.aspx


This is primarily a federated search and retrieve implementation of CMIS over Documentum, Nuxeo and Alfresco repositories. You can search across the repositories and then retrieve the document from your browser.

While some may say this is not stunning, this is a great test model of the standard (not yet ratified) in action. There are many organisations, especially the large ones that have multiple vendor products and therefore multiple repositories in place. The possibility of bringing these together in a federated way is an exciting possibility.

Mr. Autonomy you may kiss the bride

Well the negotiations are over and Autonomy has completed the acquisition of Interwoven. Now the fun begins!

If I go to the Autonomy website it looks a little like an advert for "Big love". Mr Autonomy and the many wives. So how are all these products going to live together? Which product is used and when?

Apart from the sales teams being confused, what is going to happen internally? Naturally when there are multiple people (read products) involved there is going to be tensions and power struggles as to who get the love and attention of the master.

Let's just look at records management. On the site through digging around the following are referenced

Autonomy ControlPoint for SharePoint, could be related to the Meridio suite
Autonomy records management relates to Meridio when linked is clicked
iManage records management from the front page product drop down. Where is meridio?

The marriage has been sealed, now it's time to take the bride home to meet the rest of the family and see how the pecking order pans out. Looking out for some big love.

Information lifecycle management?

Sounds relatively straight forward, doesn't it ? But if I Google this three letter acronym (TLA) today the top hits are rightly, Industrial Light & Magic. Down the search result list is a wikipedia entry for ILM, then an article from Computerworld on ILM vendors. But where are the vendor entries?

A year or so ago I was awash in ILM white papers, articles and other items from the vendor marketing sausage machines that were telling me why I needed to buy all this fancy hardware to manage my information. We are now told that this is storage 2.0, But where is all this ILM marketing now ? It looks like it has gone the way of most hype cycles, disappeared like a good fireworks display.

Sure storage is important, but it is not the beginning or the end of the the lifecycle of information. We would all agree that storage is not going away but it is increasing because information is increasing and in most cases is still not managed. Organisations are still struggling with the basics of getting the people and process parts of the lifecycle sorted, but unfortunately it is still easier for many to just throw some technology at the problem.

ECM - No single product?

Russ Stalters in a post Dec 2008 (For Most Enterprises;"A ECM Solution from a single vendor is a Myth!") outlined that most Enterprises ECM Solution tends to include a mixture of technologies from various vendors, rather than that from a single vendor.

Out of the 150 executives that attended a presentation that Russ gave none disagreed with the statement.

Well the same is true here in NZ, especially within some of the larger organisations that I get to eal with. There seems to be a range of technologies that have been deployed over a period of time, either by virtue of no strategy, or because the functions of Web Content and Document Content have been driven by different departmental budget lines and therefore different visions have emerged.

In some cases a strategic view has emerged from a product selection, but very seldom have I seen a full on ECM proposal come to market, or any ECM strategic planning preceed technology implmentation.

A key area that seem to be missing time and time again is an appropriate Information Infrastructure, or as I like to call it Infostructure. Infostructure provides to the information a set of capabilities that enables information to be understood and flow in and out of core business processes.

The building of an infrostructure is independent of the technology to be used. The infostructure is a set of policies and supporting tools to make the technology work for people and processes. Tools that enable the technology to work are things like the business taxonomy, classification systems and associated metadata models and relationship entities.

These tools are part of the information structure not the technology itself and if designed and developed correctly will allow for an organisation to build and implement an ECM system from multiple products.

Blogging the new Web?

Interesting title given that I am blogging about blogging?

Well here is the thought. If you do a search for a topic or question that you may have what percentage of hit results are blog pages vs. a static web page.

My quantitative results tend to trend toward getting a blog page.

Why is this? Well, blogs provide an easy framework or scratchpad for subject matter experts to easily get the information out there in a timely manner. No waiting for technology, or getting content into an HTML format, that may take weeks.

Given that you can spin up a blog site with a few clicks, you have a useful separation of information (content) and presentation. This is what Content Management is all about. The ability to get content out there in a managed way. The only problem is that we now have silos of blogs in the blogsphere, enter the search engine again !

A Maturity Model - The truth is out there

Feel like an X-Files re run.

Well in most cases a lot of organisation can't find the File let alone the "X" one. The level of ECM Maturity in New Zealand is quite low in many areas. I know that I am being general, but I have to because in this forum it is not convenient to name names, projects or the lack of strategy that seems to be around managing content. This is simply a lack of maturity around ECM.

