Digital Landfill

AIIM Announces New Research and Consulting Operating Unit

Silver Spring, MD – May 31, 2007 - AIIM, the leading non-profit industry association for ECM (Enterprise Content Management), announced the formation of a new operating unit, AIIM Market Intelligence, designed to provide research and consulting services to the users and suppliers of ECM (Enterprise Content Management) technologies.

According to AIIM President John Mancini, “AIIM Market Intelligence will provide a portfolio of services that will help quantify the impact of ECM technologies on the end user community. The anchor product of this new venture will be a series of industry studies and surveys that will build on our successful Industry Watch (www.aiim.org/industrywatch) program. The new unit will round out the offerings available from AIIM from our other two operating units, AIIM Market Access (focused on helping companies gain visibility and traction in the ECM marketplace) and AIIM Professional Development (focused on training, standards, and communities)

Services to be provided by the AIIM Market Intelligence division include the following:
• Industry Watch Research – four major research studies per year expanding upon AIIM’s current program.
• Custom Industry Research and White Paper Development
• AIIM Talk Radio – regularly scheduled web-based radio talk show on the latest industry trends
• AIIM Podcasts – series of podcasts that will expand on AIIM’s successful “ECM Hot Seat” program
• AIIM Wikipedia – interactive, definitive encyclopedia for the ECM industry
• AIIM Alerts – regular commentary on issues and trends affecting ECM end users
• Business/Technology consulting for end-users and suppliers of information, process, knowledge and innovation management

The AIIM Market Intelligence division will be headed by Carl Frappaolo, a well known industry analyst, consultant and co-founder of Delphi Group. He is a leading authority on the technologies and business practices associated with enterprise content. He has authored hundreds of studies, published four books, and has delivered scores of keynote addresses globally. "We are pleased to have Carl join AIIM to lead this new initiative," stated AIIM President John Mancini. "The time has come to begin a much more rigorous process of quantifying the usage and benefits of content, document, and records technologies, as well extending our reach into the next generation of information management technologies." Frappaolo commented, "I have been a member of the AIIM community for two decades, and am excited by the opportunity to help navigate this community into Enterprise 2.0, utilizing my passion and experience to deliver thought leadership and strategic consulting."

Mr. Frappaolo will be joined in this venture by his longtime colleague Dan Keldsen. Mr. Keldsen was known as the "Guru on the Edge" during his 13 year career at Delphi Group, serving as an analyst, consultant, and Director of IT during that time. He is well versed in the practical and technical issues associated with developing and managing enterprise-wide information systems, covering everything from authoring to rights protection. He has 19 years of experience in Internet use and multimedia technology and has consistently been on the cutting edge of technology utilization and payback. Keldsen stated, "The discussion around ECM is evolving rapidly, and this is a great time for everyone involved to reap significant benefits for their employees, customers and partners. Whether it's the usability and dynamic features from the consumer-oriented Web 2.0 movement, cutting edge computational linguistics powering truly intelligent search systems, or the new integrated and purpose-built systems combining search, knowledge management and collaboration for innovation management or marketing intelligence, these are exciting times. Joining AIIM at this time is a great opportunity to work as part of an enormous community to drive this conversation even further."

Frappaolo and Keldsen noted that core document, records and content technologies are clearly moving into the mainstream. In addition to quantifying the world of ECM, topics currently in their cross hairs include "Enterprise 2.0" (Web 2.0 for the Enterprise), Taxonomy, Enterprise Search, Social Networking, Information Architecture, Content Governance, and Innovation Management.

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About AIIM (www.aiim.org) - The Enterprise Content Management Association
For over 60 years, AIIM has been the leading non-profit organization focused on helping users to understand the challenges associated with managing documents, content, records, and business processes. With 70,000 industry professionals as members, the association is international in scope, independent, implementation-focused, and, as the representative of the entire ECM industry - including users, suppliers, and the channel - acts as the industry's intermediary.

