Digital Landfill

I'd like to identify 5 guest bloggers to flesh out an 8 point "how-to" guide for each of the facets of mobility and mobile content listed below.

Here are the terms and conditions.

• Prior approval if I later string these together into a short e-book.
• No company pimping.
• Between 1000 and 1500 words.
• OK to be clever.
• Would like these done by Feb 22 so I can start releasing them 1 per week after that.
• Keep to the 8 point format.
• The emphasis should be on coming up with a short list of actions for users that answer the HOW do I do this question?, not the WHAT is this? question.

Here are the 5 "how-to" articles I would like to build out.

1. Making your enterprise information available from anywhere at anytime – How do I leverage cloud technologies to mobilize information?
2. Automating business processes – How do I start automating core back-end business systems (e.g., finance, HR, contracts)?
3. Reducing costs with consumer technologies - How do I tap into the cost and productivity advantages of BYOD without losing control?
4. Connecting people and content - How do I use social technologies to actually drive process change rather than just provide a “Facebook for the enterprise?”
5. Distributed capture - How do I use mobile devices, MFPs, and small scanners to push capture closer and closer to the point of content origination?

Let me know if you have any questions or what to sign up for one -- .

-----

And while I'm thinking about it, TOMORROW is the early bird deadline for AIIM13.  Sign up now.

See also my related post, 16 things you need to know about processes, the cloud, and mobile...

8 recommendations to get started on your own Process Revolution -- From  Process Revolution - Moving Your Business from Paper to PCs to Tablets -- free download...

1. Audit your processes to see where paper slows throughput, adds process steps, or restricts transparency and reporting.
2. In particular, examine your customer (or supplier or staff) response mechanisms to see if physical mailings or paper processing are slowing things down, restricting visibility, or paralleling electronic communications paths.  
3. Look at how physical handling of incoming mail site-by-site might better be centralized, processed in higher volume, and distributed electronically.
4. If you are already using scanning, consider how much “closer to the door” you could be going electronic, and how that might transform who does the subsequent processing and where they might be located.
5. Evaluate the latest technology for capturing data from forms and invoices, and look to process a higher proportion of your documents automatically.
6. Aim to scan documents or capture data as close to the source as possible – in the branch office, on the shop floor, in the field or at the customer’s premises.
7. Brainstorm how the capabilities of modern mobile devices – portable scanners, smartphones, tablets and specialist devices – could transform your processes by eliminating elapsed time, lost forms, poor data, and re-keying.
8. Audit all of your processes that involve input from non-office staff, or suppliers or partners, to see how downstream process steps might be eliminated if they could interface directly to the process.

Have you download your free copy of my #OccupyIT Manifesto?

Sign up for our free Boot Camp - 5 Steps to Victory Over Manual Processes.

This is a guest post by Sanjay Bhatia.  Sanjay is the founder and CEO of Izenda. Prior to founding Izenda, Mr. Bhatia worked in engineering and consulting positions at Radiant Systems, Trilogy and Microsoft. Even though Sanjay has provided only 7 reasons vs. my normal "8 things," he assures me that there is 1/7th more content per reason.

-----

In many cases, hundreds of millions of records can be handled with split-second response times; especially when dealing with aggregate queries on modern hardware.  But today, a considerable number of organizations are clinging to 90s ETL technology.

ETL seems to be an addiction for IT organizations because they still consider millions of records a lot of data. But having more memory than data may allow for these organizations to have their cake and eat it too. And today, getting to this point is dirt-cheap.

This may be a little controversial, but I believe that too many companies are falling for the lies about how transactional databases have millions of records and can’t handle the load. As an IT community, let’s eliminate the idea that the users have to put up with a batch process that makes it so they don’t know the outcome of their system interactions for a day (or even a month) later.

Today’s technologists are fortunate to have access to powerful, yet surprisingly affordable, hardware that would have been considered “supercomputers” ten years ago.  This is obviously a good thing! Here are seven reasons to break the ETL addiction.

1 -- ETL is Just Too Hard.

Existing ETL tools make easy things hard. People lucky enough to never have experienced an ETL project, make the assumption that there is a magic "copy the database button.”  We have four databases, let's just "copy" them to a big one every night.

2 -- Database Growth Exceeds Storage Performance.

While databases are getting faster and SSD gives a great boost to random access, data growth is rapidly exceeding performance. This trend stems from basic storage technology.  A company now can purchase several gigabytes of storage for $1.  Indeed, even laptops are shipping with terabyte drives.  There is no reason to assume this trend will stop anytime soon. 

