I am off to London tomorrow with my family to watch the Anaheim Might Ducks versus the LA Kings - yep NHL Ice Hockey in the UK ! (Later in the month I am actually going to watch the Miami Dolphins at the new Wembley stadium - "go dolphins......").
Then monday we hop on the jet to Toronto to get our permanent resident visa's stamped and start some house hunting. Whilst in Toronto I am attending the AIIM Sharepoint meets ECM seminar. I am only taking my iPhone as a wireless device, but if I get the chance, I will blog from the seminar or shortly after.
That said, we are supposed to be on vacation too, so probably no other posts till mid-month :-)
Saturday, 29 September 2007
An RM discussion going on......
A tenous link to the posting below - the link being the mention of Oracle (Stellen) products....
Laurence, James and Jesse (the ECM blogging 'regulars' ?) have been having a conversation on Records Management.
Its ranged from one end of the spectrum to the other, so to speak. It has been commented that to do 'electronic records management' you dont actually need ERM software, you need policy and procedures (and a way to enforce them ?) and nothing more cutting edge than Windows file shares.
Then James takes us into the area of where ECM fits in a "Compliance Oriented Architecture" and suggests that retention and disposition services should be exactly that - 'services' in an SOA that can be called by any application.
Anyway, follow the links its a very interesting discussion. However I think it points to the future of ECM in totallity - componentized services which take their place in the wider SOA stack to enable an Enterprise Architecture. Oh yes and 'tenous link' is that fact that Laurences post mentions Oracles Universal Records Management.
Any way, moving on: as the industry has matured, the vendors realised the DM, ERM, DAM, WCM etc can all operate with a shared set of 'library services', check in /out , version control, metadata management etc
This led to the 'suite' approach from the big vendors, Documentum, OpenText, FileNet et al - then add on your workflow / BPM tools, throw in collaboration and you have the full on ECM suite that meets the ability to Create/Capture -> Manage -> Store -> Preserve -> Deliver as defined by AIIM. (add on Heirarchical Storage Management for 'Information Lifecycle Management' ? ! ). Hey it works for some people! Its certainly a good approach for my organisation, but then we are in a position to consolidate all (well most) of our content in a single enterprise repository.
As my intrepid fellow bloggers have noted, most organisations will never get to a single enterprise repository, and so federated records management is required. So to get where James and Laurence want ECM to be absolutely requires breaking down the monolithic suites into thier 'bits' and hey presto we are round full circle the previous conversation on standards, where vendors all play nice, and their products all interoperate via the said standards.
During our ECM procurement competition a few years ago, a small, niche vendor asked me why we did not appear interested in buying (a bunch of) 'best of breed' products and integrating them together ourselves. My answer was that it was too much hard work for us, that web services was not mature enough, that a big 'suite' was better for us. Even in a standards driven ECM 3.5 dreamland, not all customers will want to do the integration work, or pay for SI's / consultants to do it for them, and thus the vendors will always be able to make a buck from the suite, even whilst selling the seperate bits.
Laurence, James and Jesse (the ECM blogging 'regulars' ?) have been having a conversation on Records Management.
Its ranged from one end of the spectrum to the other, so to speak. It has been commented that to do 'electronic records management' you dont actually need ERM software, you need policy and procedures (and a way to enforce them ?) and nothing more cutting edge than Windows file shares.
Then James takes us into the area of where ECM fits in a "Compliance Oriented Architecture" and suggests that retention and disposition services should be exactly that - 'services' in an SOA that can be called by any application.
Anyway, follow the links its a very interesting discussion. However I think it points to the future of ECM in totallity - componentized services which take their place in the wider SOA stack to enable an Enterprise Architecture. Oh yes and 'tenous link' is that fact that Laurences post mentions Oracles Universal Records Management.
Any way, moving on: as the industry has matured, the vendors realised the DM, ERM, DAM, WCM etc can all operate with a shared set of 'library services', check in /out , version control, metadata management etc
This led to the 'suite' approach from the big vendors, Documentum, OpenText, FileNet et al - then add on your workflow / BPM tools, throw in collaboration and you have the full on ECM suite that meets the ability to Create/Capture -> Manage -> Store -> Preserve -> Deliver as defined by AIIM. (add on Heirarchical Storage Management for 'Information Lifecycle Management' ? ! ). Hey it works for some people! Its certainly a good approach for my organisation, but then we are in a position to consolidate all (well most) of our content in a single enterprise repository.
As my intrepid fellow bloggers have noted, most organisations will never get to a single enterprise repository, and so federated records management is required. So to get where James and Laurence want ECM to be absolutely requires breaking down the monolithic suites into thier 'bits' and hey presto we are round full circle the previous conversation on standards, where vendors all play nice, and their products all interoperate via the said standards.
During our ECM procurement competition a few years ago, a small, niche vendor asked me why we did not appear interested in buying (a bunch of) 'best of breed' products and integrating them together ourselves. My answer was that it was too much hard work for us, that web services was not mature enough, that a big 'suite' was better for us. Even in a standards driven ECM 3.5 dreamland, not all customers will want to do the integration work, or pay for SI's / consultants to do it for them, and thus the vendors will always be able to make a buck from the suite, even whilst selling the seperate bits.
More on Enterprise 2.0 and ECM 2.0
Billy Cripe over at Oracles ECM Fusion blog welcomed me to the ECM corner of the blogosphere - thanks Billy :-) I shall try my best to be as erudite, and sensible as possible.......
So Billy has a good comment on the ECM 2.0 thing:
"What I personally see in the ECM space is the "enterprise 2.0 - ification" of ECM technolgies to enable "social app" behaviors and capabilities to the already core set of ECM services. RSS Feeds and Wikis and Blogs and rich GUIs and a true SOA for surfacing ECM capabilities in other systems (think Oracle WebCenter) have been a part of Oracle ECM (and Stellent ECM before that) for several years (this is not a new bandwagon for us folks!)."
I have always had a high opinion of the Stellent product set. They were very impressive when we did our ECM procurement competition. Mores to the point, I agree with Billy, and I think it all tally's with James comments (see below) and even Laurence's comments on ECM standards and SOA etc.
So, ECM 2.0 may well be cosmetic improvements to the current product set, AJAX make-overs for the interfaces, Wikis and blogs where the content of the posts and pages are managed in the ECM repository, and RSS-ifying everything. Just making stuff look like the 'consumer' Web 2.0 apps workers are using at home. What ECM 2.0 will not be is the highly componentized, SOA and standards based dream of Laurence.
