Because of how our brains work, online collaboration between people can cause more problems than it solves.

This raises an interesting question for ECM vendors as we attempt to broaden our products to incorporate Web 2.0. How far can ECM 1.0 become ECM 2.0 when users themselves, for good reason, are reluctant to embrace online collaboration technologies?

A Pew Internet & American Life Project study earlier this year found that only 8% of US adults are “deep users” of Web 2.0.

A link to a PDF version of the report can be found here: A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users

The low take-up of Web 2.0 in the general population and the frustrations of online collaboration in the workplace suggest that it may only ever remain a small part of the ECM landscape.

A quick primer, TRIM Context has a directory structure of its own called the Locations table. This table stores all the people, positions, roles, groups, and organisations that interact with objects that are stored in TRIM Context. One of the main reasons for this structure is simple, as a logged in user your profile in TRIM is kept in the Locations structure. However, when you leave an organisation, more than likely you will be removed from the company’s Active Directory for example. You will not however, get removed from TRIM’s Locations. The reason for this is that this Location is also a part of metadata on the records. And as such your details will need to be kept, as you might have been the Author of a document, and that fact will never change, even after you leave the organisation.

So with that out of the way, one of the IT problems this has introduced in the past has been how to create TRIM Locations from the organisation directory (like the Active Directory). The Directory Synchronisation module allows an organisation to synchronise their LDAP based directory directly with the TRIM Locations structure.

Through a series of mappings and rules, users are created and made inactive in TRIM Context, based on what is done in the Corporate Directory. Allowing organisations to perform identity management more easily.

The reason why I am blogging about this, is that Directory Synchronisation is being launched with 6r2, but actually can be used with earlier versions of TRIM Context 6. It doesn’t work with all versions, and there is some configuration that needs to take place, but just because you aren’t on 6r2, doesn’t mean you have to miss out all together.

K.

After a successful TUF (TRIM User Forum) in New Zealand, with a small but focussed group of attendees, it was my turn to hush up and listen to some other people talk. And I can hear the gasps out there from those who attended TUF NZ, yes I can be quiet :P
FYI, Presentations from that event can be found on the Customer Portal page here

I attended VMWorld the major virtualisation conference held by VMWare . With over 10,000 attendees at the Moscone Conference Center (that’s how it’s spelt), it was a good chance to get up to speed with the trends in the virtualisation world.

Virtualisation isn’t new to TOWER Software . For many years, most of our development and testing environments have been virtualised. I myself have given many a demo of TRIM Context from a Virtual PC or VMWare Virtual Machine .

TOWER Software also has many customers virtualised in production. One such example is the Whole of Northern Territory Government . Every single server related to TRIM Context is virtualised on their VMWare environment, serving up to 10,000 users of TRIM Context throughout the Northern Territory.

This has been a topic of hot conversation for a number of our current customers and a lot of our current prospects, especially those who saw the announcement for Site Recovery Manager. I got to play with some of this stuff in the hands on labs, and I must say it is impressive. And the best part for our customers is that it will work really well with a well planned TRIM Context design. Official support from TOWER Software and VMWare as technical partners…. Watch this space… and lookout for upcoming technical writeups on Virtual Machines and TRIM in the Knowledge Wiki.

It’s good to be back in my own bed, and in a place that televises the rugby , but I do miss Chipotle . Till next time

K.out

Robin Young from Microsoft spoke about Enterprise Content Management , in front of a group of delivery partners. The content of the presentation was basically that Sharepoint can’t compete with the major ECM players in terms of document and records management, but that the marketplace doesn’t require what the major players are offering.

Now as I consider TOWER Software a ‘major’ player in this market, Forrester rate TOWER Software as having the biggest presence in this market (Forrester Wave – Records Management Q1 2007) I find that hard to swallow. Governmental and Commercial clients are all bound by a level of regulatory compliance) . So for Microsoft to tell the market that it doesn’t need those things leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I feel that this attitude towards the market will only breed more Enrons and Arthur Andersons’. I’d hate to see ill informed IT groups deploying basic Sharepoint installations in the belief that they have met all their requirements.

Now it may seem that I am always down on Sharepoint and that can not be further from the truth. TOWER Software is a Worldwide Gold partner of Microsoft’s and I strongly believe there is a great deal of value brought to the table by Sharepoint and it’s related technologies. But I feel vindicated in my stance on Sharepoint and ECM, when Microsoft employee’s stand up in front of a group of delivery partners and tell them Sharepoint isn’t up to the task.

On another completely unrelated point, I’ll be interested to see how the VMWare guys react to the virtualisation push from Microsoft with Windows Server 2008. At the conference it was very clear that they were targeting VMWare’s market dominance directly with this new product. As I’m off to VMWorld in San Francisco in a weeks time, I guess I’ll get to see for myself sooner rather than later.

I should have some free time in San Francisco, if anyone is up for a drink… or a heated discussion about the information management world… or how Australia will fair in the Rugby World Cup, Go You Wallabies!

To me, this post is an extension of a conversation that began with a Steve Bailey article called Beyond compliance – the future of records management, published in CILIP.

I think the three factors affecting the application-vs-API choice are time, money, and user acceptance, in that order. Most organizations (at least in the U.S.) don’t think of an ECM solution as being part of its core infrastructure. This means that most wait until after they get into trouble before procuring and implementing ECM.

Maybe that means that they’ve been slapped with a lawsuit, and have an expensive e-discovery nightmare on their hands. Maybe it means that important lab notebooks or patent applications have been lost. Perhaps it means that the company can only find the draft contract rather than the final, executed one.

Whatever it means, the business has an urgent problem that needs to get resolved quickly. Time is the major constraint. The customer then has to choose between two options:

1. Integrate an ECM framework with the organization’s current business processes and tools. This improves user acceptance but costs a lot of money.
2. Implement an off-the-shelf ECM application and train staff to use the new tool. This saves money but requires change management.

It’s like the classic “iron triangle” problem in project management: balancing time, cost, and features. There’s no single solution that will work for every customer. Most customers will find they have a range of acceptable solutions. As a result, most ECM vendors will need to have both a “standard” or “as-shipped” user interface as well as a comprehensive API.