Inmagic Inc.

The enterprise content management market break-down

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:46:00 PST

Nearly all knowledge management professionals will tell you there is no universal definition for KM. It's too broad to explicitly define it or to agree upon a definition. Instead, we have individual ideas of what it means to us and our organizations.

In some respects, I think the same can be said of enterprise content management (ECM). It's another broad, umbrella term that's difficult to define. It seems the industry largely agrees it encapsulates a range of technologies, strategies, and methods for managing content that moves across the enterprise. It can be broken up in sub-categories, which can vary depending on who you're talking to.

For instance, in Ron Miller's assessment, these sub-categories include document management, Web content management, and business content management. Ron has been writing about this lately on Fierce Content Management. His most recent article talks about we're moving away from the umbrella term of ECM, and moving towards the idea of having different types of ECM to address various pain points. One in particular is information silos.

As I wrote in my comment, the information silo issue is one of the biggest pain points our customers express to us. Information is scattered about their shared network drives and dispersed amongst their hundreds or thousands of locations, and it's a challenge to make all that data available on-demand across the business.

But that's only the half of it. Subject-matter experts also have knowledge stored in their heads, and we're seeing companies increasingly interested in new ways to extract that wisdom and make it useful to the greater organization. Knowledge retention has become a primary objective of many companies we're working with, especially those that have shed and continue to shed their workforce due to economic conditions.

What that boils down to is this: For these particular pain points -- information silos, knowledge transfer, knowledge retention -- we've found a new approach emerge to address them. We call it social knowledge networks, as you might already know.

The tenets of social knowledge networks are similar to Ron's idea of business content management, which he described in his reporting. But social knowledge networks are unique because they begin with a business process or objective -- such as product innovation, proposal development, or competitive intelligence -- which spans individuals, departments, and geographies across the enterprise.

By bringing together content, people, and tools to support these objectives within virtual environments, social knowledge networks let organizations supersede the silo problem to increase productivity, foster innovation, and improve the retention and preservation of knowledge. This, as Ron says, "helps prevent reinventing the wheel and aids employees in finding knowledge wherever it exists in the enterprise."

Global pharmaceutical company improves R&D collaboration, reduces costs with Presto

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:24:47 PST

We have another client on the record. Our latest case study covers how one of the world's top 10 biopharmaceutical companies is using Presto to gather, organize, and manage its vast library of product and health information. We think you'll find the results compelling, and encourage you to give our case study a read. Feel free to download, print, and share it with colleagues. We have a few more case studies the the pipeline, and will be rolling them out on the blog soon, so watch this space.

Economy accelerating cost-effective collaboration solutions across sectors

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:18:29 PST

There have been more 2009 recaps and 2010 predictions than you might care to count. However, Paula Hane's Review of the Year 2009 series (part one, part two) caught my eye on InfoToday. Partly because InfoToday is geared towards info pros in the library space, a community Inmagic has been a part of for more than 25 years.

But also because I think it's interesting that technology trends in a relatively niche market, such as the library space, are a fairly accurate representation of the broader enterprise market at large.

In some capacity, we're all dealing with the mobile Web, enterprise social networking, open source solutions, book digitization, cloud computing, information overload, etc. It just goes to show that the impact of two important e's of 2009 (economy and E2.0) do not discriminate, and have actually affected us all in similar ways: How do we do more with less; get creative to drive revenues; and use technology to improve people, processes, and competitive advantage?

In part two of Paula's series, again the "what's hot/what's not" is very apropos across industries. HOT: adoption of E2.0 tools, collaboration, and discovery. NOT: desktop PCs, e-mail, and fax machines. These issues can be seen in pharma, engineering, financial services, government, etc. AND in practices within those industries, such as competitive intelligence, marketing, product development, innovation, etc.