So Billy has a good comment on the ECM 2.0 thing:
"What I personally see in the ECM space is the "enterprise 2.0 - ification" of ECM technolgies to enable "social app" behaviors and capabilities to the already core set of ECM services. RSS Feeds and Wikis and Blogs and rich GUIs and a true SOA for surfacing ECM capabilities in other systems (think Oracle WebCenter) have been a part of Oracle ECM (and Stellent ECM before that) for several years (this is not a new bandwagon for us folks!)."
I have always had a high opinion of the Stellent product set. They were very impressive when we did our ECM procurement competition. Mores to the point, I agree with Billy, and I think it all tally's with James comments (see below) and even Laurence's comments on ECM standards and SOA etc.
So, ECM 2.0 may well be cosmetic improvements to the current product set, AJAX make-overs for the interfaces, Wikis and blogs where the content of the posts and pages are managed in the ECM repository, and RSS-ifying everything. Just making stuff look like the 'consumer' Web 2.0 apps workers are using at home. What ECM 2.0 will not be is the highly componentized, SOA and standards based dream of Laurence.
Thursday, 27 September 2007
Answer to the ECM 2.0 question
Well I now know that at least someone is reading me.... :-)
James McGovern, who's Enteprise Architecture blog is one of the resources who's feed I track on my PageFlakes site, has answered my question on what ECM 2.0 might look like:
"Jed Cawthorne asks what ECM 2.0 will look like. I am of the belief that it will look no different than ECM 1.0. Security will still be weak. There will be no interoperability and vendors in this space still will create horrific WSDL. 2.0 in the ECM world will be more of a branding exercise than a value proposition."
After a long early morning meeting with our Head of Enterprise Architecture about portals, I needed cheering up, so initialy I had a little chortle at Jame's cycncism, but upon reflection, its simply not funny. Both James and Laurence have posted plenty recently on ECM standards, SOA etc and I think its sad (but true) that James is basically calling out the vendors on this one. But lets face it, a lot of the value proposition of ECM 1.0 has been a little heavy on the hype, and a little lacking in substance - I am not saying good DM, RM, WCM etc products and implementations don't exist out there, but when your trying to do integrated, infrastructure level ECM to provide broadly scoped / wide scale Information Lifecycle Management (for lack of a better term) you better take the vendor marketing with a pinch of salt.
James McGovern, who's Enteprise Architecture blog is one of the resources who's feed I track on my PageFlakes site, has answered my question on what ECM 2.0 might look like:
"Jed Cawthorne asks what ECM 2.0 will look like. I am of the belief that it will look no different than ECM 1.0. Security will still be weak. There will be no interoperability and vendors in this space still will create horrific WSDL. 2.0 in the ECM world will be more of a branding exercise than a value proposition."
After a long early morning meeting with our Head of Enterprise Architecture about portals, I needed cheering up, so initialy I had a little chortle at Jame's cycncism, but upon reflection, its simply not funny. Both James and Laurence have posted plenty recently on ECM standards, SOA etc and I think its sad (but true) that James is basically calling out the vendors on this one. But lets face it, a lot of the value proposition of ECM 1.0 has been a little heavy on the hype, and a little lacking in substance - I am not saying good DM, RM, WCM etc products and implementations don't exist out there, but when your trying to do integrated, infrastructure level ECM to provide broadly scoped / wide scale Information Lifecycle Management (for lack of a better term) you better take the vendor marketing with a pinch of salt.
Sunday, 23 September 2007
Some Enterprise 2.0 articles
In line with the posting below, here are some interesting articles I have read this week:
Dion Hinchcliffe "A checkpoint on web 2.0 in the Enterprise" over at ZD-Net. I am not going to attempt to summarise it, but its a very good article, so go take a look.
UK IT periodical 'Computer Weekly' also jumps into the fray with "Web 2.0: beyond the buzz words" - interesting comments on security implications, services oriented archictures and supposed CIO requirements for a full group of web 2.0 applications in a 'suite'.
Another UK paper, ITWeek, has an article called "Smarter tools for picking brains" by Charles Armstrong, the founder of Trampoline Systems which looks like an interesting outfit with some interesting tools.
Dion Hinchcliffe "A checkpoint on web 2.0 in the Enterprise" over at ZD-Net. I am not going to attempt to summarise it, but its a very good article, so go take a look.
UK IT periodical 'Computer Weekly' also jumps into the fray with "Web 2.0: beyond the buzz words" - interesting comments on security implications, services oriented archictures and supposed CIO requirements for a full group of web 2.0 applications in a 'suite'.
Another UK paper, ITWeek, has an article called "Smarter tools for picking brains" by Charles Armstrong, the founder of Trampoline Systems which looks like an interesting outfit with some interesting tools.
ECM 2.0 ?
So, after all the postings below, most of which have been focused on the whole Web 2.0, Office 2.0, and Enterprise 2.0 themes since my travels to O2con in San Francisco, I finally get round to "ECM 2.0".
This has been prompted by the effort of AIIM to get some social networking, indeed some conversations going on the AIIM 'ECM Net' group in Facebook. Although I truly hate the trend to add "two point oh" to the end of everything, I think if we go back to Tim O'Reilly's original definition of 'Web 2.0' there are a number of possible areas where there is going to be major impact on ECM as we currently know it:
1. The User Experience - ECMS interfaces are going to get the AJAX / REST makeover
2. User Generated Content - how is this going to work with the library services, content repository and collaboration elements of an ECMS ?
3. 'Social' web - social networking, social bookmarking, 'folksonomies' (social taxonomy development ?)-
4. It seems to me that a lot of the "two point oh" stuff is actually about collaboration - blogs as a 'conversation', wiki's as collaborative writing etc Collaboration has always been one of the constituent technology areas of ECM - so is this just about keeping up with the latest technology trends, or about working differently?
As an EMC customer, I have already seen Momentum presentations on how they are starting to tackle some of these aspects, for example adding blog and wiki functionality to Documentum Web Publisher, but all the portal vendors are diving into 'web 2.0' tools too, so there are inevitable questions over where you fit the tools, and how you integrate them."
So, I will paraphrase my closing comment - a lot of what can be done with "Enteprise 2.0" tools, and whether you can infact setup "ECM 2.0" depends, as always on the context of the organisation, its culture and its ways of working. Personally I don't think my orgaisation (the Open University) has a chance with any of this, but I hope I can be proved wrong !