One good thing however is that Alan Pelz-Sharpe from CMS Watch along with other authors from Wipro and Hartman Communicatie have released a maturity model into the Creative Commons, known as the (ECM3) ECM Maturity Model v1.0.

I suggest that some organisations, not just in NZ, may want to have a look atthis model to at least to work out where they are today and how they could start to move forward towards real maturity.

The truth is out there and you can start the investigation here http://www.ecm3.org/

My disclaimer is that I have reviewed the model and provided feedback, as you will see on the website. I applaude that the authors have released this mode into the wild "with caveats" and that they have opened it up for community development.

Wanted 15 year old with 30 years "extensive" experience with SharePoint 2007 !

Some days I think things are really going crazy. SharePoint 2007 was released on the 30th November 2007. Sure there was lots of interaction with betas, however the fact remains that the production release is 14 months old.

So why do I feel that a lot the job adverts that are running seem to be asking fo a 15 year old with 30 years experience in SharePoint!

Generally these adds are wanting "extensive experience" I am beginning to wonder what the word "extensive" is supposed to mean, especially to the people who are writing these adds?

Does it mean that if you have run "setup.exe" you have extensive installation experience, or if you have looked at the Admin console you now have extensive admin experience. Or if you have dabbled with ASP.NET and webparts that you have extensive development experience?

Now don't get me wrong there are a people out there with extensive experience, but these are generally not the norm.

People with "extensive expereince" will have worked with SPS2003 and beeen through the transition pain to 2007. They will have been through the alpha, beta, TAP's and then the RTM migrations. They understand the WSS 3.0 and SPS 2007 API's and some.

They will have been through the SP1 and the infrastructure upgrades and will probably have written books and been on the speaking circuit. They build add on products to enhance SPS 2007 for breakfast and then re design the product over lunch.

For the rest, well we are all doing well and getting up to speed becoming comfortable with the product and learning that there are areas that need some extensions to really get things moving.

But I forgot O14 is on the way, so I better get off now and get "extensive" in advance.

Microsoft Citizen Service Platform

I have been on partner training for the Microsoft Citizen Service Platform (CSP). The CSP is a framework that looks to leverage project activities that have been delivered across Local and Regional Government customers and brings it all together as a model and set of guidance and templates that can be leveraged to solve business problems.

The cynic might say that it is marketing to sell Microsoft licences, in one way that is true. However, what is real is that Microsoft are really trying to show some leadership by getting above the pure product drop and providing real world experience on how the products are brought together to form solutions that deliver real business value. Sample the CSP at the Microsoft site Citizen Service Platform.

Search FASTer

Announcement by Microsoft at FAST Forward 09 a detailed road map of FAST Search for SharePoint and FAST Search for Internet Business.

FAST Search for SharePoint, is a new "search server" that will bring the portions of the search capabilities of the current FAST ESP into Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server. This functionality will be available as a part of the next release of the Microsoft Office system, currently named O14 release. Some will say, it's about time !

For those who are interested in the product today, Microsoft also announced ESP for SharePoint, a special offer that allows customers to purchase high-end search capabilities now, with a defined licensing path to FAST Search for SharePoint when it becomes available.

Overall this direction from Microsoft is a significant advancement in the world of search. We are beginning to see the $1.2b acquisition of FAST now being leveraged to bring great value to the SharePoint interface, as well as provide a path to include the power and versatility of the full FAST engine as required. The Search market is going to heat up very quickly.

Enter the year Autonomy in acquisition mode

So welcome to 2009.

We are in the midst of a global recession. There is a new US President. And the day after inauguration Autonomy has moved to acquire Interwoven. What a start !

So Autonomy has now moved into the ECM space with this acquisition and places them on the Gartner MQ as a serious player. The rationale for the purchase from Autonomy is as follows:

The combination of Autonomy's Meaning Based Computing technologies (IDOL) (with
its ability to understand content) with Interwoven's suite of products (focused
on managing the interactions of people and content) will create a new set of
technologies, updating and enhancing Interwoven's products by significantly
reducing the levels of manual effort now required. These technologies are ready
to address the new need for manage-in-place and extend Autonomy's reach into a
new customer base. Interwoven's products know what the customer interactions
are, and Autonomy's IDOL will allow them to know what they mean.

A full press release is outlined on the Autonomy site

http://www.autonomy.com/content/News/Releases/2009/0122.en.html