In general, we "want what we want, and want it now," no matter where you hang your hat. With mobile apps on the rise, there is a certain level of expectation about information access. Paula's series confirms that expectations are carrying over into the enterprise, where being held back by information silos, old technology, or antiquated business processes is no longer acceptable.

AIIM points out three-step approach to Enterprise 2.0 and collaboration strategies

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:30:05 PST

Collaboration is the new enterprise manta. But it's important to take a hard look at all the buzz, and recognize what the real take-aways are. Bob Larrivee covered this recently on the AIIM Knowledge Resource Blog, asserting, "Collaboration, like ECM, is not purely a set of technologies that will inherently move an organization to collaborate. In fact we do not need technology to collaborate but it does make it easier and simpler. Collaboration requires a cultural mindset and managerial support that fosters one to be open and share information and knowledge."

I think this paints a three-step approach to an E2.0/collaboration strategy:

1. STOP. Identify your organization's business goals and requirements.

2. COLLABORATE. Foster a culture of sharing knowledge and collaborating. This starts in the C-suite.

3. AND LISTEN. Probably the most important of the three, understand collaboration means to your organization.

I think Bob is spot-on when he speaks of "a portal without purpose was a portal failed." How true with any technology, process, or business for that matter, as we saw with the Internet bubble. And even though people need time and experience to apply E2.0 and find their own way of collaborating, there still needs to be an end goal, or purpose to bring it full circle.

Gil Yehuda to keynote Center for Business Intelligence conference

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:24:57 PST

The Center for Business Intelligence has several dozen conferences lined up this year covering the pharmaceutical/biotech, medical devices, and healthcare sectors. Feb. 8 marks its Bio/Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Forum on Knowledge Management for Medical Affairs.

Gil Yehuda, whom we've featured a few times on the blog as you probably know, will keynote the show. In his address, Knowledge Management in a 2.0 World, Gil will provide an overview of Enterprise 2.0 concepts and trends. He'll answer key questions surrounding social media's implications on bio/pharmaceutical organizations today, including, is E2.0 supplementing or replacing KM?; what exactly is Enterprise 2.0?; and are companies actually implementing it?

To register for the show, visit the conference Web site. And be sure to join Gil for his presentation!

Context is the king of enterprise content

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:56:15 PST

Context has a tremendous impact on how we understand data. Take something simple, like weather, for instance. V Mary Abraham penned a post on her blog, Above and Beyond KM, about how even metrics surrounding weather need context.

"... would you wear a sweater if it were 50 degrees Fahrenheit in September? Yes, most probably. Now think about a 50 degree day in March. In New York City, you’re likely to see folks wearing shorts and T-shirts," she writes. The time of year provides crucial context to how one might dress.

I agree. But I'll take that analysis one step further. As I wrote in my comment, imagine if weather data was socialized. For example, say those other people who were about to head out the door commented about their choice of light jackets and shirtsleeves. It might have given you pause to think of that data in another way, with a new perspective.

Let's translate this to the enterprise. Say a proposal is in the works for a major client. The proposal is about to be finalized, when someone looks at it and notices there’s a missing piece of crucial data -- one that the author had not thought to include.

If the proposal is stored in a social knowledge management system, the astute employee can leave a comment about the missing data. Other people can see the comment, reply in agreement or disagreement, tag it ... and the proposal is now stronger than the original.

Just as the metrics by themselves don’t tell the complete story, neither does most enterprise content. But the community can socialize content and provide the context needed to make content valuable and actionable.

Enterprise 2.0: A pitch for every professional

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:29:32 PST

Enterprise 2.0 is used by various levels of an organization differently. While a CEO might use it to drive innovation, a CIO might use it to increase security. Alex Williams covered this on ReadWriteWeb on Monday, pointing out that different "elevator pitches" are required when advocating E2.0 to CEOs, CIOs, HR, middle managers, and experts.

