Digital Landfill

A very stimulating discussion on the Future of ECM and RM at our Chicago chapter...

The panelists were...

• Jason Bullock – SharePoint Technical Specialist - Microsoft
• Shahid Rashid - Product Management, Director - Oracle ECM
• Tom Reding, CRM - Practice Director for Compliance & eDiscovery - DAYHUFF Group
• Doug Magnuson – Leader of the ILG Subject Matter Expert team - IBM
• Joe Shepley - VP and Practice Lead in ECM – Doculabs

I wish I had recorded the conversation (note for future reference!), but thanks to intrepid Tweeters  and you can get a bit of a feel for the conversation (do them a favor and follow them). Here is a sample of their commentary...

• Is RM just about protecting "bad" people or is the driver storage reduction? <-- why can't it be both?
• Records management is the "peas in the mashed potatoes". No one cares about RM. Need to get better at selling value to business. 
• Still, isn't there a role for document mgmt in open-source collaboration? To do good? Must balance "CYA" with technology's benefit. 
• e20 retention isn't an issue of the tools its about the process.
• What is advance case management? Business process management for knowledge workers.
• Comment: Wikileaks will have a big impact on content management - and F500 companies are scrambling to classify sensitive info. 
• The E in ECM is about transforming business function not about technology.
• Lots of concerns about retention around #e20 but not a lot of discussion by vendors on this topic.
• Whoa! Panelist says 17% of IT budget, on average, goes to data storage! 
• Laugh in the room in response to "How many of you actually destroy according to your retention schedule?" Point is, no one does. 
• Discussion of social media's impact on records management: how to retain this communication - and more importantly, should you? 
• AIIM survey shows most are immature at capture: image capture (34%), image+text for search/routing (32%).
• AIIM survey shows 45% of companies ban access to social media.
• Scanning is a mature technology but immature market. Only 16% of business using advanced capture.
• Will mobile devices actually increase print? Bigger issue is the proliferation of ECM to mobile.
• Per AIIM survey, 58% of SP users not storing images in the system. 
• Will SMB ditch SP in favor of virtual file cabinets? 
• Content analytic tech will help records managers identify critical records. 
• ACM is key for knowledge worker productivity.
• Do machines or people classify content? IBM says Watson is changing the game. 

It was nice to see the supplier folks let their hair down a bit and move off the marketing scripts andinteract with each other. 

If you are interested in the research that triggered all of this conversation, it's available for free (you do need to register or log in) from AIIM. Here are some of the titles and here is the direct link.

• Capture and Business Process: drivers and experiences of content-driven processes
• E-Discovery and ERM - How is records management performing in the new spotlight
• State of the Industry: Document Management Service Providers 2010
• SharePoint - strategies and experiences
• State of the ECM Industry 2010 - how are user strategies changing to meet the demands of a new decade?
• Content Analytics - research tools for unstructured content and rich media?