Another Opening, Another Show: AIIM 2009 Surprisingly Bright

Returnees from the just-concluded AIIM show in Philadelphia – sorry, the Info360 event – likely are feeling more positive about what they experienced than they thought they would when they first arrived.

Weeks of bad financial news, slowing sales, and pressure to economize on travel no doubt left them feeling less than exuberant about the state of the ECM industry. But if their reactions were anything like mine, they came home feeling cautiously optimistic.

Don’t get me wrong: it wasn’t as if the show floor and conference corridors were so packed that one couldn’t elbow one’s way into the room. But my session was full and its attendees fully engaged, and most of the vendors I spoke with indicated that the traffic in their booths at least was steady, if low level. So interest appears to remain keen, at least for a certain core audience, and in enough volume to sustain a certain level business in the months ahead.

Perhaps the biggest difference this year over the past several was a discernable shift of focus away from quote-unquote ‘content management solutions’ toward one on implementation tools and strategies. Data transformation, interoperability, and consulting services were as evident as imaging, ECM, and workflow systems on the floor and in the sessions, and the prevailing attitude seemed to be less the historical “what’s it do” than a new “git ’er done” (with apologies to Larry the Cable Guy).

No doubt, this reflects the unavoidable economic realities that are compelling organizations to cut costs wherever possible. “The faster we can put something in,” the thinking goes, “the faster we can reap the benefits.” As a result, SaaS had more of a tangible presence than ever before (at least as a talking point, if not an actual option), and social networking was, of course, at the top of everyone’s list – even if they couldn’t tell a Twitter from a LinkedIn from a Lincoln Log.

Broadly speaking, one of the more important discoveries may have been that we can now – finally! – speak in polite company about the notion of managing content for the purpose of delivering it to someone, somewhere, for some specific purpose. Until this point, content and output management have been considered such separate disciplines that any attempt to characterize them as occupying opposite ends of a single macro process was met with blank stares and the Scooby-Do head tilt.

Even now, it’s not that the two sides of this week’s event (AIIM centered on content and OnDemand on output) are going to be unified any time soon. But the conversations can now be held, and that, to me, is a big bright spot, for it represents the first step toward automating processes on a true enterprise basis.

How about you? What did you see that floated your boat? The conversation continues with you.

– Steve Weissman