As I wrote in my comment, I thought he provided an interesting overview, because it tells me a few things. One, it confirms that E2.0 is not a one size fits all solution across organizations, nor is it a one-size-fits-all solution within an organization. Now that’s something to chew on when you’re thinking about deploying an E2.0 solution. It’s not like the big purchases of yore (ECM, CRM, BI), which have large footprints and are typically standard across departments.

E2.0 is a different entity altogether, and should be implemented, used, and managed as such. At Inmagic, we talk about E2.0 in terms of social knowledge networks (SKNs), as many of you know. A SKN is a highly fluid collaboration and knowledge sharing application which can be dropped into a department (or departments) and tweaked with relative ease to that department’s needs. End-user friendliness is a key aspect for communities that want to get up and running quickly without intervention from IT.

The best technologies -- and those that have the best E2.0 pitches -- will be flexible and transparent, and create a social business through cross-departmental and organizational collaboration.

E2.0 jobs that didn't exist 10 years ago

cmacneill@inmagic.com (Carolyn MacNeill) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 08:22:27 PST

Jobs ebb and flow with developments in the markets, technology, and politics. Many of today's careers are new, particularly those surrounding social media and Enterprise 2.0. Rachel Zupek covered 10 careers that didn't exist 10 years ago on CareerBuilder.com. And among the list were blogger, community managers or content managers, and social media strategists.

This is great to see, because jobs such as community manager, content manager, and social media strategist solidify the movement that is happening with E2.0.

Social media tools have gone through a distinct progression. They started on an individual level, with iPhones, Facebook, and MySpace for collaborating with personal communities. They've moved to the enterprise realm, with companies using Twitter, Facebook, and blogs to build community and their corporate brand.

The next hurdle, which we are seeing now, is moving E2.0 behind the firewall. It's one thing to manage an external community using social media tools. It's another thing altogether to meld an E2.0 culture into existing organizational structure, processes, history, pride, and prejudice. But here we are, and the lines of individual and enterprise (both external and internal) social activity continues to blur.

Relating to this article, it will be interesting to see what new titles develop within organizations. Departmental community manager ... social content manager ... social knowledge manager for innovation (or competitive intelligence, product development, etc.) ...

In theory, you could say that there might not be many, if any, new roles that emerge within the enterprise because social knowledge management is inherently self-sufficient. Tagging, rating, and commenting on content are activities that essentially allow information to organically emerge as important by the community. It's not driven by an individual, whatever his/her title might be.

What we could find some day, is that we're ALL bloggers, content managers, community managers, and social strategists to some degree. And we'll turn to our existing librarians and info pros to manage the community's knowledge, which changes their role. While such a social utopia seems far off now, it's probably not as far fetched as some might think.

Last day to vote for E2 Boston 2010 Call for Papers

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 08:31:33 PST

Reminder to everyone who has yet to vote for the Enterprise 2.0 Conference's Call for Papers -- TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO VOTE, so make sure you do! Vote for the sessions you want to see at the upcoming show. We submitted three proposals that we think will provide attendees with actionable insight into their Enterprise 2.0 and social knowledge network strategies. Your support is greatly appreciated! (wink wink :)) Sessions will reach the final "Selected Sessions" stage based on votes and final approval by the show's Advisory Board, and will be announced after the vote closes.

Knowledge management evolution: Where we stand today

rmatros@inmagic.com (Ron Matros) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:01:53 PST

"80 percent of what a company 'knows' resides in its employees' minds, while only 20 percent reside in repositories such as file shares, documents and wikis."

That's according to a 2007 article by Boeing, in which the company profiled its knowledge management initiatives. It's a pretty compelling statement, no matter who you are. This article was written three years ago, yet many of its concepts around knowledge management continue to ring true.

You might think, if we're still addressing the same issues, does this mean we haven't progressed? Absolutely not. We're just improving on how we address them.

Over the course of the past few decades, our focus has progressed from capturing data, to sharing information, to retaining knowledge. Knowledge management was something many considered abstract and without tangible benefits. This article clearly shows the benefits of how knowledge management can be a market differentiator.