This has been prompted by the effort of AIIM to get some social networking, indeed some conversations going on the AIIM 'ECM Net' group in Facebook. Although I truly hate the trend to add "two point oh" to the end of everything, I think if we go back to Tim O'Reilly's original definition of 'Web 2.0' there are a number of possible areas where there is going to be major impact on ECM as we currently know it:
1. The User Experience - ECMS interfaces are going to get the AJAX / REST makeover
2. User Generated Content - how is this going to work with the library services, content repository and collaboration elements of an ECMS ?
3. 'Social' web - social networking, social bookmarking, 'folksonomies' (social taxonomy development ?)-
4. It seems to me that a lot of the "two point oh" stuff is actually about collaboration - blogs as a 'conversation', wiki's as collaborative writing etc Collaboration has always been one of the constituent technology areas of ECM - so is this just about keeping up with the latest technology trends, or about working differently?
As an EMC customer, I have already seen Momentum presentations on how they are starting to tackle some of these aspects, for example adding blog and wiki functionality to Documentum Web Publisher, but all the portal vendors are diving into 'web 2.0' tools too, so there are inevitable questions over where you fit the tools, and how you integrate them."
So, I will paraphrase my closing comment - a lot of what can be done with "Enteprise 2.0" tools, and whether you can infact setup "ECM 2.0" depends, as always on the context of the organisation, its culture and its ways of working. Personally I don't think my orgaisation (the Open University) has a chance with any of this, but I hope I can be proved wrong !
Wednesday, 19 September 2007
Yahoo! buys Zimbra
So Yahoo! is to buy, Zimbra eh ? Well this bursts open the Office 2.0 market, Yahoo! will now provide real competition to Google Apps - but they have released their first new development / addition in a while - 'Presentations':
So, are ZOHO and ThinkFree 'safe' - maybe they will be next for acquisition...... ??
So, are ZOHO and ThinkFree 'safe' - maybe they will be next for acquisition...... ??
iPhone in the UK
As rumoured O2 got the Apple contract for the UK - so now all I have do is 'crack' my iPhone received at the Office 2.0 conference (I have already removed the SIM card) and see if O2 will have a "hidden" pay as you go offering like AT & T. No point in signing up for the contract as we are off to Canada to live .... !
Meanwhile, the iPhone is a very useable portable wi-fi device on the University wireless network :-)
Meanwhile, the iPhone is a very useable portable wi-fi device on the University wireless network :-)
Enterprise Search briefing
Yesterday my colleagues Nicky, Bill and I attended the Butler Groups 'Enterprise Search Briefing' down in London. It was a useful day, a chance for a first chat with Endeca, to renew acquintances with Exalead, and to hear from Sinequa, a french company who just opened their London office this week. Of course Autonomy and Fast were there too, plus Microsoft.
Sarah Burnett of Butler Group did the opening keynote, nice presentation, including work on the 'information value chain' and the importance of search to the average enterprise - but nothing particularily new or innovative really. If you take the often used stat of "information workers" spending on average 20 minutes per day searching for stuff and apply it to the OU's 5000 core staff, thats 1,666 staff hours a day being spent searching for information !
The vendors all provided a customer case study - in summary:
Sarah Burnett of Butler Group did the opening keynote, nice presentation, including work on the 'information value chain' and the importance of search to the average enterprise - but nothing particularily new or innovative really. If you take the often used stat of "information workers" spending on average 20 minutes per day searching for stuff and apply it to the OU's 5000 core staff, thats 1,666 staff hours a day being spent searching for information !
The vendors all provided a customer case study - in summary:
- Autonomy & Phillips: a reasonably happy customer (?) using the plaftorm for both customer facing internet and intranet use, the later including very large Lotus Notes deployments (yet they are still introducing MOSS 2007 !). Pretty much the usual message - good but complex.
- FAST & UK Govt. Department of Work and Pensions (DWP): A very happy customer - they have been through 4 search engines in 5 years ! Referenced Martin White and Gerry McGovern- "finding versus searching". Ben from DWP mentioned the nice out-of-the-box MI stats provided by FAST to see what the 40, 000 queries per day are, and where they lead people
- Microsoft & UK Govt. Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). MS had a session twice as long as everyone else, and Solomon from MS tried to hard to stick to timings, by attempting to focus on the search specifics of the MOSS 2007 platform. However Roger from DEFRA who is obviously a very enthusiastic individual and a happy customer, presented largely on Information and Records Management with not an awful lot of emphasis on enterprise search per se. Personally I would have like more on the specific capabilities of the search facilities in MOSS 2007, but then even Solomon mentioned the deals MS have struck with Autonomy, FAST etc and in the end, search is intrinsicly linked into the wider Informatio Management agenda !
- Sinequa - no customer present, but they have just moved into the UK market. They have a strong knowledge management focus with some 20 years of academic research and R & D behind them.
Thursday, 13 September 2007
New search vendor and more on collaboration
Martin White of Intranet Focus was here yesterday, working on our Intranet redevelopment project with us. He mentioned a 'new' search engine vendor he had come across, DieselPoint who are based in Chicago.
I have added their link to the Search page of the resources site over at PageFlakes, where I have brought together a bunch of ECM, Entperise 2.0, Portals, Intranets and Enterprise Search links and RSS feeds.
Also very interesting, was Martin's take on the recent Gartner Portals Content and Collaboration summit in London. Martin's blog post is here, but to summarise the focus of the conference appears to have been on collaboration, and the realisation of enterprise CIO's that there are plenty of options other than Sharepoint or Notes - good news for all the vendors at the recent Office 2.0 conference !
Since the O2Con I have been trying to find time to play with the Sosius beta, and have not yet got round to playing with SmartSheets (but did send the link to Martin and our Intranet manager Nicky). To be honest I have been busy trying turn my british CV into a Canadian style Resume - but my wife and I use BaseCamp, and Google Docs & Sheets for planning immigration activity.
But once again there in lies the rub - just because Google have jumped into bed with CapGemini, and are attempting to solve the online / offline issues with 'gears' it does not mean 'web 2.0' consumer oriented tools are ready for 'enterprise 2.0' prime time. However whilst I can stick to my earlier assertion that the start-ups should concentrate on the SME niche, perhaps Martin's notes from the Gartner event suggest that CIO's are awakening to wider (outside or through the firewall) possibilities.
I have added their link to the Search page of the resources site over at PageFlakes, where I have brought together a bunch of ECM, Entperise 2.0, Portals, Intranets and Enterprise Search links and RSS feeds.
