Weissman's World: An Insider's View of Compliance, Content & Information Management

When Instant Communication Isn't Fast Enough

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:31:00 +0000

Now on my AIIM Expert Blog:

Email today is often being supplanted by such other media as instant messaging, texting, and Skype as means of instant communication. But with so many options so readily available, are any of these truly "instant"?

Read the complete post here.

Voicing an Opinion About Voice-Based Content

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:21:00 +0000

Several recent projects with very cool coverages have left me thinking a lot lately about my belief that "content is content” and my conviction that managing it must begin with the reasons it needs to be managed – not the media type it represents.

Happily, nothing in my recent work suggests this opinion ought to be vacated, as my clients’ drivers of change still are all steeped in business process. But it has been interesting to note that the adoption of new media types appears to be taking hold somewhat more quickly than I had anticipated – and nowhere is this more evident than in the use of voice.

Swimming in the Mainstream
It’s the better part of a decade since I lent a significant hand to an organization with a serious interest in bridging the infrastructures that separately support information management and voice communication, and it still makes perfect sense since the mainstreaming of voice over IP has pretty well obliterated the functional line between the two camps.

Today, however, voice technology has permeated well beyond the corporate world and is part of many people's daily life. Writers – like me! – routinely use voice recognition software to capture large tracts of mental content, and the capability further resides in millions of pockets worldwide in the form of Siri on the iPhone and her virtual-assistant cousins on other platforms. For sure, it's not a coincidence that a recent episode of the TV show The Big Bang Theory revolved around precisely this utility!

Raise Your Voice … to the Level of Content
So what does this mean for information professionals like you? Mostly – back to where we started – don’t think about it as spoken content – think about it instead as content, and track its usage and flow as if it were any other kind (text, image, etc.).

Yes, critical tasks like extracting metadata and creating indexes can be made more complicated because speech files contain waveforms and not words and numbers. But this in no way diminishes the importance of properly performing these tasks – if anything, they become only that much more important because so much more information is being generated and shared in this new way.

AIIM New England Presents Golf Benefit Proceeds to Horace Mann School

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:12:00 +0000

I’m just back from the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Allston, Massachusetts, where, in my capacity as president of the New England Chapter of AIIM, I was able to take part in the presentation of the proceeds from the Chapter's annual golf benefit: this year to the tune of nearly $10,000.

Now, I could've written all of this down in traditional blog format, but I wanted to talk to you instead because I thought I would be better able to share how incredibly moving the whole experience was for me. So please tune into my new YouTube video and learn about what dedicated information professionals – and this singular set of educators – can do when they put their minds to it!

ECM, BPM, and the Cloud: First Things First!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:20:00 +0000

Now on my AIIM Expert Blog:

Recent conversations have left me concerned about the apparent continuing tendency of organizations to jump straight towards a cloud solution (pun intended) before ever asking their single most important question:

"What business problem are we trying to solve?”

And as I have said and written many times before, it is awfully hard to implement a system that meets your needs without first having defined what they are!

Read the complete post here.

AIIM CIP: Must-See (Web) TV!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:04:00 +0000

Hello again, my dear readers!

I have missed our informal mind-meldings these past few months as I have been heads-down developing 100+ training videos for AIIM’s new Certified Information Professional (CIP) program.

But I’m back on the air now, and I wanted to start by saying that if you haven't seen them yet, it's worth taking a few minutes to check them out – not because my face is in the corner of each one, but because AIIM is spot on in what it is trying to accomplish.

Without giving away the end, let me simply state that the organization has committed itself as never before to helping its members bridge the gap that too often exists between information technology and line-of-business executives.

Regular followers of this space will recognize this theme, as it has long been a favorite here and has been a cornerstone of my consulting, research, and writing activities for well over a decade. So that’s why I can unequivocally state that AIIM has it right! Attendees of our New England Chapter meeting yesterday heard association president John Mancini explain the major diligence that was performed in putting the CIP program together, and all that work is beautifully reflected in the end result. Truly, this is as comprehensive a take on information management as I have ever seen in one place.

