Posted by Mark Brousseau
Enterprise social networking and collaboration tools that perform adequately at a departmental level can demonstrate surprising shortcomings when implemented enterprise wide, according to vendor evaluation research from independent analyst firm Real Story Group (formerly CMS Watch).
Organizations are increasingly attempting to extend pilot collaboration and social software efforts across the enterprise, but IT leaders typically run into unexpected scalability problems. “Functional shortcomings or missing administrative services that don’t crop up in a departmental pilot can provide significant challenges when a customer tries to scale a system enterprise wide,” explains Real Story Group Principal, Tony Byrne.
Real Story Group customer research uncovered significant common shortcomings, including:
... A lack of lifecycle management services, including archiving
... An absence of clustering and multi-instance management services
... Clumsy or non-existent configuration management services and testing environments
... An inability to integrate with enterprise role and group management (entitlements) systems
... User interfaces that are not internationalized or localized
“Not every vendor suffers from all of these weaknesses,” notes Real Story Group Analyst Adriaan Bloem, “but even the most platform-like offerings from the likes of Microsoft and IBM can come up short in one or more areas – much to the surprise of the customer assuming that a tool was explicitly designed for large-scale deployment.”
“Customers should remember that many of these products matured in departmental environments,” counsels Byrne, “so in addition to investing in essential governance, adoption, and education programs, organizations that must support enterprise-wide collaboration and networking should carefully simulate large-scale conditions before committing to any single vendor.”
What do you think?
Showing posts with label forms processing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forms processing. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
The OIT booth at ARMA 2010
Jim Thumma (left), vice president of sales and marketing for Optical Image Technology, Inc. (OIT), and Vijay Magon, technical director for ccube solutions, in the OIT booth at ARMA 2010 in San Francisco.
ibml's booth at ARMA 2010
ibml's booth at ARMA 2010 this week in San Francisco. ibml was demonstrating its ImageTrac Lite scanner at the conference.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
SharePoint and eDiscovery Readiness
Posted by Mark Brousseau
When it comes to eDiscovery readiness, getting involved in their organization’s SharePoint initiatives should be a top priority for records managers, Martin Tuip, senior technical product marketing manager, Iron Mountain Digital, said during a presentation today at the ARMA Annual Conference in San Francisco.
SharePoint broke the $1 billion revenue mark last year, and has continued to rise past that total this year, making it the hottest-selling server-side product ever for Microsoft, Tuip said, adding that many organizations are planning to deploy SharePoint 2010 or have already done so.
“But the problem at many organizations is that SharePoint initiatives are being driven by IT, without much involvement from records managers. IT and records managers need each other,” Tuip said. “All of the content in SharePoint might have to retained, depending on your business.”
“From a legal perspective, eventually you will have a matter that will require information out of SharePoint. Those lawsuits will eventually come,” Tuip predicted. “Export functionality is available in SharePoint, but in an extremely limited fashion.” Records managers need to be proactive about working with their IT team to prepare for these inevitable eDiscovery actions, Tuip explained.
“You know that this is coming down the line,” Tuip said.
The first step in implementing SharePoint governance, Tuip said, is to determine what is going to be a vital record for your organization. Then get IT involved in setting the governance standards and determining how to implement them. Organizations can leverage their existing infrastructure to provide for seamless retention of SharePoint content, or “pick a new product that can assist with all of your retention concerns,” Tuip said. He warned that, “eDiscovery is risky. The problem with eDiscovery is that content hides in multiple places. That’s why organizations need an eDiscovery application that provides comprehensive enterprise-wide search queries of the most requested ESI types. A proper eDiscovery application can significantly reduce the collection time associated with lawsuits.”
Tuip concluded: “I love SharePoint. I think that it’s a phenomenal solution. But records managers need to understand that it doesn’t have eDiscovery capabilities, and they’ll have to work with IT to determine how to deal with that.”
What do you think?
When it comes to eDiscovery readiness, getting involved in their organization’s SharePoint initiatives should be a top priority for records managers, Martin Tuip, senior technical product marketing manager, Iron Mountain Digital, said during a presentation today at the ARMA Annual Conference in San Francisco.