Also very interesting, was Martin's take on the recent Gartner Portals Content and Collaboration summit in London. Martin's blog post is here, but to summarise the focus of the conference appears to have been on collaboration, and the realisation of enterprise CIO's that there are plenty of options other than Sharepoint or Notes - good news for all the vendors at the recent Office 2.0 conference !
Since the O2Con I have been trying to find time to play with the Sosius beta, and have not yet got round to playing with SmartSheets (but did send the link to Martin and our Intranet manager Nicky). To be honest I have been busy trying turn my british CV into a Canadian style Resume - but my wife and I use BaseCamp, and Google Docs & Sheets for planning immigration activity.
But once again there in lies the rub - just because Google have jumped into bed with CapGemini, and are attempting to solve the online / offline issues with 'gears' it does not mean 'web 2.0' consumer oriented tools are ready for 'enterprise 2.0' prime time. However whilst I can stick to my earlier assertion that the start-ups should concentrate on the SME niche, perhaps Martin's notes from the Gartner event suggest that CIO's are awakening to wider (outside or through the firewall) possibilities.
Sunday, 9 September 2007
Office 2.0 conference summary
So, the highlights; well some good sessions with thought provoking discussion, and ability to see some of the wares being demo'd on the lovely big screen Apple iMac's. So, here are the main points that I have personally taken away from the conference, and how they may fit into OU projects:
1. The hosted SaaS model, and why it does not fit for some enterprises. To every vendor who described to me how secure their data centre is, what is that you are not understanding about enterprise security ? Yes, I know, my data might be encrypted within your system, your sys admins don't have access, etc etc, but some enterprises are 'conservative' when it comes to their data you know. This is especially so, when the business in question is one that works with, and creates information / knowledge. When your data is your organisational crown jewels then your CEO / CIO / IT Director are not going to be won over by arguements of how great the SaaS model is and how much its going to save them on their storage bill. They may well be won over by 'cool' web 2.0 style apps if they offer good API's for integration with other enterprise apps, if they speak LDAP with the corporate directory service and maybe present their GUI via the corporate portal.
2. However, all is not gloom and doom, I am not anti-web 2.0 ! I do think where the web 2.0 guys should be marketing their wares is to the small to medium size enterprise (SME -> SMB in the UK) sector, or enterprises that are focused on manufacturing or logistics or something similar. In other words, to the small business the value proposition is in not having to have your own IT team / data centre, and its similar for those big businesses who are ok having their customer lists and accounts etc hosted in someone else's servers. Or indeed, to Universities with lost of students..... ?
3. Social Networking. Apparently, I am one of only 3 odd people in the world who does not want to mix their digital working life, with their digital home life ;-} I am quite happy having separate digital persona's, but then I am tech savvy enough to aggregate them using tools like Pageflakes or Netvibes, which apparently (and probably correctly) the average punter is not. There was a lot of discussion at the conference on how businesses would probably prefer LinkedIn to go down the Facebook route (opening up the platform) but I am not sure I agree, there are plenty of options for a business that wants to include social networking in their 'enterprise 2.0 mix'
So, what can I take away from the conference that is specifically of use to the OU ?
Well, I saw a couple of good alternatives to the 'portal platform' software for the redevelopment of the OU Intranet, in ThoughtFarmer and Jives' Clearspace (which was used for the 02con web site), however Oliver from Sony also confirmed in my mind the suitability of an enterprise class portal.
Cogenz looks very interesting for enterprise social bookmarking, but to be honest, I am not sure the that the OU requires 'secure' social bookmarking, del.icio.us might just be good enough for us, but then Cogenz released an API at the conference which allows for integration.
On the social networking front both Ning and the newly released Sosius could give a private Facebook group a good run for its money for a 'closed' or 'OU employee only' social networking site. However Sosius is a broad product cutting across social networking, online storage/file sharing and online applications spaces. (I think the guys should wrap it all up, do a deal with Dell to provide it on a 2U rack mount server and provide it as a turnkey 'intranet in a box').
Not being an academic, a learning design professional or pedagogy expert, I can not say I took an awful lot away from the 'Classroom 2.0' session, with its focus on the U.S. school (K12 ?) environment, and I think there are better minds than mine considering where web 2.0 / classroom 2.0 fits into the online and distance learning environments.
The OU does not need an online office suite, and we have project management and collaboration products, so I apologise to all the conference exhibitors I have not name checked, but there you go.
I would like to end with a mention to Freshbooks, principally their CEO Mike, and marketing head honcho Sunir, who being nice Canadians took pity on me as a 'wannabe' Canadian and let me tag a long to meet with some of their friends on Wednesday evening - thanks guys, I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation :-)
Finally, what do you call if you have a 'fire 2.0' ?
Friday, 7 September 2007
Enterprise collaboration session
Chaired by Dan Farber, with the august panel consisting of:
Scott Dietzen, President and CTO, Zimbra
Etay Gafni, Architect, SAP
Sam Lawrence, Chief Marketing Officer, Jive Software
Oliver Marks, Senior Project Manager, Sony Computer Entertainment America
Paul Pedrazzi, Oracle AppsLab Director, Oracle
Jay Simons, Senior Director of Product Marketing, BEA Systems
Dan started by asking what added the 2.0 to collaboration in the opinions of the panel members. Scott suggested the contingent mix of push / pull technologies and the use of mashups to improve the user experience. Paul suggested the main difference is putting the focus on the person (rather than the process) and breaking down silo's. Jay suggested useability is the focus, but also noted that the '2.0' technologies are supplementing not supplanting all that went before within the enterprise.
Oliver from Sony made some very interesting points, getting straight to the crux of the matter ! He started by saying that he (like me) dislikes the '2.0' moniker, that in fact '2.0' is the 'norm' at Sony. He went onto to say that they are big on the 'portal' approach, bringing all the applications and information someone needs to do their job together in a portal and so from his point of view any new technologies should be modular, so they can be integrated easily into the portal.
Oliver went on to cover another point, one that I heard discussed many times across the two days and that is one of the main issues for me when it comes to 'enterprise 2.0': to take these app's from consumer space to enterprise space, they must be offered for hosting on the organisations own infrastructure, within the firewall. Indeed, Sony go as far as demanding access to the source code of any app they use ! If they can't get the source code, they go else where (nice to be able to be in that position). I will return to Olivers points in a later summary posting.
Our MC gave his next question to the panel; how do you deal with idea of spreading the 'people centric message' - how do you deal with "yeah, thats cool, really great, now I am going back to my work...."