Is it a deep dive into each of the associated disciplines (content, records, metadata, etc.)? No, it's not, and that's all right because it was not intended to be, and there are other programs from AIIM, ARMA, and elsewhere that cover that ground. But the CIP's very holism is the source of its core strength: nothing we do takes place in a vacuum, and all the other contexts are present and accounted for.

So yes, I was the resource behind the creation of those starter videos – and yes, our education and training activities now also include a CIP prep course that personalizes and expands upon what they contain. But none of that has anything to do with my enthusiasm for the new Certification; that's purely a function of its applicability to today's world of information management.

See you next time!

Virtual Interactivity: To the Mainstream and Beyond!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:24:00 +0000

Now on my AIIM Expert Blog:

AIIM’s Virtual Conference on Social Business last week as much a piece of social activity as any of the use cases discussed therein, and the trend toward such events should only just accelerate from here. But capturing and leveraging the information and knowledge being shared that way will quickly become that much more difficult, so in that way, the work is only just beginning.

Read the complete post here.

Memo to Senior Staff: Wake Up and Smell the Value

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:23:00 +0000

Now on my AIIM Expert Blog:

In a relatively recent survey conducted by CIO for SAS, just 14% of responding IT and business leaders said their organizations are just starting to realize the value of the information at their disposal, and only 40% said their organizations realize the potential of their information but are struggling with how to make that information actionable.

This being the case, it may be fair to wonder: just why the heck are organizations investing so much in information management if they don’t view their information as strategic?

Read the complete post here.

Take Two Tablets and Call Me in the Morning

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:53:00 +0000

Now on my AIIM Expert Blog:

Got people on the road who need ready access to your organizational information? Need to capture information from the field on a device that is smarter and more multifunctional than a netbook but for which a notebook is overkill? Well, then, ol’ Doc Weissman has just the thing: take two tablets and call me in the morning!

Read the complete post here.

What Google/Motorola Suggests for Info Management

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:48:00 +0000

The news today that Google intends to buy Motorola Mobility is interesting for us in the Land of Information Management because it cements the former as a significant player in two of the three areas that are central to managing information (see chart, clockwise from bottom):

• Organizational content,

• The software used to control and secure that content, and

• The hardware platforms needed to manage, deliver, and interact with that content

Google, of course, has been a player in software and management platform spaces for quite a long time (with Google Docs being perhaps the best example of both in one offering). By acquiring Motorola, the company instantly establishes itself as a force in the delivery platform arena as well, for it now will be able to exert direct control over how, and how well, Motorola’s Android smartphones can accept, display, and manipulate incoming information.

For now, Google appears to have little direct play in the content sphere, since the information it manages – at least for the time being – is yours, and mine, and the other guys’, especially in contexts where “google” is a verb. But even this cursory look at the company’s new high-visibility move serves as the perfect reminder that your organization is part of this three-way dance as well, albeit it on a smaller and (hopefully!) more private scale.

You see, you, too, need to have a solid story about the integrity and security of your content, the efficacy of your content control software, and the reliability and flexibility of your content management and delivery platforms. Weakness in any one of these arenas will detract from your ability to receive Maximum Total Value from your organization’s information – and if you’ve been paying any attention here at all, you’ll know that this, to me, is what Information Management is all about.

Document Imaging Management Missteps: Problems and Pitfalls

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:47:00 +0000

Now on SearchContentManagement.com: some of my latest pearls of imaging wisdom!

Document imaging actually can be "just that easy" when the process is properly planned for and executed. But document imaging management initiatives are often not as carefully planned or executed as they should be, for issues that are – or should be – readily avoidable.

Having poor document naming conventions, or none at all
Having unrealistic expectations
Failing to define needs
Forgetting the physical parts of the process

Read the complete article and get the rest of the story.