However, while this was only three short years ago, 2010 is a very different world. We "get" that capturing, retaining, and sharing knowledge is crucial to preserving employee expertise, sharing best practices, and accelerating innovation. But a crucial speed bump has surfaced as a result of all these activities: Which pieces of knowledge are most important to the organization?

With a company such as Boeing -- which has approximately 160,000 employees spread across multiple business units around the globe -- you have a lot of smart people, each with their own buckets of knowledge.

But not every drop in those buckets is going to be useful to the company. So while you might have a comprehensive system of processes, tools, methods, and techniques to capture knowledge, the question now becomes how to identify and make available the most relevant information, while keeping people from being overwhelmed by TMI (too much information).

Enter the social phenomena. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say. And social tools are the perfect launching pad for organizations looking to take their knowledge management initiatives to the next level.

You might liken social knowledge management to Darwin's natural selection for knowledge creation and retention. It helps organizations weed out the "good" information from the "bad." Knowledge of value naturally bubbles up when individuals rate, comment, tag, etc. The bad naturally goes by the wayside through lack of "popularity."

As the Boeing article states, not all people, practices, departments, or companies manage knowledge in the same way. A non-invasive platform that provides structure, but allows for flexibility and capitalizes on the way people naturally work, is going to be most effective.

And Boeing got it right when it had its Engineering, Operations, and Technology organization drive the knowledge management culture. Just as you wouldn't launch your product without testing it, you wouldn't drop in a knowledge management initiative without a beta version to work out the kinks. Once a framework is established, it's much easier for other departments to pick it up and tweak it for its own specific needs.

Boeing sets a great example for us all in how to approach, implement, and maintain a knowledge (or social knowledge) management system. My key takeaway: It's not a one-size-fits-all solution, and managing knowledge is not a goal in and of itself. It is a holistic process that involves people, processes, and technology.

Sizing up the Enterprise 2.0 revolution

phillip.green@inmagic.com (Phil Green) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:12:29 PST

Andrew McAfee's post about using the word "social" when describing the benefits and possibilities of Enterprise 2.0 has sparked a lot of discussion on his blog. And earlier this week, he continued the conversation with another post that asks, "Do we agree that a social revolution is taking place in business today? That corporate hierarchies are being replaced by self-organizing and -governing networks?"

As I wrote in the comments, I do not believe that E2.0 will create a revolution where "corporate hierarchies are being replaced by self-organizing and -governing networks." That would be Management 2.0 (or lack thereof).

However, I do believe that E2.0 is creating a revolution in information flow and among enterprise software companies. In the companies that we work with, E2.0 is a big deal because it changes the way people work and how productive they are. It's a big deal to them, and that's what counts.

Role of social knowledge networks in Enterprise 2.0

cbrown@inmagic.com (Chris Brown) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:02:18 PST

As an Inmagic consultant, I have the opportunity to view many different areas of the business landscape from an outsider's perspective. From messaging development, to on-site customer consultations, to product roadmapping, my colleagues call me the "Renaissance Man of Social Knowledge Networks."

In my travels over the last few months, I've learned from customers how social knowledge networks, and specifically Presto, fit in to the E2.0 ecosystem. Time and again, the social aspects of our product are the special sauce that makes a difference within enterprise communities. In no particular order, here are some ways I'm seeing social knowledge networks apply to E2.0:

1. Content is the heart, social tools are the blood. When implementing any E2.0 technology, there is typically an initial enthusiasm for a product, particularly when it is first deployed "in good condition." Over time though, many products loose impetus and are abandoned, as has happened with many-a SharepPoint implementation.

A key aspect, and perhaps the saving grace of social tools, is its ability to keep content relevant by encouraging people to say (rate, comment) when it is not. This in turn will cause updates to the content to happen when necessary. So if you think of the Presto repository and its content as the heart of the system, the socialization is the life blood pumping through the heart to keep it going.