The responses centered around the use of social networks in the enterprise being all about filtering the signal from the noise, and being about focusing connections within the team, the department the division and maybe outside the enterprise. A comment was made about the fact that an email with a link from a trusted colleague, is probably going to be considered more important than the days top links on digg.
Jay suggested Facebook as an example, is popular because it helps filter the noise - I am not sure I agree, but the OU has not experimented with a private Facebook group yet, but at the moment I more likely to get a zombie or vampire bite than a useful message via Facebook !
Anyway, to finish off a very interesting session, Dan asked one further questions "whats the future vision, where do you see things going" ?
The summary of the responses to this are: current trends might be making things easier, but there is no great paradigm shift, however the 'wisdom of crowds' could provoke such a shift, alongside greater prioritisation and automation of tasks leading to quick and efficient creation of ad hoc workflows.
Scott Dietzen, President and CTO, Zimbra
Etay Gafni, Architect, SAP
Sam Lawrence, Chief Marketing Officer, Jive Software
Oliver Marks, Senior Project Manager, Sony Computer Entertainment America
Paul Pedrazzi, Oracle AppsLab Director, Oracle
Jay Simons, Senior Director of Product Marketing, BEA Systems
Dan started by asking what added the 2.0 to collaboration in the opinions of the panel members. Scott suggested the contingent mix of push / pull technologies and the use of mashups to improve the user experience. Paul suggested the main difference is putting the focus on the person (rather than the process) and breaking down silo's. Jay suggested useability is the focus, but also noted that the '2.0' technologies are supplementing not supplanting all that went before within the enterprise.
Oliver from Sony made some very interesting points, getting straight to the crux of the matter ! He started by saying that he (like me) dislikes the '2.0' moniker, that in fact '2.0' is the 'norm' at Sony. He went onto to say that they are big on the 'portal' approach, bringing all the applications and information someone needs to do their job together in a portal and so from his point of view any new technologies should be modular, so they can be integrated easily into the portal.
Oliver went on to cover another point, one that I heard discussed many times across the two days and that is one of the main issues for me when it comes to 'enterprise 2.0': to take these app's from consumer space to enterprise space, they must be offered for hosting on the organisations own infrastructure, within the firewall. Indeed, Sony go as far as demanding access to the source code of any app they use ! If they can't get the source code, they go else where (nice to be able to be in that position). I will return to Olivers points in a later summary posting.
Our MC gave his next question to the panel; how do you deal with idea of spreading the 'people centric message' - how do you deal with "yeah, thats cool, really great, now I am going back to my work...."
The responses centered around the use of social networks in the enterprise being all about filtering the signal from the noise, and being about focusing connections within the team, the department the division and maybe outside the enterprise. A comment was made about the fact that an email with a link from a trusted colleague, is probably going to be considered more important than the days top links on digg.
Jay suggested Facebook as an example, is popular because it helps filter the noise - I am not sure I agree, but the OU has not experimented with a private Facebook group yet, but at the moment I more likely to get a zombie or vampire bite than a useful message via Facebook !
Anyway, to finish off a very interesting session, Dan asked one further questions "whats the future vision, where do you see things going" ?
The summary of the responses to this are: current trends might be making things easier, but there is no great paradigm shift, however the 'wisdom of crowds' could provoke such a shift, alongside greater prioritisation and automation of tasks leading to quick and efficient creation of ad hoc workflows.
Knowledge Worker 2.0
Stephen Collins is the founder of AcidLabs and he presented on how the web 2.0 tools impact on knowledge workers to create 'knowledge worker 2.0' (just as an aside, I really, really hate this tacking 2.0 everything.....)
The session focused somewhat on how the web 2.0 technologies can assist either 'bursty' or 'busy' workers (I add a link to reference these terms later). 'Bursty' workers are heavily situational, creative, innovative and intellectually invested in their work, and as such they may be working from anywhere and are not tied to their desks. Thus the web / office 2.0 technologies are effective enablers for this style of working.
However this new wave of knowledge worker are not the horde of generation Y (or 'millenials') often talked about at this conference, but rather individuals of any age whose character predicates them to this working style. I guess I can back this up, as I am 41 and I can work effectively in 'bursty' mode, as do others I know who are both older and younger than myself. However as was noted, these modes of working are not exclusive, you can by 'bursty or busy' depending on the context and the situation.
In the Q & A Facebook came up (again) - there has been a lot of discussion here about whether intermingling work and non work e-life is a good thing, or even a necessary thing. For example the difference between Facebook and LinkedIn. Steve responded that, just as with any other system a business should have policy and procedures for the use of social networking - doing vampire biting on Facebook is obviously not appropriate during office hours ( is it ever appropriate ?)
The session focused somewhat on how the web 2.0 technologies can assist either 'bursty' or 'busy' workers (I add a link to reference these terms later). 'Bursty' workers are heavily situational, creative, innovative and intellectually invested in their work, and as such they may be working from anywhere and are not tied to their desks. Thus the web / office 2.0 technologies are effective enablers for this style of working.
However this new wave of knowledge worker are not the horde of generation Y (or 'millenials') often talked about at this conference, but rather individuals of any age whose character predicates them to this working style. I guess I can back this up, as I am 41 and I can work effectively in 'bursty' mode, as do others I know who are both older and younger than myself. However as was noted, these modes of working are not exclusive, you can by 'bursty or busy' depending on the context and the situation.
In the Q & A Facebook came up (again) - there has been a lot of discussion here about whether intermingling work and non work e-life is a good thing, or even a necessary thing. For example the difference between Facebook and LinkedIn. Steve responded that, just as with any other system a business should have policy and procedures for the use of social networking - doing vampire biting on Facebook is obviously not appropriate during office hours ( is it ever appropriate ?)
web 2.0 'the new platforms' session
Chaired by Rafe Needleman, who opened with comments on the integration, or lack thereof between many of the cool web 2.0 app's that we are seeing demo'd here at the conference. Of course to integrate applications requires common or integrated development platforms.
So we got into a conversation ranging over tight or loose integration, at the API or the data level. However it also moved onto the UI -> if even the most keen user of web 2.0 technology can not find a single application that does it 'all' (lets face it that simply does not exist - not even Facebook) how do they bring everything together ? Lets face it the average end user within an enterprise already has enough trouble with different applications with different UI paradigms -but then at least the ubiquitous browser and the move to web based interfaces helps with that.