SharePoint broke the $1 billion revenue mark last year, and has continued to rise past that total this year, making it the hottest-selling server-side product ever for Microsoft, Tuip said, adding that many organizations are planning to deploy SharePoint 2010 or have already done so.
“But the problem at many organizations is that SharePoint initiatives are being driven by IT, without much involvement from records managers. IT and records managers need each other,” Tuip said. “All of the content in SharePoint might have to retained, depending on your business.”
“From a legal perspective, eventually you will have a matter that will require information out of SharePoint. Those lawsuits will eventually come,” Tuip predicted. “Export functionality is available in SharePoint, but in an extremely limited fashion.” Records managers need to be proactive about working with their IT team to prepare for these inevitable eDiscovery actions, Tuip explained.
“You know that this is coming down the line,” Tuip said.
The first step in implementing SharePoint governance, Tuip said, is to determine what is going to be a vital record for your organization. Then get IT involved in setting the governance standards and determining how to implement them. Organizations can leverage their existing infrastructure to provide for seamless retention of SharePoint content, or “pick a new product that can assist with all of your retention concerns,” Tuip said. He warned that, “eDiscovery is risky. The problem with eDiscovery is that content hides in multiple places. That’s why organizations need an eDiscovery application that provides comprehensive enterprise-wide search queries of the most requested ESI types. A proper eDiscovery application can significantly reduce the collection time associated with lawsuits.”
Tuip concluded: “I love SharePoint. I think that it’s a phenomenal solution. But records managers need to understand that it doesn’t have eDiscovery capabilities, and they’ll have to work with IT to determine how to deal with that.”
What do you think?
Organizations Ramp-up Records Management Technology Adoption Plans
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Enterprises plan to accelerate records management adoption in 2011, Brian W. Hill, senior analyst, Forrester Research, said today during a presentation at the ARMA Annual Conference in San Francisco.
Sixty-three percent of records management stakeholders plan to expand or roll-out new records management products in 2011, Hill said, citing the results of a study conducted by Forrester Research and ARMA. The key drivers of this growth include the need for organizations to manage a broader array of electronic content, support regulatory requirements, and ease eDiscovery pain.
Hill said records management software spending next year will top $250,000 for 17 percent of respondents to the study by Forrester Research and ARMA. “If you factor in some of the other costs associated with records management – such as change management – the figure is actually quite a bit higher,” Hill added.
While spending on records management solutions is on the upswing, satisfaction rates are declining. Fifteen percent of respondents to the study by Forrester Research and ARMA indicated that they are “very satisfied” with their records management solution – down from 23 percent the year before. “Given the maturity of records management, this is cause for concern,” Hill said, adding that there are a lot of reasons for low satisfaction. “Some of them have to do with technology, but others have to deal with people and processes, such as complex and lengthy deployments and the high costs of software and services,” Hill explained.
Synchronizing eDiscovery, records management and archiving efforts was identified as a challenge by about half of the organizations surveyed. “These handoffs are a big headache for organizations,” Hill noted.
And the problem could get worse. “Records management professionals must recognize that expected storage volumes for records systems are significant and growing fast,” Hill said. “Records management stakeholders expecting more than 50 percent storage growth may need to reset their expectations with those of IT storage stakeholders to ensure that capacity plans are appropriately aligned.”
To improve the likelihood of success for your eDiscovery program, Hill suggested the following seven habits:
Effective habit No. 1: Get executive support and build the right team.
Effective habit No. 2: Stop saving everything.
Effective habit No. 3: Streamline legal hold and look to leverage ‘early case assessment’ applications.
Effective habit No. 4: Focus on a broad array of ESI as part of your legal risk mitigation efforts.
Effective habit No. 5: Seek to rationalize systems and processes that support eDiscovery.
Effective habit No. 6: Strategically plan for global eDiscovery implications.
Effective habit No. 7: Accelerate eDiscovery program formalization.
What do you think?
Enterprises plan to accelerate records management adoption in 2011, Brian W. Hill, senior analyst, Forrester Research, said today during a presentation at the ARMA Annual Conference in San Francisco.
Sixty-three percent of records management stakeholders plan to expand or roll-out new records management products in 2011, Hill said, citing the results of a study conducted by Forrester Research and ARMA. The key drivers of this growth include the need for organizations to manage a broader array of electronic content, support regulatory requirements, and ease eDiscovery pain.