As a neutral and unbiased source of information, AIIM serves the needs of its members and the industry by providing educational opportunities, professional development, strategic consulting, thought leadership, reference and knowledge resources, networking events, and industry advocacy. Visit the ECM Industry Watch BLOG at http://aiim.typepad.com/aiim_blog/.

For more information, contact:

Carl Frappaolo
Vice President, Market Intelligence
AIIM - The ECM Association

Dan Keldsen
Director, Market Intelligence
AIIM - The ECM Association

Beth Mayhew
Director of Marketing
AIIM - The ECM Association

Silver Spring, MD 20910

Our first born graduated last weekend. On Wednesday, he and three friends took off for Southeast Asia. (One observation on how things have changed in the past 35 years from my friend Barry Lurie…Those of our generation did everything they could think of to avoid going to Southeast Asia after college graduation.)

Just before going (advanced planning perhaps being a subject they could have spent a bit more time on in college), they decided to set up a blog. Within just an hour, they had the blog set up. They were posting to it—pictures and text—directly from their cell phones. And they didn’t spend a dime. (For the curious, check out www.travelsinsoutheastasia.blogspot.com.)

It strikes me that this provides a bit of a clue about the kinds of changes that will be sweeping through our organizations as this generation enters the workforce. Massively complex, non-intuitive solutions will not cut it in the decade ahead. Nor will massively expensive solutions.

Anecdotal evidence from end users suggests that the actual cost-per-seat of ECM solutions has shifted by an order of magnitude in the past 24 months. Some of this is a function of a massive expansion in the scope of implementations. Some of this is the price pressure being created by the core content service players and the open source players. But something very fundamental is happening...and it won't go away.

One of the issues facing many organizations as they adopt a more strategic approach to ECM is how to move toward more of a “shared service” model of deploying and paying for ECM services. Many organizations face a “first implementer” problem when it comes to ECM; departments often to try to wait each other out in the hope that some other department can pay for the bulk of the system, and they can then come in at a much lower cost per incremental user. The problem with this approach is that it tends to create an environment in which the “first implementer” creates a much more customized approach than is optimal for the organization as a whole.

In the next five years, ECM will become a shared service in many organizations similar to e-mail. No organization would allow departments to adopt their own e-mail systems independent of the rest of the organization. In the next five years, allowing individual departments to implement their own content and document systems independent of the rest of the organization will seem just as nonsensical.

Before this can happen, more predictable models must be developed to allow organizations to charge back document and content services based on the degree of usage and the complexity of the services required.

Doculabs has done some interesting work on this. Check out some of their thoughts at http://www.doculabs.com/sharedservices/default.htm. This topic was also addressed in our most recent Industry Watch survey.

And if you haven't completed our new Business Process Management survey, it closes on Monday. Go to THIS LINK.

Got a ping from a member with this question...anybody out there come to mind...?

We are an 1100 member architectural/engineering consultant with a dozen domestic offices and nearly as many international. We are at the very front end of a large ECM project that will touch every aspect of our business. (Everything that we sell is a document). We need help from an experienced ECM consultant. Experience with multiple CADD and engineering software systems is essential ­ or at least ability to understand the complexity of ³design model² as document.

Xerox Global Services hosted a discussion at the AIIM On Demand show on e-discovery with a variety of experts. And me too. It was a fun discussion...thought the blog readers might find the podcast of interest...

E-discovery Roundtable Discussion Podcast [47 minutes]
Craig Freeman, vice president, Corporate Litigation Services hosted a compelling discussion on e-discovery rules and challenges at AIIM/On Demand. He was joined by e-discovery experts/bloggers (Dave Cohen, George Dearing, John Mancini, Larry Wescott ), industry analysts (Mike Maziarka, Infotrends; Riley McNulty, IDC; Barry Murphy, Forrester) and press (Ralph Gammon, Document Imaging Report; Paul Boynton, In-House Publications; Matt Kelly, Compliance Week).