TakingAIIM

E-Healthcare Provides a Prescription for Universal ECM

2009-10-28T09:45:23-04:00

Yesterday AIIM NE held their fall kickoff event. In a word WOW.

In many words:

Once again, AIIM NE delivered. We had two guest speakers, Girish Kumar Navani and David Cochran. I now refer to them as the dynamic duo. Check out their resumes – their qualifications and experience are most impressive, and they both delivered excellent presentations.

Although both gentleman hail from the e-medical records/healthcare vertical, the update they provided on the state-of-the-market concerning e-medical records was nothing short of a primer on the ECM market in general. The challenges faced by the health care industry, including compliance and security, addressing the needs of a diverse community (from patient to physician), and increased collaboration and transparency, are after all exemplary of the challenges faced by virtually any organization embracing ECM.

Among the points they made were:

Expectations are rapidly changing. More individuals are coming to expect access to content electronically, in a collaborative manner, and via mobile devices. At the same time, protection of content is paramount.

Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the federal government has offered approximately $20 billion in stimulus money to healthcare providers. But to obtain the stimulus money, health care providers must demonstrate “meaningful use” of e-content. I immediately glommed onto this term, meaningful use. Whenever involved with ECM strategy development, I stress the need to look at the impact of the technology from every angle in order to maximize its impact. I have often talked about, for example, how an investment in ECM focused on security, can and should be leveraged as a tool for increased accessibility as well. Although targeted at e-medical records, the federal government, of all people, has created a benchmark for ECM implementations.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 defines “meaningful use" as:

· Documented improvement in quality and efficiency (read BPM, workflow and process improvement; demonstration of how the technology impacts business, not simply moves content storage from paper to digital),

· Engaged interaction with the patient (read going beyond simply capturing content, but deliberately involving the customer/user, implying content access, transparency and collaboration)

· Improved Care coordination (read extended value chain, looking at the practice/process holistically via systems thinking and collaboration)

· Interoperability (read technical support for the collaboration targeted, the ability to share content across a wide community in order to decrease redundancy, ensuring universal access and readability.)

Sounds like a healthy prescription for any ECM project – does it not? Indeed, these are the very metrics we at Information Architected use when developing strategies for our clients – no matter the vertical.

But this was not pie-in-the-sky optimism. Girish and David are realists. They admitted that the road to meaningful usage is a tough one (like so many ECM practitioners know). They identified likely challenges including change management, cost and financial viability, cycle times for success and project management. They stated that it helps to have a vision of where this change will ultimately lead and to not look at this as an exercise in IT change management, but fundamentally changing the business, again by addressing the project system-wide via systems thinking.

Content ownership also received a fair amount of discussion. The questions was posed, “Who owns the medical record? The patient, the originating doctor, other medical personnel that obtain it?” There was no simple answer. The entire group in attendance, including our speakers, agreed that ownership is a very real challenge for most organizations. (This reminded me of a similar issue that was discussed about a year ago at an AIIM NE event at which I was a panelist. The question then was “Who owns the data captured when a customer transacts business with a commercial establishment? The customer or the establishment? What privacy should be afforded? Then as now, we did not come to a definitive and clear answer.)

David stressed the importance of project management, and offered that within the State of Vermont, the project was managed by breaking it down into 60+ discrete active initiatives. Excellent advice I have often given to those embarking on ECM – advice that cannot be reiterated enough.

As for prognosis: Girish and David postulated that the information revolution instigated by the advent of the internet will prove to be the fastest revolution of all time, dwarfing the rate of the industrial revolution. Girish felt that within 5 years, 80-90% of the health records in the state of MA would be completely e-based.

One reason for the positive prognosis, in my opinion, the government and healthcare industry are leveraging a Knowledge Management best practice, namely providing incentivization to encourage participation and acceptance to change. (Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, participants can obtain significant financial reward as part of the stimulus package, but only if they achieve meaningful use.)