2. Build with content and they will come. When a Presto repository is built, it is built with a particular set of individuals and content in mind. Building community around the content is the next natural step in making the content much more useful. And by useful I mean that when peoples' tags, ratings, and comments are what create unique efficiencies in the system.

Think of Amazon.com. When I view a product, I immediately look at the ratings and comments to see if other peoples' experiences are good or bad. So too with content. If there are lots of related documents with overlapping subject matter, the social tagging will help weed out the good from the bad, or the successful from the not.

I like this quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein, which frames this point well: "Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement." Applied to Presto, I would say this means that until someone rubber stamps content and says it's good, it is potentially misinformation, not knowledge.

3. People provide power. Enterprise organizations shouldn't underestimate the power of real community. The community is what keeps enthusiasm for social technologies going over longer periods of time, and what creates new and increased value coming from them. I believe that connecting people to people, with content as context, is crucial.

4. Tapping community wisdom fuels knowledge retention. This is a biggie now and will be bigger over the next few years. Companies are focusing initiatives and spending money on this issue now. Knowledge retention focuses primarily on what's in people's heads, and encouraging the use of community-based social tools is probably the easiest way to do this.

5. Subject-matter experts improve content quality. Individuals marking content as "good" or "bad" through social tools will ensure others are pointed in the right direction, and will decrease trial and error. In addition, content analytics will also clearly show over time what's used and what's not, and what's useful and what's not. This will be crucial information that feeds directly into the systems designed for content creation (DM, DAM, etc.).

For example, if the company spends $XX on producing a sales toolkit or other materials, and it is accessed by one person rather than 100, is it successful? Should it be updated or scrapped? I think this is a good way of thinking about how Presto relates to content creation in general, which creates value even outside of the community that directly use Presto.

6. SKNs connect content in relevant, informative ways. When people find useful stuff, they like to find more related useful stuff. This is usually done by searching and seeing related items. Social knowledge networks offer the opportunity to find other useful stuff by letting users:

a. Group documents in collections.
b. Leave comments such as, "if you like this, perhaps this would also be useful," because they have been in this situation before.
c. Discover that "if Joe thinks docX is good, lets see what else Joe thinks is useful."

Gil Yehuda: How to prepare your business for Enterprise 2.0 in 2010

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:24:08 PST

Many of us make New Year's resolutions for our personal lives. Lose weight. Hit the gym. Finish the basement. But have you made one for your business? If you've been hearing about how other companies are using Enterprise 2.0 to improve its business efficiency and bottom line -- perhaps trying to understand what Enterprise 2.0 is all about and how it could benefit your organization -- now might be a good time to resolve to get the ball moving on E2.0.

The best place to start is at the beginning. Gil Yehuda, an Enterprise 2.0 analyst and consultant, lays out the first step in our podcast above. Preparing for it means understanding it first.

Our conversation unfolded several other points to consider in the new year for those interested in starting and improving their E2.0 strategy, including a great way to define Enterprise 2.0, which has been hotly contested. Gil's approach is to think of it like furniture.

"You go to a furniture store, you can't buy a furniture," Gil says. "You buy a chair, a table, a desk, or a bed -- based on what you really need. Furniture is a concept that organizes all those things. Similarly with Enterprise 2.0, it's a concept that organizes all these different tools and behaviors that helps us solve problems in a new way. But each one is different than the others. So you first need to figure out what you need and how it fits into your business floor plan."

There's no shortage of tools and advice out there. Gil believes the onus is on vendors to focus their products and services around addressing specific business needs, which will help the market mature. Some early E2.0 adopters already have lessons to share, and Gil gives us insight into what he sees is working well for E2.0 organizations, and what's not working so well.

Click play to hear it all first-hand.