Social Media, Free Speech, and Fireable Offenses: A Fine Line to be Walked

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:44:00 +0000

As sure as night is dark and day is light

I keep you on my mind both day and night

And happiness I've known proves that it's right

Because you're mine, I walk the line

-- Johnny Cash, I Walk the Line, 1956

Whereas the Man in Black famously wrote of love, today we speak of the line separating the free speech of social media and the fireable offenses of unprofessionalism and insubordination.

Case in point: a Connecticut ambulance worker last year posted vulgar characterizations about her boss on Facebook amidst meaningful discussions of workplace conditions. While the former undisputedly is grounds for termination, the latter is protected by labor law, and in the end, this particular matter was settled after the National Labor Relations Board sued the company.

This past Friday, that same agency released its Survey of Social Media Issues Before the NLRB and threw the matter into sharp relief. Among its findings was the following:

With respect to employer policies restricting employee use of social media, our review of cases found many specific policies alleged to be overbroad, including those that restrict discussion of wages, corrective actions and discharge of co-workers, employment investigations, and disparagement of the company or its management. The context in which the policy was adopted and even the issue of whether a rule or policy has been actually adopted are also important in these cases.

This is a potent paragraph because it says two things:

Organizations must be careful how they write their policies governing what is acceptable and what isn’t for their employees to post online, and
Organizations must have a policy in the first place!

Neither of these points are new – see my April opinionation regarding an extra on Glee who Tweeted an important plot point – but both have now captured the attention of a Federal body, and the administrative, judicial, and legislative scrutiny can only intensify from here on in.

So take notice, gentle reader, and put on your best Johnny Cash: the time is now to begin walking this fine line.

The Three "E"s of BPM/Workflow Success: Flexibility, Scalability, Simplicity

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 12:39:00 +0000

Discussions before, during, and after an ECM Practitioner class I led last week again reinforced just how hard we can make things for ourselves as we deal with content and process management technology. Just look at how much time we spend wrestling with vocabulary and semantics, and navigating the political sensitivities surrounding the way people create, use, and share information!

The thing is, none of that actually has anything to do with the fundamental business problems we’re usually trying to solve, which in Holly Group terms boil down to helping people work better and work better together. Using that as a touchstone – and then remembering to circle back to touch it every once in a while! – can really help unclutter our collective minds and distill the issues into a couple of key system characteristics to look for when deciding which way to go:

Flexibility: the ability to accommodate changing conditions
Scalability: the ability to accommodate more users, processes, locations, etc.
Simplicity: the ability to be readily understood and exploited by end users and admins, businesspeople and techies alike

This practicality is central to our concept of getting Maximum Total Value from technology, and is a major theme of the AIIM Webinar I’m participating in on Wednesday. Come and join us if you’d like to explore this further – we’d love to have you along!

In Setting Retention Schedules, Precision is Everything

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:04:00 +0000

Now on my AIIM Expert Blog:

Take a close look at the photograph accompanying this post – it’s of the label on a bottle of a leading brand of dog flea and tick shampoo, where it says something very interesting:

“Kills fleas and ticks for up to 10 days”

What happens then, one wonders: do the fleas and ticks come back to life?

Read the complete post here.

It’s Training, It’s Pouring: The Classroom Thoughts Just Keep on Flowing

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 23:20:00 +0000

Dateline Toronto – thoughts following two days here leading an ECM Specialist certificate training class and moderating intensive discussions of ‘interesting’ use cases:

Many organizations grow so excited about the advanced technologies available to them that they rush directly to the buy decision without first figuring out what their business objectives are, without passing ‘Go,’ and without collecting $200. (See my post of June 22 for a SharePoint’s-eye view of this disturbing reality.)

Many also get so bogged down in the details of a particular implementation that they forget to look around once in a while to see how/where else they might leverage the hard work they’re doing – a major key to deriving maximum total value from your solution work.

Others try hard to do the right thing but get derailed when their plans don’t unfold in the linear fashion they anticipated. Rework, like payback, can be a real bit ... er, downer, and it’s generally a good idea to incorporate a certain number of ‘surprises’ into your task timeline.