The room was energized by this dynamic duo, who provided a most healthy outlook for ECM. At the conclusion I thanked them as an ECMer- for their positive outlook and insight placed on ECM, and secondly as a citizen of the US – for providing us with great hope that our health care is going to be enhanced – with a little help from ECM.

There was a certain amount of pride and excitement in knowing that ECM was fundamental to these positive changes in the health care industry.

ECM ROCKS.

E-Gov - E-gads

2009-10-23T17:59:09-04:00

Yesterday I voted in the upcoming Boston City Councilor and Mayoral election – two weeks early. Why? Because I will be on the road making presentations at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Francisco on Election Day, actually all that week. But that is not why I am blogging about it.

As often happens to ECM geeks like me, we experience ECM moments in doing everyday things such as “voting”. When I arrived at the election department in Boston City Hall, much to my surprise I had to wait in queue. (Apparently absentee voting is more prevalent than I thought. It was my first time.) Standing in line I looked around the rather large room, brightly lit with fluorescents, many diligent city employees busy doing what they do, and everywhere, and I mean everywhere - lining the walls, filling bookshelves, on carts between desks - there were volumes, no I mean VOLUMES of three ring and spiral bound binders. Labels such as “voting rosters”, “registration logs”,and “democratic election results”, many with years appended to them, helped to identify the value of the content contained within. (Ah labeling and taxonomy I thought.)

But my ECM mind ran away with me even further. Was there a standardized information architecture to all of this. Where was the back-up? Were pages missing from these binders, and if so who would know? Was each binder in each series accounted for? If someone removed a binder to assist in a task, was there a way to track where it went? Were there alternative ways of extracting this information?

As I looked around I thought, "e-gads what would the e-gov folks think?"

And then I thought of the many people I run into that believe the paper volumes are a better way to go, that these paper records that represent critical data and history are better managed in this way. These records were so precarious, vulnerable to theft, loss, fire ...

Those who know me well know I am not a paperless office dreamer or bigot. I am also willing to admit that electronic media has its own list of challenges. But electronic content has its strengths - especially when it comes to security, regulation and retrieval. My mind quickly recalled another recent Boston City Hall event that involved electronic content, i.e., e-mail. A month ago I blogged about the scandal and investigation that surround Mayor Menino and his his aide Michael J. Kineavy. Apparently Kineavy deleted hundreds of work e-mails before they were archived - a violation of laws regulating public records - which yes include email. Menino stated the deleted emails were a "glitch" in the system and "sometimes technology breaks down. Well luckily ECM is not so easily "glitched."

After a five-week investigation by the Secretary of State's office, 48,000+ of these e-mails were restored, and yes some have substantive content that should have been preserved under the law. Well, now thanks to ECM they are "re-preserved." (See the latest details.) Sure electronic content has its challenges. But what if these e-mails were paper mail, and had been shredded, where would the investigation be now? ECM is no substitute for good ethics, but a well designed and managed ECM system can go light years beyond paper in ensuring adherenece and protecting against circumventions to policy (let alone providing faster and more dyanamic retrieval.)

And then I thought (I told you my mind was racing - and this all happened in about 3 minutes), about another article I had recently read and twittered (@carlfrappaolo) about, which overviewed the challenges the Whitehouse is facing in pushing for a more Web 2.0-based government. The line in teh article that came to mind: "For now, the costly work-around is to manually print and store paper copies."

And all I could think was "E-Gov - E-gads."

IT meets KM meets E2.0 meets Innovation in the Boston Subway

2009-10-06T09:27:08-04:00

Yesterday I was preparing for an Innovation Management training session I will be doing later this week. The sponsor, after reviewing my credentials asked “How you make the leap from information and knowledge management to coaching/developing innovation
skills? … Your background seems to be IT.”

I provided what I hope was not too lengthy a response. In essence it stated that I view Innovation management as a fully ingrained component of KM, and IT as a strategic facilitator of both. Its interesting, but to many friends, family and colleagues my background appears disjointed. To me it is completely synergistic and intertwined.

Well, this morning I saw an article that pulled it all together. (read on and access the article.)