So it was suggested one way to deal with this is to develop 'widgets' - but personally at the moment I would think the average end user would struggle even with Pageflakes or Netvibes as their 'portal' environment for brining in widgets for their social networking, social bookmarking etc
So we got into a conversation ranging over tight or loose integration, at the API or the data level. However it also moved onto the UI -> if even the most keen user of web 2.0 technology can not find a single application that does it 'all' (lets face it that simply does not exist - not even Facebook) how do they bring everything together ? Lets face it the average end user within an enterprise already has enough trouble with different applications with different UI paradigms -but then at least the ubiquitous browser and the move to web based interfaces helps with that.
So it was suggested one way to deal with this is to develop 'widgets' - but personally at the moment I would think the average end user would struggle even with Pageflakes or Netvibes as their 'portal' environment for brining in widgets for their social networking, social bookmarking etc
posting from the iPhone or not......
Although I have managed to log on from the iPhone I had to use the edit HTML box to write this post, however overall I am very impressed with interface and the on screen keyboard, and I know its hardly bleeding edge tech, but hey, I just made a truly mobile blog posting... :-) (Yes, I am easily pleased)
2nd day of Office 2.0
The first session this morning is from Ismael the organiser of the conference on the setup and the actual web 2.0 / Office 2.0 used to facilitate the rapid development and organisation of the conference.
The highlight of this session is really Ismael's closing statement. As it only took a few weeks to organise this years conference, and a lot of time was spent getting the iPhones sorted out, registration for next years conference will open next week !
There is a really good reason for this - there is going to be a competition to build a new device for next years conference ! So the challenge is to design a DVD case sized wireless 'webtop' type device, under a 'hardware open source' licence, running a linux kernel and Firefox !
And I only just got the iPhone working........ :-)
But seriously this is a very, very cool idea. If you can build a device that works, you have a guaranteed beta audience of 600 very geeky conference attendee's to put your machine through its paces.
The highlight of this session is really Ismael's closing statement. As it only took a few weeks to organise this years conference, and a lot of time was spent getting the iPhones sorted out, registration for next years conference will open next week !
There is a really good reason for this - there is going to be a competition to build a new device for next years conference ! So the challenge is to design a DVD case sized wireless 'webtop' type device, under a 'hardware open source' licence, running a linux kernel and Firefox !
And I only just got the iPhone working........ :-)
But seriously this is a very, very cool idea. If you can build a device that works, you have a guaranteed beta audience of 600 very geeky conference attendee's to put your machine through its paces.
Thursday, 6 September 2007
Classroom 2.0 session
A very large panel that was unfortunately almost bigger than the audience.
Steve Hargadon the moderator is responsible for the Classroom 2.0 site. He had also setup a wiki for this particular session which is at: http://office20ed.wikispaces.com/ and I suggest you jump over there to take a look at the topics and the panel members details.
This was an interesting and wide ranging session, possibly a little school centric for someone from the Higher Eduction (University) sector, but interesting non-the-less. However the topics were varied and discussion 'leaped' around a fair bit, so I might have to sit back and re-read my notes rather then trying to do it all justice here and now.
However the general flavor was one of 'hope' for the use of web 2.0 technologies across the various education sectors for the same reasons the technologies will infiltrate the enterprise, because if educators don't use them with thier students, their students will just use them anyway outside of school time !
Steve Hargadon the moderator is responsible for the Classroom 2.0 site. He had also setup a wiki for this particular session which is at: http://office20ed.wikispaces.com/ and I suggest you jump over there to take a look at the topics and the panel members details.
This was an interesting and wide ranging session, possibly a little school centric for someone from the Higher Eduction (University) sector, but interesting non-the-less. However the topics were varied and discussion 'leaped' around a fair bit, so I might have to sit back and re-read my notes rather then trying to do it all justice here and now.
However the general flavor was one of 'hope' for the use of web 2.0 technologies across the various education sectors for the same reasons the technologies will infiltrate the enterprise, because if educators don't use them with thier students, their students will just use them anyway outside of school time !
Social Networking Session
Chaired by Shel Israel - see http://www.o2con.com/docs/DOC-1103
Anil Dash of Six Apart started with a point reference 'interuptive' technologies such as email or IM, and the fact that these technologies are immediate and demanding of immediate action (if you get hundreds or thousands of emails per day, do you only pay attention to the latest ones at the top of your inbox ?) and so 'meaningful conversations' require 'persistent communications' i.e. blogs and wiki's (not a surprising suggestion from Six Apart !).
Athena Von Oech of Ning said she was surprised how many of the social networks setup on Ning are setup by 'professionals'.
The discussion moved onto the work / life balance and the fact that you using tools like Facebook you can have work and social contacts and communications with them, in the same place ? Is this a good thing or not - well it depends on the context. Why not keep 'professional' contacts in LinkedIn and social contacts / friends in Facebook ?? Do we need a 'social network aggregator' so we don't get confused by mulitple systems and interfaces ? This led to a thread about open standards and how we link such systems together.
quote of the session from Anil ref Facebook : "last year this conversation would have been about Facebook"
Anil Dash of Six Apart started with a point reference 'interuptive' technologies such as email or IM, and the fact that these technologies are immediate and demanding of immediate action (if you get hundreds or thousands of emails per day, do you only pay attention to the latest ones at the top of your inbox ?) and so 'meaningful conversations' require 'persistent communications' i.e. blogs and wiki's (not a surprising suggestion from Six Apart !).
Athena Von Oech of Ning said she was surprised how many of the social networks setup on Ning are setup by 'professionals'.
The discussion moved onto the work / life balance and the fact that you using tools like Facebook you can have work and social contacts and communications with them, in the same place ? Is this a good thing or not - well it depends on the context. Why not keep 'professional' contacts in LinkedIn and social contacts / friends in Facebook ?? Do we need a 'social network aggregator' so we don't get confused by mulitple systems and interfaces ? This led to a thread about open standards and how we link such systems together.
quote of the session from Anil ref Facebook : "last year this conversation would have been about Facebook"
Live blogging from the conference
Here is a link to a Public Google reader aggregation of live blogging from the Office 2.0 conference
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/user/02451109790569713989/label/office2.0
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/user/02451109790569713989/label/office2.0
The crew behind "meet charlie"
Scot and Simon from Pfizer continued in the same vein as Adam, describing how they have moved forward the enterprise 2.0 agenda within their organisation. The guys present in a very entertaining fashion and I have enjoyed watching them previously.