Real-world data transfer speeds, especially over a network, are growing at a much slower pace.  This means that creating a backup of the database will take longer and longer until it borders on the ridiculous.  Moving a gigabyte over 100 BaseT takes 100 seconds.  Moving a terabyte takes 10,000 seconds or 3 hours.  (This is theoretical performance and assumes the network isn't doing anything else.)

In a real-word scenario on an active network with lots of users, this could take all day.  Sure, you could get better networking but that is a temporary Band-Aid.  As data volumes continue to grow, ETL technologies will have to spend more than 24 hours copying data.

3 -- There is No Such Thing as “Down Time” Anymore.

Typically, ETL tools would be scheduled around midnight during supposedly idle down time. What if you have people that access the system from California after-hours?  What if some of these people are in offices in different time zones?

Your midnight could well be the middle of the day in Asia, and you may have suppliers there that need access to your applications and data.  Should they suffer bad performance so that the executives in New York can get their dashboard in the morning?

4 -- Scarcity of IT Resources Makes ETL Maintenance a Nightmare.

So you hired a DBA to setup the ETL, but they have average turnover rate of 75%.  Are they going to be available when the sales department adds new fields to the database to do marketing automation?

 Since ETL scripts are often very difficult decipher, are you really going to invest the few days it will take someone new to figure out how the old scripts work and update them? Isn't there some "automatically add new fields" feature?  The answer is no.  This assumes you have the luxury of a spare DBA.  If not, it could take months to hire one; especially for a short-term project as DBA’s prefer longer assignments and the demand is there.

5 -- Real-Time is a Requirement Now.

Social media applications have trained billions of people on informing them what's happening, at the time it  happens. Yesterday's data is like yesterday's news.  Your customers expect to be able to change their data and see the results in their dashboard immediately.  Sometimes this requires fixing bad data and sometimes this is a critical operational problem that needs immediate attention.

Would you want a 911 operator to put your information into a queue and send it to responders the next day?  No. The same holds true for all critical data.

6 -- 64-Bit Quad-Corer with 16 Gigabytes of Memory Now Cost Under $2000.

If your company is like most organizations your database now fits in system memory of a commodity server.  In contrast, DBAs cost over $100 an hour and won’t tell you that $100 worth of memory may be a better investment than hiring them.  Upgrading to such a server and utilizing a platform to give users access to that now lightning-fast data, could be just what you need to ensure the company stays very happy.

7 -- Data Virtualization Enables Joining and Merging Data without Moving It.

You no longer have to copy data over to work with different sources at the same time.  Data virtualization technologies available today let users enjoy the benefits of interactive dashboards that consume data from various places; like relational databases, web services and CSV files all with one simple user experience that simulates having the data in one place.

[As is the case with our 5 myths series, the opinions expressed in the 8 things guest columns are those of the guest contributor and not necessarily mine or AIIM's.  This guest post was prepared by Matthew Jackson from Penny Imaging Exchange. ]

1 -- It’s safer than you think.

When transferring massive amounts of important documents onto virtual servers, security is a common concern. A ‘cloud’ doesn’t sound safe—it sounds like anyone can reach inside and take what they want. 

 People think that since something so intangible can’t be impenetrable, on-site servers are a smaller risk. You can see them, touch them, and put padlocks on them. What could be more secure?

 Cloud networks, for one. The fact is that their security measures frequently surpass those of traditional corporate infrastructure. Just because you don’t see where your information’s going doesn’t make life in the clouds any more dangerous: virtual servers can be just as safe as physical ones—and often safer. 

2 -- It’s more flexible than you think.

Cloud platforms grant you scalability, which translates to flexibility, efficiency, and ultimately less expense. When you need more capacity, you get more, and when you need less, you get less—and you pay only for what you get. 

Imagine a world where every business needed its own power supply. Instead of getting electricity from the city infrastructure, your building would have its own generator, with all the headaches that come with it. You’ll need a place to put the generator (which will be big and noisy), you’ll need someone to run it, and you’ll also need to regularly buy parts and fuel. You’ll also have to manage periodic upgrades. Sound familiar?

And forget about scalability: your generator’s only going to produce as much power as it was designed to. If there are times when you don’t need so much capacity—or, worse, times when you need more capacity—there’s really nothing you can do.

It makes sense for electricity to be a utility. So does computing. Any cloud network will be far more responsive to your needs than a traditional in-house server. It’ll save you time, aggravation—and money. 

3 -- It means more freedom for everyone.

Cloud technology tears down barriers. It makes no difference whether they’re barriers in distance or time: using a cloud to its fullest flexibility, you can store and transmit data from servers scattered around the globe. That is, the servers will usually be in your region, but they can be in other countries if you like. At the same time, these servers will act as the edge locations for your end-users. This saves everyone’s time. It also improves latency and security

Integrating yourself into a global server network through the cloud will boost communications and allow you to better manage and control your business.