Innovation is Not Serendipity or Discovery

2009-10-05T09:57:36-04:00

Last Friday's cover of the Boston Metro proclaimed “ How recession is forcing creativity in entertainment.” It’s an interesting article on how the current economy mixed with the advent of Web 2.0 is affecting the entertainment industry, but the title held a different appeal for me. Serendipitously, I am working on IAI’s soon to be released whitepaper on Innovation Management. The whitepaper includes the results of a 180 respondent survey on how innovation is managed in the enterprise.

In line with today’s headline, it came as no surprise that 70% of those surveyed felt that the current economic conditions increased the perceived need for innovation in their organization. As is the case with much of the market research work we do however, the interesting findings came from cross-correlation and analysis across questions and responses. Despite “heightened need”, most organizations aren’t doing anything proactive about accelerating and nurturing innovation. While 68% stated their organization believed that innovation should be managed as a corporate asset and process, only 49% have put in place any formal process to manage innovation. Similarly, only 49% have any form of executive management presiding over innovation. More shockingly, perhaps is the fact that 46% of the organizations do not specifically reward innovation.

Innovation is not serendipity or discovery. You cannot wait for it to happen to you. It is a process that you have to nurture and manage as a major asset.

IAI will publish a whitepaper that details all the findings of the study later this month, and hold a webinar to discuss findings on Thursday, October 29 at 2pm ET (-5 GMT), in which we will discuss the findings of the survey. To pre-order a copy of the whitepaper and/or register for the webinar go to the registration page. There is no charge for the whitepaper, as it was partially underwritten by DiCOR, Imaginatik, Brightidea and Spigit.

You can also learn more about how we train organizations to proactively manage their innovation.

Email Management and Government: Do as I say not as I do

2009-09-16T15:50:24-04:00

Nearly a year ago I posted a blog on the Bush Administration's attempt to not comply with a court ordered discovery of e-mails. In the blog entitled You Can Fight City Hall, I drew attention to the power of the courts in requiring compliance with e-mail records management mandates, "If such mandates can be successfully argued against the While House, is there any doubt in your mind regarding the ultimate fate your corporate e-mail management policy will meet? "

Well, apparently not everyone was listening. "City Hall" once again tried to circumvent e-mail retention policies, and this time I am embarrassed to say it is my own City Hall, Boston.

Questions were raised after a public records request by the Boston Globe unearthed only 18 e-mails to or from mayor Menino's top, Mr. Kineavy, between Oct. 1. 2008 and March 31 2009. Apparently Kineavy deleted hundreds of work e-mails before they were archived - a violation of laws regulating public records - which yes include email. Menino stated that the deleted emails were a "glitch" in the system and "sometimes technology breaks down." A glitch? This city famous for its high-tech industry and research was not going to swallow this. A glitch? Could you imagine how city officials would react if the glitch were on the other foot. Oh I am sorry mister Mayor, I would have paid my taxes, but there must have been a glitch in my laptop andonline banking system.

The City of Boston has done the right thing though (article). It has seized Kineavy's computer and hired outside experts in e-mail management.

It amazes me when the governments that are behind the compliance laws that are at the root of corporate records compliance, ignore those rules and practices themselves. But it is encouraging that we have public officials that apply the same letter of the law no matter the owner of the records. It is also exciting to know that the ECM industry provides the means with which to control such situations.

Many eyes will be watching as the drama unfolds and once again ECM technologies will be part of the center stage - at least to ECM geeks like me.

Enterprise 2.0 - Like Fine Wine Gets Better With Age

2009-09-11T10:55:36-04:00

In 2008, Dan Keldsen and I published on behalf of AIIM, a groundbreaking report on Enterprise 2.0. One of the more startling and fundamental facts that we uncovered was that age did not matter as much as folks thought, as it relates to the adoption of Enterprise 2.0. In fact it really didn't matter at all, and in some situations the exact opposite of what most believed (that with youth came wider adoption and use) was the case. The findings were startling and insightful enough that we were invited to present them at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston in 2008 (video).