A highlight from their session is the use of 2.0 technologies to rapidly roll out a 'zero cost' application - in this case getting rid of the old style Word document 'conference reports' that would have been put into the document management system, and replacing it with a system for blogging the conference reports - so those reports are now much more accessible to a wider audience within the organisation, providing better dissemination of information / knowledge picked up by individuals at conferences. Real 'knowledge management' in action ?
If you have not seen 'Meet Charlie' is suggest going to SlideShare.net and having a look, its good !
A highlight from their session is the use of 2.0 technologies to rapidly roll out a 'zero cost' application - in this case getting rid of the old style Word document 'conference reports' that would have been put into the document management system, and replacing it with a system for blogging the conference reports - so those reports are now much more accessible to a wider audience within the organisation, providing better dissemination of information / knowledge picked up by individuals at conferences. Real 'knowledge management' in action ?
If you have not seen 'Meet Charlie' is suggest going to SlideShare.net and having a look, its good !
Enterprise 2.0 - Adam Carson
A good session by Adam Carson on how he evangelises enterprise 2.0 within Morgan Stanely.
Along with a lot of useful hints and tips etc and some nice demographical slides, one of Adam's main points is that web 2.0 startup's are not taking the enterprise security requirements seriously, security provisioning and granular permissions structures must be built in from the beginning, as enterprises do need to have their 'walled gardens'.
I also liked this quote "feed the open mouths, don't force it..." nice :-)
Along with a lot of useful hints and tips etc and some nice demographical slides, one of Adam's main points is that web 2.0 startup's are not taking the enterprise security requirements seriously, security provisioning and granular permissions structures must be built in from the beginning, as enterprises do need to have their 'walled gardens'.
I also liked this quote "feed the open mouths, don't force it..." nice :-)
Opening keynote - the future of work
So, I decided not to type voluminous notes directly into blog, especially as all sessions are being webcast live, but the opening session chaired by Om Malik was good, and covered some interesting topics, not necessarily 'the future of work' per se.
Main theme's were around flexibility, work / life balance and the fact that the consumer space is really leading the enterprise on Web 2.0 / Office 2.o stuff. If people use something at home, find it easy and useful then of course they will want to use it at work.
Also suggested that where the SMB sector is leading with online apps, enterprise work groups need to follow, although it was acknolwedged that sometimes compliance and regulatory issues need to be dealt with, especially with respect to where the data is hosted.
The Mike Doeff of Avolent sat next to me just asked if I would put my copious typed notes online at some point, so I guess the answer is yes, once I have tidied them up :-)
We also did our bit for the big conference experiment and Mike looked me up on his iPhone using the Etelos custom apps, and because my iPhone is not activated, I got his contact details in my laptop in the browser - Ishmael it works !
Also Tris Hussey over at blognation Canada looks like he did type his notes directly into his blog
Main theme's were around flexibility, work / life balance and the fact that the consumer space is really leading the enterprise on Web 2.0 / Office 2.o stuff. If people use something at home, find it easy and useful then of course they will want to use it at work.
Also suggested that where the SMB sector is leading with online apps, enterprise work groups need to follow, although it was acknolwedged that sometimes compliance and regulatory issues need to be dealt with, especially with respect to where the data is hosted.
The Mike Doeff of Avolent sat next to me just asked if I would put my copious typed notes online at some point, so I guess the answer is yes, once I have tidied them up :-)
We also did our bit for the big conference experiment and Mike looked me up on his iPhone using the Etelos custom apps, and because my iPhone is not activated, I got his contact details in my laptop in the browser - Ishmael it works !
Also Tris Hussey over at blognation Canada looks like he did type his notes directly into his blog
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
Hello San Francisco
Well after a pleasant flight courtesy of United Airlines, I arrived in San Francisco yesterday tea time. Thought I would stay up as long as possible, so when I did sleep it would be deep and long.... wrong ! A couple of beers, in bed by 10pm (which meant I had been up for something like 26 hours) a 'fit full' night and up at 7am - which was of course a good time to log on and do work email, overlapping with the working day back in Milton Keynes.
So, I was on the "streets of San Francisco" (my Gran used to watch that on TV) before 9, and walked and walked and walked until 3pm - I like this city :-)
This is a screen shot of a Google map using the distance measuring tool to roughly denote my route:
Fisherman's wharf was a bit touristy, but the last time I climbed a hill as steep as Hyde Street was climbing up the 'Rock of Gibraltar' ! Photo's will be added to Flickr as soon as I get the chance.
Meanwhile, back to preparation for the conference, choosing sessions etc. I am either going to experiment by blogging straight from the sessions, or by using the ThinkFree Premium Beta account I have been given as conference attendee.
Monday, 3 September 2007
3 postings below added today
I had started my attempt at blogging using the little blog module on Pageflakes, but decided to use a 'proper' blog (right tool for the right job ?) and so copied the 3 postings below into this blog today (yep I know, now I look at them, they are mostly too long).
Otherwise today was very busy at work, as tomorrow I get on the United Airways 777 bound for San Francisco for the Office 2.0 conference. I will attempt to blog from the conference as my own little part of the experiment. We are being issued with Apple iPhones, as the conference itself is a big web 2.0 technology lab, so I will try to blog from the iPhone rather than the nice HP laptop / tablet convertible (with 6 hour aux. battery !) which the Science Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) have lent me.
Otherwise today was very busy at work, as tomorrow I get on the United Airways 777 bound for San Francisco for the Office 2.0 conference. I will attempt to blog from the conference as my own little part of the experiment. We are being issued with Apple iPhones, as the conference itself is a big web 2.0 technology lab, so I will try to blog from the iPhone rather than the nice HP laptop / tablet convertible (with 6 hour aux. battery !) which the Science Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) have lent me.
Preparing for Office 2.0 conference and doing UAT
Been a busy week of User Acceptance Testing on Documentum, trying to do some longer term planning, and working with a vendor on a "portal experiment" for our Intranet redevelopment. Also getting stuff sorted out for a visit to the Office 2.0 Conference on the 5th Sept. Programme looks really useful from my point of view. If you go to the conference site, note that they are using Jive Softwares Clearspace product for the site - a very interesting product. I have also seen it mentioned this week as a "lightwieght alternative to MS Sharepoint" - an interesting description indeed.
The conference site also has this excellent page of "Office 2.0" resources - which as one commentor noted, is a great learning resource before we even get to the conference.
To be honest, I am not looking forward to the 11.5 hour flights in "cattle class" so it better be good........
The conference site also has this excellent page of "Office 2.0" resources - which as one commentor noted, is a great learning resource before we even get to the conference.