Hill said records management software spending next year will top $250,000 for 17 percent of respondents to the study by Forrester Research and ARMA. “If you factor in some of the other costs associated with records management – such as change management – the figure is actually quite a bit higher,” Hill added.
While spending on records management solutions is on the upswing, satisfaction rates are declining. Fifteen percent of respondents to the study by Forrester Research and ARMA indicated that they are “very satisfied” with their records management solution – down from 23 percent the year before. “Given the maturity of records management, this is cause for concern,” Hill said, adding that there are a lot of reasons for low satisfaction. “Some of them have to do with technology, but others have to deal with people and processes, such as complex and lengthy deployments and the high costs of software and services,” Hill explained.
Synchronizing eDiscovery, records management and archiving efforts was identified as a challenge by about half of the organizations surveyed. “These handoffs are a big headache for organizations,” Hill noted.
And the problem could get worse. “Records management professionals must recognize that expected storage volumes for records systems are significant and growing fast,” Hill said. “Records management stakeholders expecting more than 50 percent storage growth may need to reset their expectations with those of IT storage stakeholders to ensure that capacity plans are appropriately aligned.”
To improve the likelihood of success for your eDiscovery program, Hill suggested the following seven habits:
Effective habit No. 1: Get executive support and build the right team.
Effective habit No. 2: Stop saving everything.
Effective habit No. 3: Streamline legal hold and look to leverage ‘early case assessment’ applications.
Effective habit No. 4: Focus on a broad array of ESI as part of your legal risk mitigation efforts.
Effective habit No. 5: Seek to rationalize systems and processes that support eDiscovery.
Effective habit No. 6: Strategically plan for global eDiscovery implications.
Effective habit No. 7: Accelerate eDiscovery program formalization.
What do you think?
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Social Nation Building Done Right
Posted by Mark Brousseau
When social media first came on the scene, companies couldn't wait to get on board with the new trend, because they saw it as a way to expand their brands and grow their businesses—and, of course, they had high hopes for return on investment. Now, fast-forward several years. Today, many of these same companies have hired employees devoted to using social technologies but are now faced with answering the all-important question, Now what?
"There's no denying that social networking has worked for some companies and been a flat-out flop for others," asserts Barry Libert, author of the new book Social Nation: How to Harness the Power of Social Media to Attract Customers, Motivate Employees, and Grow Your Business. "Most companies are confused about what social networking really is and about how to successfully leverage it.
"The good news," he continues, "is that these companies don't have to give up their goal of building a successful 'Social Nation,' as I call it. They simply have to change the way they think about it and develop effective strategies. Primarily, they have to learn it's not about technology, as is commonly assumed...it's about community."
Libert knows what he's talking about. After all, he's the chairman and CEO of Mzinga, a company that provides social software to businesses. Quite literally, it's his job to be social media savvy. And he's adamant that before you start building your own Social Nation, you need to have a well-researched game plan. In fact, it's that knowledge, gathered through years of Mzinga's real-world experience, that prompted him to write Social Nation, a sort of social networking best practices manual.
"There's no denying that people know how to use tools like Facebook and Twitter—they just do it to no avail," Libert explains. "What they should be doing is focusing their attention on their customers, partners, and employees. Listening, acknowledging, connecting, and rewarding these people—and implementing what they have to say. I can't stress enough that social networking isn't about accumulating followers for the sake of having them—it's about building a community that brings real value and true ROI to your company."
It almost sounds too simple—but when faced with skepticism, Libert points out that a focus on building community spelled success for his company's clients long before the advent of Facebook. To date, Mzinga has worked with hundreds of companies to manage a total of 2.5 billion interactions a month through online communities.
Ready to rethink your own company's social networking strategy and start seeing some real value? Then throw out what you thought you knew about social media and read on to learn what really works in the land of social networking, as explained in Social Nation:
Build your own community. "Social Nation" is a catchy phrase, sure—but what does it really mean? Well, social is the construct of wanting to belong with another, and nation is being part of something that has purpose. Taking that into account, then, your company's social networking goal should be to bring like-minded people together in order to achieve a common purpose.