Well, despite that, some still believe that Enterprise 2.0 belongs to the young. Earlier this year AIIM published another report on Enterprise 2.0. In it they claim that Millenniums are more apt to use Web 2.0. Huh – could the market have changed so quickly? No, not really. This research, like many individuals that spoke at the Enterprise 2.0 2009 show in Boston did, confuses or interchanges Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0. This naïve misunderstanding often leads to market confusion, and great frustration amongst market analysts and practitioners, (See earlier post which includes further in-sites from Ron Miller on this issue.) Although based on the same basic technologies, Enterprise 2.0 is fundamentally different than Web 2.0 in its audience, purpose, goals, and challenges. This is something that is all too painful to anyone that has implemented these technologies inside the firewall. (More on this below.)

But why am I bringing this up now? Two important reasons. (Find out)

I've Looked at Crowds From Both Sides Now

2009-08-07T17:49:43-04:00

Thanks to the generosity of Randy Corke of Chaordix, this Wednesday I had the opportunity to go to a meeting of the Ad Club. The Ad Club is the trade organization for marketing, advertising and communications in New England. A different crowd for me. So why was I invited? Why did I go? The topic was crowd sourcing - an Enterprise 2.0 subject near and dear to me. The speakers were Edward Boches and John Winsor.

The event was most interesting, mainly because it allowed me to see Enterprise 2.0 from a different perspective - that of the advertising professional (e.g. copy writer, illustrator, designer, layout artists, creative director, etc.).

Read on ...

Collaboration - If It Were Easy We Would all do it (Well)

2009-07-29T11:33:42-04:00

I have said it before, as have many others, Enterprise 2.0 is not just about technology. As I have commented on, this was a common theme at this year's Enterprise 2.0 conference. Indeed, if web-based collaboration were only about the technology, then any organization with even a modest IT budget would be doing it and doing it well. But this is not the case.

As stated over and over, its not about the technology - its about culture. But perhaps we stuff far too many issues into that "box" labeled culture. What exactly does it mean when we say Enterprise 2.0 is mostly about culture?

As you might expect it means many things. Culture is not only fundamental to but a multi-faceted aspect of Enterprise 2.0 execution. This post focuses on one of the aspects of culture - the basic approach used by a community to collaborate (e.g. networking, communication style, establishing trust and knowledge exchange). This aspect of culture is particularly relevant to Enterprise 2.0, because, as I have blogged about before, one of the primary end games of Enterprise 2.0 is collaboration. Thus, like Enterprise 2.0, collaboration is not just about technology. If it were, we would all be doing it - well. While Enterprise 2.0 technology can facilitate and support collaboration, the underlying collaborative environment has to be managed. The degree of management is partially dependent on other aspects of culture - but I digress. Back to collaboration itself.

One of the things we have to realize is that there are many ways to collaborate. Even if you are fortunate enough to have a supportive culture in place, you must determine what needs to be shared through collaboration, and what the goal or focus of the collaborative effort is.

We at Innovation Architected, believe that there are three basic types of collaboration (Interpersonal, content, and procedural), and 5 basic models or goals (COP/I, content, process, project and goal-oriented). I provided a web-based lecture on this several months ago, sponsored by Google. You can view that presentation here.

Collaborate to Compete

View more documents from Carl Frappaolo.

These ideas are further discussed in a great article in the December Harvard Business Review entitled, "Which Kind of Collaboration is Right for You?." You can download a free copy of the article. One of my favorite insights in the article is the strong case it makes that collaboration can occur in a closed environment, in spite of the "open transparency" mantra of Enterprise 2.0 zealots. The article addresses the need for incentives to attract collaborators - another favorite topic of mine, one steeped in the Knowledge Management best practices.

In another Harvard Business School paper, best practices in orchestrating and managing collaboration in an outsourced, or extended enterprise setting are provided. The bottom line of this article, for me anyway, is that collaboration needs to be deliberately designed and managed in order to maximize effectiveness and the value of the outcome.