Make Enterprise 2.0 fun?

phillip.green@inmagic.com (Phil Green) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:12:34 PST

Bill Ives penned a blog post about how to put more fun into Enterprise 2.0 to promote adoption. I agree that with the basic premise that if it's fun, then more people will use it. However, I think we need to be careful of two fronts:

1. If the fun creeps into the sales pitch, you are doomed. Buyers are already skeptical about E2.0 initiatives. If we pitch it as fun, they will walk you out the door.

2. Fun walks a thin-line between an implementation best practice (excellent idea) and a gimmick to promote usage (bad idea). We do not need gimmicks or side communities that provide no business value. We need creative ways to engage users so that they can perform their jobs more effectively and do it in a more lighthearted (fun) way.

I truly believe that the fun in the a good E2.0 system will mostly come from the users. I love to laugh with friends on Facebook, but gimmicks run the risk of being laughed at by your business colleagues.

Our top 10 posts of 2009

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:00:53 PST

Enterprise 2.0 adoption. Librarians finding their new role in the digital age. Today's collaboration imperative. We've covered a wide range of topics for info pros throughout 2009, but some were more popular than others. Here's a countdown of our top 10 posts of 2009:

10. Social knowledge networks are more valuable than enterprise social networking

9. The right E2.0 strategy for your organization

8. SourcePOV's Chris Jones: Enterprise 2.0's biggest barrier is culture

7. That which makes Inmagic different

6. Signal-to-noise ratio: Finding the sense in nonsense

5. When libraries go social, role of librarians becomes more important than ever

4. Today's collaboration imperative: a podcast with Patti Anklam

3. Info Pro-file: CM consultant Chris Brown talks content, context, and collaboration

2. Getting the metadata experience with Jin Xiu Guo

1. Podcast: Pew's Lee Rainie drills into mobile, the Internet, and libraries

Vote now for E2 Boston 2010 Call for Papers

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:07:13 PST

The Enterprise 2.0 Conference's Call for Papers Community Vote is now open! You can vote until Jan. 20 for the sessions you want to see at the show.

Hit the show's Web site to review the 466 submitted sessions (a record-breaker!), or search by category, speaker, or keyword, and vote for your favorites. Sessions will reach the final "Selected Sessions" stage based on votes and final approval by the show's Advisory Board, and will be announced after the vote closes.

Inmagic's updated Web site: Sneak peek at new features

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:48:48 PST

Eat right. Exercise. Get organized. Update Web site.

That's right, we all have our resolutions, and ours includes Inmagic.com, which has gotten something of a face lift to kick off the new year. Nothing drastic, but a few nips and tucks that more accurately reflect the company's messaging and position in the market.

It is a work in progress (aren't we all?), and as we continue to work toward a more complete overhaul in the coming months, we thought you might be interested in viewing some of the recent improvements:

A cleaner, simpler, and more visually appealing look-and-feel
A new navigation bar that makes it easier to identify and access the solutions you need, including:
- A clearer delineation between enterprise solutions and library solutions
- A drop-down menu for the vertical industries that enables users to "self select" based on their industry
Fast access to our social and Enterprise 2.0 efforts, including our blog, Twitter feed, and Facebook fan page
An "Industries Overview" section that details Inmagic's aptitude and history in serving specific markets, including Aerospace and Defense, Pharmaceuticals, Engineering, Government, and others

You'll find many other improvements throughout the site, including updated text and graphics, easier navigation from the sidebars, and more.

Love it? Hate it? Take a look and let us know what you think! This is a living project, and we're happy to take into consideration your comments and suggestions. Either way, we hope you like it and we look forward to your feedback!

Enterprise 2.0 definition, adoption, and other points of contention

phillip.green@inmagic.com (Phil Green) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:56:15 PST

The SOCIALtality blog recently featured an interview series on social media and enterprise 2.0 adoption with Jacob Morgan, Principal of Chess Media Group; and Wendy Troupe, the blog's founder. SOCIALtality blogger Matt Carter summed up his top 10 takeaways from that conversation, some of which I think are spot-on, while others miss the mark. Turn your eyes to his post for his insights, and scroll down to my comment for my replies, and add your own!