To be honest, I am not looking forward to the 11.5 hour flights in "cattle class" so it better be good........
eRoom versus Sharepoint
There has been some discussion in the blogosphere about EMC’s strategy ref MS Sharepoint (MOSS 2007), the new Documentum integrations with Sharepoint and where eRoom fits into the picture, including a new comparison by Laurence over at Word of Pie, so this is my own take on the whole thing.
OK, firstly, why does EMC’s product strategy seem a little confused on the whole working with Microsoft as a partner, versus competing against Microsoft in the collaboration space ? Well how about because EMC is a very big company, with lots of divisions, and I have to say from bitter personal experience, it occasionally appears that the right hand does not communicate too well with the left hand……. that apart, some will say you can still be both partner and competitor with the same third party in today's complex business environment.
Improve team productivity
- Give users the ability to create and control their own collaborative workspaces. Make it easy for teams to adapt workspaces to the needs of the project - eRoom does this too, with devolved , easy to manage roles based access
- Manage projects more efficiently with the project tsk list template. Visualise task relationships and project status with automated Gantt charts – yep, eRoom provides built in Project Management tool and also has an MS Project “Viewer” which allows users who don’t have a copy of MS Project to view Project files.
- Coordinate teamwork with shared calendars, alerts and notifications. Connect team calendars to the desktop with Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 – eRoom also connects / synchronises calendars and task lists to your Outlook
- Communicate with team members in context using presence and instant messaging – eRoom has IM via its very simple ‘intercom’ tool, or proper integrations to get full IM and presence information.
- Make it easy to include and work with team members from outside the organization – eRoom allows authentication against LDAP sources, or allows an administrator to create accounts directly on the eRoom system – ideal for ad hoc collaboration with external contributors.
Author, review and publish documents
- Use document workspaces to streamline the document creation process – eRoom allows you to do this, and even better if you have eRoom
- Enable disconnected participation with offline support – I admit this one is not so easy with an eRoom !
- Manage the document lifecycle with integrated Enterprise Content Management (ECM) capabilities – see above, but do they mean Sharepoint integrating with other third party ECMS, or is this a rather over-blown description of the ‘document libraries’ feature ?
Streamline people-driven business processes
- Deploy standard site templates to improve common people driven processes like issue tracking – eRooms can be templated
- Drive out process variation with workflow – simple workflow can be achieved in an eRoom, or the eRoom can be part of a tightly integrated process based application when integrated with Content Server.
- Create collaborative applications using integrated application development capabilities – eRoom even uses the same MS technologies, .net and Active Server Pages to achieve this.
Create, capture and share community knowledge
- Broadcast information with blogs and Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
- Capture community knowledge with wikis.
- Encourage dialogue with surveys and discussions.
Finally, in the Documentum D6 universe (coming soon…..) eRoom really becomes a Microsoft .net based interface to the Documentum Content Server system, providing a full integration, so that for instance, all your collaboration objects in the eRoom could be placed under seamless (and invisible to the end user) records management.
Education, education, education.....
I have been thinking about the new re-jig in the UK governments education departments, and if the new arrangements will really help the UK retain a top place in the global economy - and there are links to implementing ECM and information management.
The new structures in UK Government see secondary education seperated from HE and FE, and indeed we now have a Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. Which to me looks like a good grouping. However an ongoing debate here, and no doubt in other nations too, is that over what gets taught in University computing and IT degree's courses, whether its relevant to 'industry' and what role graduate trainee's take within the organisation. Personally I think a lot of the problem is down to short term outlooks from big company's. Whilst many of the major players will have graduate programme's, ever since I have been in the IT space, job adverts have always stiuplated "at least 2 years experience" - there have been letters to the editors of Computing and Computer Weekly bemoaning this fact and whistfully asking where one is supposed to gain this experience for at least 10 to 12 years ! So, I wonder if the DIUS will be able to take a role, alongside bodies like the UK's 'sector skills council's' and the British Computer Society, in dispelling the 'rumour' of a skills crises, by engaging in a dialogue with business, who might find that if they drop the requirement for six of the latest programming languages, they might find a wealth of experienced candidates willing to be trained (and god forbid, but some of them will be over 40......!)
Where does this fit in with ECM ? Well we have always taken the view at the OU that training and education need to be taken very seriously, and we have been able to secure the funding to provide 3 specific training staff, to create bespoke eLearning materials, and to send many techies on the vendors own training programmes. However the new AIIM Information Organisation and Access (IOA) training programme, led me to email budget holding colleagues in many departments suggesting who would benefit from the IOA training, including developers, information management professionals, and those in the computing service who look after the search engine, plus some project managers. The similiarity with education at the national level and the comments above, is that in many organisations, IOA will not be seen holistically as part of the bigger picture, and there could well be a feeling of "we don't need to know that, its not our job". But when information is now the life blood of the enterprise, is that a realistic proposition ???
The new structures in UK Government see secondary education seperated from HE and FE, and indeed we now have a Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. Which to me looks like a good grouping. However an ongoing debate here, and no doubt in other nations too, is that over what gets taught in University computing and IT degree's courses, whether its relevant to 'industry' and what role graduate trainee's take within the organisation. Personally I think a lot of the problem is down to short term outlooks from big company's. Whilst many of the major players will have graduate programme's, ever since I have been in the IT space, job adverts have always stiuplated "at least 2 years experience" - there have been letters to the editors of Computing and Computer Weekly bemoaning this fact and whistfully asking where one is supposed to gain this experience for at least 10 to 12 years ! So, I wonder if the DIUS will be able to take a role, alongside bodies like the UK's 'sector skills council's' and the British Computer Society, in dispelling the 'rumour' of a skills crises, by engaging in a dialogue with business, who might find that if they drop the requirement for six of the latest programming languages, they might find a wealth of experienced candidates willing to be trained (and god forbid, but some of them will be over 40......!)
Where does this fit in with ECM ? Well we have always taken the view at the OU that training and education need to be taken very seriously, and we have been able to secure the funding to provide 3 specific training staff, to create bespoke eLearning materials, and to send many techies on the vendors own training programmes. However the new AIIM Information Organisation and Access (IOA) training programme, led me to email budget holding colleagues in many departments suggesting who would benefit from the IOA training, including developers, information management professionals, and those in the computing service who look after the search engine, plus some project managers. The similiarity with education at the national level and the comments above, is that in many organisations, IOA will not be seen holistically as part of the bigger picture, and there could well be a feeling of "we don't need to know that, its not our job". But when information is now the life blood of the enterprise, is that a realistic proposition ???
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