Compliance is as critical in Canada as it is in the U.S., but for reasons having to do with good steward- and citizenship, and not litigation defense or support. The process and implementation issues may be the same, but the atmosphere is generally a lot more pleasant!

Change management knows no boundaries, be they geographic, demographic, or organizational. Surfacing and addressing this thorny matter early can go far toward easing adoption and usage down the road.

More to come, especially following my next class in California in a few weeks. What can we do for you?

I Sync, Therefore I Am

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:27:00 +0000

Now on my AIIM Expert Blog:

In a recent engagement, users’ need to keep their mobile devices in sync with their enterprise apps drove a lot of the decision-making. Their feeling was that any solution that couldn’t readily communicate with their iPhones and cloud-based applications just wasn’t worth having, no matter how compelling the individual capabilities.

Which leads me to wonder: is the developing mindset now one of “I am what I know”?

Read the complete post here.

Why Do You Think They Call it "News"?!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:47:00 +0000

A rather downtrodden individual recently told me he is convinced his company is miles behind the eight-ball because he keeps reading about things his content, process, and records people haven’t even dreamed of – and if his IT folks have, well, they apparently aren’t talking.

Our conversation left me a little down in the mouth as well because it hadn’t occurred to me that people would actually look at the headlines and think that what they were seeing is what they already should be doing. I mean, don’t they call it “news” because it’s new? By definition, that means it isn’t commonplace, so you shouldn’t feel badly if you and yours haven’t yet adopted whatever-it-is.

In fact, you might even take credit for not chasing after that whatever-it-is – generally speaking, it’s not a bad strategy to let things breathe in the market a bit in order to see just how effective they prove to be.

I maintain that the bulk of any market is a good four years behind what gets featured in the trades and in conference tracks. It is certainly important that you monitor these channels so you have a sense of what’s over the horizon. But don’t let the reporters, the pundits, and especially the vendors leave you with the sour taste of obsolescence in your mouth.

You may well need an update, but you’re probably not as far behind as you think.

Let me help you assess your position on the modernity curve! Call 617-383-4655 or email me today!

Expectations for SharePoint & ECM: Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:48:00 +0000

Our good friends at AIIM this week released a new Industry Watch study that digs into how well users believe SharePoint is meeting their expectations in the context of enterprise content management (ECM). Unfortunately, some of the results are downright frightening – not in the least because they validate this observer’s conviction that there’s not nearly enough planning going on.

You have to read it to believe it – unless you work every day, as I do, to help organizations avoid and/or overcome the shortcomings the research illuminates. And I quote:

46% of respondents reported their biggest ongoing issue to be the lack of strategic plans on what to use SharePoint for, and what not to use it for. [Governance – metadata, classifications, taxonomy – was cited next most often, by 43% of those responding.]
70% have no acceptable-use policy, and only 28% have a guidance policy on corporate classification and use of content types and columns. Only 11% have legal discovery policies for SharePoint.
Over 60% of organizations have yet to bring their SharePoint installation into line with existing compliance policies.
Un-governed SharePoint is considered to be increasing compliance risks in 10% of sites.
35% have no long-term [records] retention strategy, including 27% of even the largest organizations.

For those who will now accuse me of cherry-picking the bad news, I have but two words: you’re right! But I’ve done so because none of the rest of the great information this study includes – about primary drivers, third-party applications, implementation experiences – means a thing if you don’t get your planning ducks in a row first.

Not that you have to figure out every thing about everything before going forward – too much crops up while you’re in process for that to be realistic. But you have to at least think through the critical whys and wherefores, and the fit with the rest of the organization (technologically, operationally, and culturally), if you’re going to avoid spending gobs of time and money that you probably can’t really afford.

So now you know why I’m frightened. How about you?

This post originally appeared in on the AIIM Community Web site, where I am an ECM Expert Blogger. Please let me know if you read something there, or here, that you either agree with, disagree with, or want to comment on. And if you think it'd be valuable to have a little independent outside perspective on your particular situation, well, please let me know that too!