In my own work as a knowledge management and innovation management consultant, I know that there is not only corporate culture to consider, but also the personal approaches or personality types of the individuals in the community, to creative problem solving. Yes, there are many different personality types or inclinations to collaboration and innovation. One is not better than another, they are just different. In fact, the different approaches are symbiotic and complementary. Best practices in innovation management indicate that as part of the management of collaboration you should ensure that a range of "collaboration personalities" are deliberately brought together to achieve higher quality output.

So while it is nice to think that Enterpirse 2.0 and collaboration are all about viral and organic growth, research and experience indicate that there is ample room for some control and management of the processes and systems used, as well as teh knowledge and content captured in the process. In deed we have built entire practices around services for innovation management, effective collaboration and knowledge management.

Managing Innovation - How do you do it?

2009-07-22T15:26:01-04:00

As I blogged about in my summation of the
Enterprise 2.0 summit, innovation was a popular term being tossed around at the conference. New web-based social networks provide new, wider, leaner and more agile environments in which to collaborate, group think and brainstorm, leading to innovation.

But there is (obviously?) more to innovation than simply being able to collaborate, just as there is more to collaboration than providing a forum in which it can occur. Innovation and collaboration are tricky. A study published by the Harvard Business School in 2007 found that most organizations who attempt collaborative innovation all too often get it wrong.

That is why, building on our extensive experience with Enterprise 2.0 and Knowledge Management, we at Information Architected, Inc. have extended our services into Innovation Management.

BUT - the purpose of this post is not to announce the new line of services, but to ask for your insights in a SHORT survey.

What is the state of innovation management in your organization? Even if you are not sure what the term means, or believe it is something your organization has not undertaken - we would like to hear from you. It should only take no more than 10 minutes of your time. We will share the results with all survey participants.

So, how about a little collaboration on your part? Share your opinion, take the survey and we will all be the wiser for it.

A Nobler Side of ECM

2009-07-14T15:49:58-04:00

Last night was a very special night in my ECM career. I attended the 14th annual golf benefit for the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, sponsored by the AIIM New England Chapter.

I came to this event feeling honored and excited - anticipating my ceremonial induction as the 2009-20010 New England Chapter President. But, my self-centered emotions quickly paled. Despite my membership in the AIIM New England Chapter of 20+ years, I have never attended this annual fundraiser. (The event is anchored in a golf tournament and I do not golf. I always assumed therefore it was not a place for me. I could not have been more wrong.) After a full day of golf, there is an amazing gala complete with dinner, an auction and social networking (without the aid of ANY technology - a refreshing change.) This year also included a special tribute to a colleague and friend, Mark Robinson.

Participating in the latter part of the event, it became apparent to me that over the last 14 years, a most successful partnership has developed between AIIM New England and the Horace Mann School. Horace Mann is a unique school. It is the oldest public day school for the deaf and hard of hearing in the United States. Throughout the evening, students, parents and staff from the school mingled with AIIM members and friends in a familiar and warm way that only comes with time and purpose shared over deeply meaningful goals.

Witnessing the many ways in which the New England-based ECM industry supports the Horace Mann School (including financial contibution, donation of equipment an dteh hiring of older students and alumni), gave me an entirely new sense of honor in being associated with the AIIM New England Chapter. (Sponsors included: Hyland Software, Kodak, Iron Mountain, IKON, Vignette, DatBank IMX, Muckle & Associates, Xerox, AIIM New England, ARMA Boston, C/F Data Systems, Versitec, Scanworks, Cranel Imaging, and many other non-ECM local establishments.)

I came to realize that along with accepting the official AIIM New England gavel, I've also received the opportunity and privilege to be part of a community that has successfully worked together to reach beyond the boundaries of ECM business and technology, to better the lives of others. As a Boston public school parent, I am keenly aware of the struggles and challenges our public schools currently face.

I am indeed honored, but also humbled to assume a position on this team of extraordinary folk, to help guide and grow the local AIIM chapter, and to continue the wonderful tradition of alliance with the Horace Mann School. Heck - I may even learn how to golf.