Week 6a Article Summary

Now for the second part of the reading for this week. I’m taking a little different approach based on the blog questions posed and the length of the articles. I’m just going to answer the questions posed. The headings of the articles are bold, the questions are in italics, and the answers are normal.

The Chaos of Content

List 3 sources of tension between IT and the user community, in terms of enterprise content management.
o Centralize vs. Empower (IT vs. Business)
o Simplify vs. Access (IT vs. Business)
o Manage vs. Leverage (IT vs. Business)

Unlock the Value of Content to Maximize Online Business Performance

Getting the right content, to the right person, is a popular KM phrase.

How can better content enable enterprises to optimize the customer experience?

o Strengthen customer loyalty.
o Achieve unified brands, messages and corporate image.
o Accelerate worldwide product launches and promotions.
o Optimize customer process efficiencies.
o Provide regulatory compliance and security.

Content Management vs. Knowledge Management

The article mentions some differences between CM and KM. Which of these terms describe CM, and which describe KM?
o Capture - KM
o Create - CM
o Route - KM
o Manage - CM
o Convert - KM
o Publish - CM

Is CM or KM bigger in scope, i.e. does one belong under the other’s umbrella KM?

o KM is bigger, more frequent, and more fluid than CM
o CM belongs under the umbrella of KM

Managing Email Overload: The Smart, Secure and Legal Way

Name 3 drivers that dictate what an email management solution must do.

o Corporate Records for regulatory compliance and legal discovery
o Email growth as an IT headache
o Source of business critical information

Name 5 requirements of any email management solution.

o Retain messages in compliance with regulations and corporate policies;
o Provide a highly scalable repository able to keep pace with email volume growth and long retention periods to aggregate billions of email messages;
o Facilitate searching as required for legal discovery;
o Improve system performance and reliability; and
o Integrate email with other corporate records and content.

What are some consequences of not having an email management system?

o Overloaded servers will degrade performance
o Users will have limits
o Expenses for non-compliance related to legal discovery and regulatory requests
o Information that could be shared is lost

Today's Search: All The Power. No Pain.

What are some criteria for evaluating an enterprise search solution?

Information location (multiple repositories), data formats, speed needed to search, need to change the user interface, training time, ability to export data, support, and implentation time.

The Emerging Role of SharePoint in ECM

Do you think SharePoint is a good choice for students to search a discussion forum on COLWeb? Why or why not?

No, the cost is very high for one reason. Additionally, as the article suggests, it is not easily integrated with other applications and requirements for the COLWeb would likely not work out of the box. Sharepoint is also better suited for a large number of documents or forums rather than a sub-system.

Top Five Reasons to Outsource Document Capture

Name the “top five reasons to outsource your document capture project”.

1. Focus on your organization’s core business processes;
2. Improve service levels to clients and reduce transaction costs at the same time;
3. Faster and more secure implementation of compliance and discovery initiatives;
4. Providing near-term cost savings while avoiding technological obsolescence; and
5. Cost-effective disaster recovery.

Will Your Next CMS Scale to Meet Your Demands?

Is content management something you buy, or something you do? Explain.

CM is something you do because it is the process of managing information for you and your customers. The technology that administers CM will come and go, but the managing information is something at you must always do.

The Value of SharePoint-Based ECM Solutions

What are the key chunks of functionality that an enterprise content management system should have?

Document scanning, imaging, report management, business process management, content lifecycles, unified policy administration, central audit logging, reporting and intelligent content organization

How to Correct Your Organization’s Content Myopia

What is the best approach to transforming these business areas with Enterprise Content Management (ECM)?

o Accounts payable - Document Management - streamline and automate related processes—everything from the receipt of invoices and supporting documents through approval and archiving—while ensuring compliance with government regulations and company policies.
o Contract management - Workflow - control and accelerate the contract process from authoring and approvals to execution.
o Client engagement - Collaborate on Projects Real-time - provide secure, central,Web-based workspaces that enable collaboration across projects and around the globe.
o Compliance - enforce government regulations and company policies enterprisewide so content remains complete, accurate and secure.
o New product development - support real-time decision making and reduce time-to-market by facilitating global collaboration.
o Enterprise marketing - overcome the many challenges posed by today’s global marketplace. With the right approach, you can streamline the marketing process and provide seamless access to marketing content. Coordinate campaigns, product launches and ongoing branding and marketing communications. Keep projects on track, reduce overall costs and exert greater control over brand assets using media repositories, creative workflows and virtual workspaces.

Widgets, Wizzbangs and Whoozits

New functionality on your web site should be in alignment with your company's business model.

Give an example of when a discussion forum might not be a good idea on a website.

When it is anticipated that customers may have negative feedback due to turnover or negative experiences.

Is On-Demand Content Management Right for You?

In a few paragraphs, explain when SaaS would be an appropriate alternative for content management?

A SaaS would be a good option if you need much functionality that is not easily found in COTS software. Features such as fax functionality, OCR, and workflow make SaaS a viable option.

Also, if time to market is short, Saas solutions only need to be configured and not implemented. This can be days rather than months. Trial periods can give users the feel without any customizations.

If cost is a concern, SaaS is usually a monthly fee. Costly up-front development costs are avoided and total ownership cost is lower.

If the needs of the business are rapidly changing, SaaS does not require upgrades and new functionality is automatically delivered. The user can decide with updates to take from the SaaS.

Finally, if most of your needs (80%) can be met with a SaaS, then it is likely a good idea. The remaining 20% can be usually be configured.

Feedback on this exercise.

Most of the questions did capture the heart of the articles, but it was a lot of work with the other articles. I did enjoy the articles especially the first one. Personally, I like less struture in the blogs, but this was a good way to get through a lot of material more quickly.