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

Not-So-Random Thoughts re the Economy, E-Mail, and Social Networking

Spent some time last week at both an AIIM/New England chapter event (Happy 40th!) and the Gilbane Conference in Boston, and came away with a few distinct impressions:

• The economy may be slumping, but opportunity is everywhere. The difference is that organizations in boom times are more likely to invest in initiatives with longer-term payoff schedules than is the case today. So if you’re seeking a piece of the budget – either as an inside line-of-business executive or an outside product or service provider – you had better be sure your ROI numbers are locked down tight and show a return in less than one year.
  

• Email is losing its effectiveness as a communications tool. Once treasured for its immediacy and ability to reach a specific individual, its value has eroded in the face of proliferating spam, spreading viruses, and the overuse of impersonal bulk messaging. A DM News article earlier this year put a fine point on this by citing a Lyris Inc. ISP Deliverability Study that found nearly 20% permission-based e-mail messages sent to US-based ISPs winds up in recipients’ junk mail folders. So much for it being a medium for one-to-one communications …
  

• Social networking is all the rage … even if few seem ready to embrace it. In this, I was reminded of the early days of the Internet, when Web connectivity was top-of-mind for vendors and users alike, but neither could articulate any practical reason to use it. The good news is that the use of the word “social” suggests people (finally!) are in the center of the technology radar screen, which is where they always should be but too often aren’t. But no one yet really knows how technology – or maybe which technology – can best capture, manage, and repurpose the free-flowing and largely unstructured information that is being shared. The current answer seems to be like the old Life cereal commercial: “Try it, you’ll like it!” and for those with a well-defined audience and purpose, the potential (as before, with the Web) does seem vast.
  

– Steve Weissman