Many Unhappy Returns? Re-Connect Your Justification and Evaluation Criteria

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:13:00 +0000

When you go to a conference, do you attend the case study sessions to hear about successes achieved or disasters experienced? You may say you go for the successes, but be let’s be honest: we all go for the disasters in the same way we all go to NASCAR to watch the collisions. (“Poor sucker! Sure am glad that’s not me!”)

The truth of the matter is that many information management disasters share a single fault that has nothing to do with how well the solution actually performed. Specifically, it’s a simple yet fundamental disconnect between the metrics used to justify the purchase and the criteria used to assess its effectiveness – if indeed its effectiveness is measured at all.

Think about it: most of the work at the beginning of a project has to do with analyzing the economics associated with expanding or replacing a content or process management solution – but after the fact, most of the work has to do with people’s discomfort with having either to change the way they work and/or to work with someone else in a new way than before.

Ironically, many such solutions are installed precisely because organizations want people to change their business processes and/or to collaborate better with each other. But they spend so much time up-front on the dollars and cents that they never get around to the specifics of those desired changes, and the complaints inevitably roll in far too late to do much about them.

We’ve heard it a thousand times: “I wish I knew before we implemented that we would have to spend so much time on the process, but I can't afford to stop and go back now.”

The other irony is that once solutions are put in place, they usually are not subject to post-mortem cost-benefit analyses. It's almost as if the attitude is, "that money is spent already, so what does it matter?" So the question of expense, which so dominated the conversation at the outset, often never again gets raised, leaving qualitative experiential anecdotes to frame the ultimate evaluation.

If this sounds familiar, then give me a shout [617 383 4655] – I have a way to keep this from happening and would love to chat with you about it. That’s what I’m here for, after all!

Why Process Due Diligence is Key

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 17:16:00 +0000

Much of the consulting and training I do centers on the value independent analysis can provide to ensure business processes don’t only run well, but make sense in terms of the organization’s big picture.

While I’ve never met anyone who has felt this is a bad idea, many nevertheless are resistant because of the up-front effort it involves – even as they acknowledge they’ll likely save lots of time and money at implementation time!

I bring this up because of a news item I saw today about a Northampton, Massachusetts man who received a notice that he pay $0.00 or his bank would foreclose. Yep, you read that correctly: zero dollars and zero cents.

In this case, the issue undoubtedly arose because no one thought to include a process rule that would kick out any notice calling for no payment. I’m not saying an independent analyst definitely would have caught this at design time – but daresay that someone with a fresh perspective would have been more likely to have noticed than someone who has lived the process for so long that obvious logical disconnects like this simply recede into the background.

Enjoy the news video here.

Let me ensure your processes make the most ‘cents’ they can – catch me today at steve@hollygroup.com or 617-383-4655!

‘Big Data’ and Content Management

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 12:30:00 +0000

Q: How much content do you need to have before you have to start researching “big data”?

A: The same as the amount of wood a woodchuck could chuck if only he could chuck wood.

In other words, who knows! And maybe, just maybe, it’s not even the right question to ask.

Let’s start with the term Big Data – does it refer to the amount of data being managed and mined? the number and type of repositories encompassed? the speed at which the data must be processed? It sure does! And also, certainly not.

Like so many concepts du jour, it is the vocabulary that often dominates the discussion, too often with business value falling by the wayside. In this case, the jeopardy frequently is doubled, as there’s much today to be read about “big data in the cloud” – a deadly combination from a definitional standpoint, and one that almost certainly will obfuscate the value question if left unchecked.

So let’s take a stab at clarification. The view from here is that Big Data encompasses an emerging new class of tools that can handle large amounts of structured and unstructured data in real- or near real-time. In other words, it’s infrastructure, and its relevance to content (whatever that is!) depends – as such things always do – on what you’re trying to accomplish, and why.

Given the accelerating pace at which databases are multiplying and expanding, and the way business are using ever-wider varieties of information to make ever-faster decisions, I suspect that Big Data will be no hyperbolic flash in the pan. But it doesn’t have to derail your thinking by posing riddles with no answers – just stay true to your objectives and let the woodchucks chuck their wood.