UPDATE: My and Matt's conversation is continuing to unfold in the comment thread for all who are interested!

Enterprise social networking market diversifying

phillip.green@inmagic.com (Phil Green) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 07:24:16 PST

Forrester Research conducted survey of 170 ECM (enterprise content management) decision makers to understand where the market might be headed in 2010. The survey found 72 percent of organizations are planning on investing in ECM in the new year.

Barb Mosher covered the study in an article on CMS Wire. I thought it was an interesting article, not so much for the insights into the ECM industry, but for the insights into ESN (enterprise social networking) and related social technologies.

As I said in the comments, the ECM industry has been around since around 2001, and has been hailed and cursed many times over. We can see this happening with ESN too. With all of the hype and expectations, there will be inevitably be a post-New-Year's-Eve-like hangover as we realize that no solution is a poultice to our collaboration headaches.

For example, the article states, “There really isn't a single solution that meets all needs, despite all efforts of ECM suite vendors.” Replace ECM with “social media,” “ESN,” “E2.0,” what-have-you, and you see where I'm going with this.

As more players have entered the ECM market, a natural stratification of vendors occurred to address the varying levels of needs that different organizations require. I think we'll see a similar occurrence for social technologies.

In 2010, I hope we continue to see these same parallels and comparisons we are now seeing with ECM. How will it work with SharePoint? What's the ROI? Where do SaaS (Software as a Service) and Open Source fit it?

The best thing we can do is put on our deductive reasoning hats as users and evaluators of technology solutions, and look around for other solutions that have faced similar challenges with regards to improvement, use, and adoption. And we might learn a thing or two before we are destined to repeat the mistakes of others.

The S word by any other name is still just as sweet

phillip.green@inmagic.com (Phil Green) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 06:48:38 PST

The S word.

Andrew McAfee examined whether "social" is "a helpful or harmful word when talking to enterprises and their managers about the new digital tools and the business practices that make use of them?" in a recent blog post. And in my opinion (which I left in the comments), it’s not about what we call it, but how we use it that counts.

Don't get me wrong -- I think debating, critiquing, revising, and renaming is a healthy exercise. But what to call this "social-ness" is not as important as how companies are going to execute around it.

More real world examples of how enterprise 2.0/social/collaborative software is being used and to what benefit would help the name issue enormously. Remember, all sorts of good things have some really bad names.

But as the brand develops around a name or concept, the debate switches from whether the name is good or bad, and moves to whether the concept is working or not. So let’s promote real benefits by real companies solving real problems. And my bet is that the naming thing will take care of itself.

You’ll notice there are many companies with their heads down, going through the trial and error process of finding out how E2.0 is going to work for them. They’re less likely to be engaged in the debate of what it is, because they are in the process of defining it for themselves, and reaping its benefits.

Skills of successful social librarians

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:43:39 PST

We've talked before about how librarians are crucial to the success of a social knowledge network or social library initiative. Librarians carry out key duties including feeding and weeding, organizing, and cultivating information. Indeed, when libraries go social, the role of the librarian is more important than ever.

To perform these duties effectively, there are several skills librarians should have. Jonathan G. Geiger covered them in an article in Information Management, which our customer and friend Melanie Browne (from Maple Leaf Foods) had forwarded to us. I thought I'd share the link. Jonathan talks about technical, interpersonal, and positional skills required to carry out the role of what he calls the "data steward."

Crossing the Chasm of using social in the enterprise: Inmagic Year in Review 2009

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:39:40 PST

Something we've learned this past year through our conversations with industry analysts, customers, and partners, is that social in the enterprise is not on the radar of many companies. It's also been a recurrent theme in many of our recent podcasts.