4 -- It gives you the power to make worlds.

Thanks to advances in technology, you can now use the cloud as an extension of your current network, creating your own private virtual cloud where you have full control on the creation of subnets, enhanced control over the security configuration of network gateways, and more.

The cloud becomes the glue holding your organization together. However, instead of stiffening up, your organization will have more freedom, more flexibility, and more control over the resources within your cloud.

5 -- It’s robust.

Some people worry that files on the cloud will be lost if servers go down. At the very least, they think, the information will be inaccessible for some time. Neither is the case, actually, and with all the features built into the cloud platform, it’s really the safest and most reliable way to store your documents.

Cloud systems give you the ability to store your files redundantly, making them 400 times safer than if they were on a disk drive in an on-site server. In addition, you can also store your documents on multiple servers in different areas, which protects you from a power outage in any one location and automatically replaces any failing nodes.

Using these strategies, your files on the cloud will always be safe and accessible virtually all of the time.

6 -- It’s safer than you think, again.

Putting sensitive documents on the cloud will become increasingly popular. For things like medical records and government contracts, cloud providers employ state-of-the-art security features. These include firewalls, multifactor identification, SSH Keys, Identity and Access Management, and security groups. In this case, the flexibility of cloud systems translates to quick responses—they can and will upgrade their defenses as soon as upgrades become available.

When creating a virtual private network, taking full advantage of the cloud’s capabilities will grant you additional security so heavy it easily meets the standards of the U.S. departments of State, Energy, Agriculture, and Treasury.

7 -- It takes you out of the box.

Some people might not like the idea of using the cloud as a foundation for new applications. Again, that’s just a trick of the langue: cloud systems aren’t as stable as on-site systems—they’re even more stable. 

Plus, with clouds you don’t have to tear down the foundations every time you change something. No longer will you have to put up with the limitations of standardized software: now you’re free to create custom applications and complex workflows that bend to your needs, instead of the other way around.

8 -- It’s here to stay.

More and more companies are adopting the cloud for all the above reasons. Increasing numbers of people are attracted to its security, its scalability, and its transforming effect on business. 

Cloud systems provide cost-effective solutions that save you money on equipment, service contracts, personnel, and electricity. Putting all your information on the cloud may seem like a big leap, but that’s the way the wind is blowing. The revolution has begun, the IT industry is changing, and so must you. Now is the time to jump into the cloud.

-----

About the author:  Matthew Jackson—as a Custom Cloud Designer for Penny Imaging Exchange—creates custom-branded and hosted cloud-based workflow solutions. Penny Imaging has more than 25 years of industry experience and is committed to creating mutually beneficial relationships. You can continue this discussion at http://complexworkflow.com/forum/.

 -----

More on cloud computing… 

What the heck is AIIM up to re Information Certification?

One of the things I talk about during my presentations is that will capture is a mature technology (i.e., it actually works as advertised), the capture market is still relatively immature. Specifically, while a relatively high percentage of user organizations are scanning to archive, relatively few are extracting data from images to doing indexing or metadata, even fewer are extracting data to drive processes, and still fewer have a true enterprise capture strategy.

These themes were reinforced by the recent AIIM white paper, Capturing Data to Multiple Business Processes - What's holding you back? 

Check it the major conclusions.

1 -- Opportunities for document capture remain strong.

Within organizations surveyed, 23% do not have a formal mechanism for systematic scanning and capture, and a further 20% are primarily scanning-toarchive. 55% are primarily scanning-to-process. 

2 -- Benefits of archive scanning are well acknowledged.

62% of respondents agree that they have made very real storage cost savings from their scan-to-archive project, and 71% also agree that they have achieved much improved response times and better customer service.

3 -- Scan-to-Process ROI is strong.

62% of scan-to-process projects equalled or improved on the expected return-on-investment payback period through greater productivity.

4 -- There is considerable scope for capture-enabling more processes.

40% of organizations have 3 or less processes capture-enabled. 

5 -- Users are keen to expand use.

60% of existing users are very keen to expand their capture system utilization.

6 -- Lack of awareness is holding things back.

The main reason respondents are not capture-enabling more processes is a lack of IT resource, and next is the lack of awareness among process owners. 

7 -- Capture platforms make integrations easier.

The majority of respondents felt that IT resource issues and technical issues would be eased considerably if they had a common capture platform with standardized data integrations. 

8 -- Capture is considered to be a vital part of business processes.

When describing the importance of capture to their business processes, 28% consider it to be a “Crucial component” and a further 36% consider it to be a “Key enabler”.