Chuck a message in this direction if you have questions about Big Data, content management, or anything in between. I'll be glad to help!

Doin’ Records Right Can Still be Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Wed, 25 May 2011 17:59:00 +0000

In January 2007, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was preparing to leave office and make his first run at the Presidency. Legally bound to provide the state’s archives with documents and other materials accumulated during his term, he and his staff boxed up and delivered some 700 cubic feet of content – none of it electronic, organized, or even labeled.

Did the Governor do what he was supposed to? Absolutely! Was it the right thing to do? Depends upon whom you ask.

As a politician with national aspirations and a healthcare reform legacy likely to repel a sizeable portion of the electorate, he may have had no qualms about making it difficult to reconstruct communications or audit how decisions were reached – so for him, it was right.

But for those seeking true transparency, the result clearly was unsatisfactory – a jumble of information that literally could take years to categorize and analyze. (According to the Huffington Post story that triggered this post, Romney's emails were “printed out and stuffed into cartons,” thereby destroying any sense of continuity or comprehensiveness.)

This tale perfectly illustrates what can happen in any organizational setting no matter what the good intentions. Creating records retention policies is but the first step, and must be followed immediately by a thorough examination of any potential loopholes. Otherwise, anyone resisting the need to better document and archive records may take liberties without actually violating the rules – a turn of events that is especially repugnant to prosecutors and sitting judges on the other end of your ediscovery activities!

Want a fresh eye on your policies or possible loopholes? Just drop me a line and I’ll be glad to provide some perspective!

Iron Mountain Does the Hokey Pokey

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Mon, 16 May 2011 16:41:00 +0000

“You put your whole self in, you take your whole self out …”

Iron Mountain today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell Autonomy its online backup and recovery, digital archiving, and e-discovery solutions.

The $380 million cash deal is expected to close in 40 to 60 days and is the latest in a series of intentions and innuendos that had the company first leaving these business, then remaining in them, and now, apparently, both.

In fact, the move is entirely consistent with information provided by Iron Mountain Senior VP John Judge at a recent AIIM New England Chapter meeting, where he explained that the company essentially is getting out of the software development business but continuing to serve customers with software it licenses instead.

So it’s both in and out.

If you’re one of those customers, you’d be less than human if you didn’t wonder just what today’s move means to you. You did the diligence, you selected the vendor, and now you need to explain what’s happening to your bosses and employees.

The good news is that, in the short term, the answer is “nothing much.” The deal won’t close for a while, and chances are that not much will change even after it does.
There are questions, however, that you may want to ask about the longer term. Such as: which organization will be providing me with support? what are the implications for future enhancements? what are Autonomy’s intentions regarding the businesses in question given that its historical focus has been elsewhere?

It’s too early to push any panic buttons, and, in fact, it’s likely that you won’t have to push any at all. But today’s transaction illustrates how difficult it can be for vendors long established in one space to migrate into another, and to clearly define while they try what business they’re actually in.

Iron Mountain is trying mightily, if awkwardly, to pull this off, and it just may succeed if can deftly license back the software it is now selling off. But it can only work if there’s no impact on you, the customer – and that’s the real dance the two companies need to do most.

Got questions about your dance partners, or how to choose them? Drop me a line and let’s boogie together!

A Baseball View of ‘Suites' vs. 'Breeds’

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Fri, 13 May 2011 16:44:00 +0000

The manager and general manager of a Cape Cod Baseball League team once assessed their club’s ouster from the playoffs by telling me, “This team had a lot more individual talent than last year’s championship squad, but it just never came together the same way.”*

While this story came to mind while discussing the currently sorry state of my Boston Red Sox – “don’t get me STAHted!” – it also sheds some perspective on another issue occupying my time: the debate over ECM suites vs. best-of-breed solutions.