As consultant Gil Yehuda touched upon in a blog post, companies that use "10-year-old technologies and 20-year-old management styles" to address today's problems are not only going to miss the social bus, but will see the same fate as DEC, Compaq, and Xerox.

At this stage of the game, social can be what we want it to be. There are no rules, and there's no one to tell us we're doing it wrong because no one has really done it before. Enterprise organizations have a rare opportunity to experiment with social technologies with relatively small repercussions -- and not to mention potentially significant payoffs.

But this is if they take those first steps towards trying it out -- and this is the if that separates the chasm-crossers. Unfortunately, old management styles often do not lend themselves to this. Just as putting on your sneakers and getting out the door is the hardest part of going for a run, just starting, trying, and tweaking social technologies and concepts for your own organization is the hardest part of implementing social in the enterprise. Eventually though, and probably quicker than you think, momentum can take hold.

As the social bus picks up speed in 2010, I think we'll start to see best practices emerge, which is a good and a bad thing for E2.0. It's good because it's proof of concept, which will get more people on board, but also bad because we won't have the same no-holds-barred approach to testing, trying, and reworking our E2.0 approaches. Those that do capitalize on this opportunity will be ahead in their ability to fine-tune their social skills for profit.

Today's collaboration imperative: a podcast with Patti Anklam

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:35:46 PST

Collaboration and teaming are nothing new to the enterprise. But according to many knowledge management professionals, including Patti Anklam, today's information overload has made collaboration and teaming more crucial to organizational effectiveness and competitiveness than ever before.

Patti is an independent consultant focusing on collaboration practices, social network analysis, value network analysis, and knowledge management systems strategy and architecture. She's also the author of "Net Work: A Practical Guide to Creating and Sustaining Networks at Work and in the World." We talked to her recently to unfold why there's such an imperative for organizations to adopt a more collaborative approach to business.

"Work now is so complex ... there's a lot of interdepency in knowledge and in work, that it's not possible for everyone to know everything they need to know in order to complete the constructive project," Patti says in our podcast.

Patti developed a theory she calls the Three KMs -- Big KM, Little KM, and Personal KM. These buckets are how she defines knowledge management. She talks more about them in our podcast, explaining how they are inter-related and feed into one another.

Patti also shares some of her core pieces of advice that she is consistently dispensing to organizations as they implement new collaboration strategies. A couple of these include the need to have senior management support and the need to develop a well-thought-out plan for introducing new technologies into the organization.

Looking ahead to 2010, Patti says, "It's all about social media ... The knowledge management community and vendors that support knowledge management, collaboration, and so on, are really looking at how do we integrate the best of social media ... in a way that supports how people work, and is not an extra."

Patti shares some examples of companies she's working with that are using social media behind the firewall, how they've made it work, and how they've addressed security and privacy issues that can arise.

For this and more from Patti, tune in to our podcast.

Prove E2.0's benefits by first focusing on a small use case

phillip.green@inmagic.com (Phil Green) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 07:48:40 PST

Last week, the SOCIALtality blog published a series on social media and enterprise 2.0 adoption. It featured an interview with Jacob Morgan, Principal of Chess Media Group; and Wendy Troupe, the blog's founder. I thought it nicely framed issues surrounding adoption.

In part 3 of the conversation, Morgan says, "You need to focus on use cases before deploying platform ... You need to speak in terms of 'supporting' rather than 'changing."

This brought to mind a key approach we've taken with our customers when implementing social knowledge networks: Demonstrate the benefits of E2.0 in a specific situation (use case) first. Then demonstrate additional uses of the platform. The good news is that for the second project, the investment is very low, so the ROI can be high. I unfolded this more in my comment.

Vote in the KMWorld Reader Choice Awards poll

mcassettari@inmagic.com (Mike Cassettari) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:52:18 PST

KMWorld is holding its Reader Choice Awards poll, and we thought we'd share the link if it hasn't crossed your desk yet. They are polling readers to learn more about their current deployment activity and vendor awareness.