Like lineups of ‘character guys’ who need each other to succeed, suites are appealing because they provide an array of solid functionalities that work together for a common goal. But because most are collections of talent that only recently joined the team, it can take a while for them to start operating as a unit, and be difficult to swap one for another should a problem arise.
Like lineups of All Stars, best-of-breed solutions are attractive because they string together stacks of special capabilities. But the pieces can be hard to identify and expensive to assemble, and the individual talents may be challenging to optimize in the context of all the others. (Sox fans see Crawford, Carl.)

The answer, of course – both on the field and in the office – is to first understand the parameters you need to work within, and then determine your quickest/cheapest/most effective route to a solution. Big ballpark with artificial turf? Then you may need a bunch of guys with speed and athleticism. Multinational corporation in a highly-regulated space? Then you may need a solution that’s heavy on the federation and strong on compliance.

That’s how you start to build a championship team.

*For those who don’t know, the Cape Cod Baseball League is the nation’s premier summer college league, a major contributor of talent to the pros, and a particular passion of mine! Another is helping organizations plan and execute successful information management strategies. So let me know if a little coaching can help you!

Kill 'em With Kindness

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:36:00 +0000

'Be Excellent to One Another!'

We spend a lot of time here and with clients talking about how hard the human factors are to contend with when rethinking content and process management, but one simple recommendation often seems to fall through the cracks: namely, to be as civil and constructive as you can be at all times!

Kill them with kindness, in other words.

As creatures, human beings tend to be instinctively territorial and defensive when riled up – and nothing riles an information professional more than having to modify some deep-set habits! While this reaction may be useful when fending off an invading tribe or a hungry saber-toothed tiger, it greatly complicates any effort to affect organizational change. Left unchecked, it can lead to demands rather than questions, selective communication rather than full collaboration, and the propagation of frantic untruths rather than considered commentary.

Here’s one benign example just to make the point:

was

Had she only been honest up front, my take on the experience would have been wholly different; instead, her lack of civility antagonized me and the people in the queue who overheard her, and undoubtedly made her day a whole lot harder than it had to be. Perhaps most frustrating, though, was that her petulance really went for nothing, for both she and I both knew that, at the end of the day, the change I was pursuing would come to pass whether she fought it or not.
Why am I telling you this? Because we see the same kind of resistance in all kinds of professional scenarios: when soliciting input from end users about how they manage information, building bridges between organizational lines of business and IT, reshaping association leadership councils … in short, anyplace someone is being asked to let go of an ingrained way of thinking.

The trick here is to maintain an even keel as best you can, be polite and constructive, and keep your eye on the bigger picture – even if your counterparts are not. Explain the reasons for the exercise as calmly as you can, reinforce them at every turn, and follow your plan to the letter so as not to leave room for misinterpretation.

Just be civil about it, for even a little will go a long way.

ECM as a Human Resource: Hiring Managers Take Note

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Weissman) — Thu, 05 May 2011 12:30:00 +0000

When the notion first arose that the adoption of social media, E2.0, and other modern conveniences could make employees happier, reduce turnover, and serve as a recruitment tool, I was skeptical. Not that the idea didn’t have logical merit; it did. But can it really be a significant part of ECM’s value?

I’m coming to believe it can.

Consider a conservative organization with information technology systems that were installed 7-10 years ago to address certain specific needs and are now approaching end-of-life.* How fundamentally engaging do you suppose they are? How Web-enabled? How generally searchable is it, and how interoperable is it with other information systems?

Now consider the fact that the company occupies a very competitive market niche, and its customer service skills are fundamental to its success. How attractive do you think it is to a new generation of employees who grew up with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and various other mechanisms for sharing knowledge? How happy do you think those people will be having to deal with information solutions that are steeped in hard-copy imaging, manual processing, and old-school telephony?

Not very. And therein lies the appeal.

Young professionals today know no other computing reality than one fraught with social/E2.0 applications, which they’ve used all their lives in their homes and universities. Is it so unreasonable for them to expect at least the same level of digital communication/collaboration in the workplace? Certainly not, and hiring managers will ignore such expectations at their increasingly peril.

*Based on a true story