"It's all about connecting people who need to be connected, allowing them to become a part of your company experience," says Libert. "I've said it before and I'll say it again: Technology is important, but it will never be a substitute for community. If you want to see growth, you've got to develop a social network that helps people grow, engages their minds, satisfies their unmet needs, and connects them to one another."
Don't broadcast but share. Talking to someone whose conversation is constantly "me-me-me" isn't anyone's idea of a good time...and that principle also holds true in the world of social networking. It doesn't matter how frequently you update your company's status or blog about its achievements if you never deliver information that your followers actually want and need to hear.
"Always remember to create and disseminate quality content that helps people make good decisions, improves businesses, and enhances lives," advises Libert. "They want to read about topics that are actionable and applicable—so we always make sure our clients at Mzinga are providing their constituents with information, tools, and tips on subjects that are of interest to them."
Don't be a guest in someone else's home. Think about the differences between a house and a home. A house is only a structure—but a home is a place where you feel like you belong. That, Libert insists, is the difference between joining random social media sites for the sake of doing it and embracing and building a truly social business.
Realize that might does not make right. Just as your company should avoid disseminating "me-me-me" information via social networking, it should also avoid dominating the conversation. And make no mistake—a symbiotic two-way conversation is exactly what's going on here. A successful Social Nation always lets its community be part of telling the story, from start to finish. Look at it this way: Employees, customers, and partners are essentially volunteering their time and energy to serve as developers, sounding boards, and advertisements for your company. They want to belong—so let them, and listen to them.
"Recently, a company came to me and asked what they needed to do to become the leader in their industry," Libert recounts. "The first thing they had to do, I told them, was to stop trying to 'lead' everything! Instead, make it your goal to be the definitive 'community.' This will draw people in, and it will turn them into raving fans."
Social Nation tells the stories of companies that have embraced this shift to more open, social business models in substantive ways, forging new paths to workplace collaboration, product development, customer relationship management, brand loyalty, innovation, and profitability.
"What businesses should be doing is focusing their attention not on social media itself, but on how they can use it as a channel in every facet of their business to establish the genuine connections that are increasingly becoming the new path to profitability," says Libert. "As a business leader today, your job is to make sure these things happen, and I believe Social Nation can help you get there."
What do you think?
When social media first came on the scene, companies couldn't wait to get on board with the new trend, because they saw it as a way to expand their brands and grow their businesses—and, of course, they had high hopes for return on investment. Now, fast-forward several years. Today, many of these same companies have hired employees devoted to using social technologies but are now faced with answering the all-important question, Now what?
"There's no denying that social networking has worked for some companies and been a flat-out flop for others," asserts Barry Libert, author of the new book Social Nation: How to Harness the Power of Social Media to Attract Customers, Motivate Employees, and Grow Your Business. "Most companies are confused about what social networking really is and about how to successfully leverage it.
"The good news," he continues, "is that these companies don't have to give up their goal of building a successful 'Social Nation,' as I call it. They simply have to change the way they think about it and develop effective strategies. Primarily, they have to learn it's not about technology, as is commonly assumed...it's about community."
Libert knows what he's talking about. After all, he's the chairman and CEO of Mzinga, a company that provides social software to businesses. Quite literally, it's his job to be social media savvy. And he's adamant that before you start building your own Social Nation, you need to have a well-researched game plan. In fact, it's that knowledge, gathered through years of Mzinga's real-world experience, that prompted him to write Social Nation, a sort of social networking best practices manual.
"There's no denying that people know how to use tools like Facebook and Twitter—they just do it to no avail," Libert explains. "What they should be doing is focusing their attention on their customers, partners, and employees. Listening, acknowledging, connecting, and rewarding these people—and implementing what they have to say. I can't stress enough that social networking isn't about accumulating followers for the sake of having them—it's about building a community that brings real value and true ROI to your company."
It almost sounds too simple—but when faced with skepticism, Libert points out that a focus on building community spelled success for his company's clients long before the advent of Facebook. To date, Mzinga has worked with hundreds of companies to manage a total of 2.5 billion interactions a month through online communities.
Ready to rethink your own company's social networking strategy and start seeing some real value? Then throw out what you thought you knew about social media and read on to learn what really works in the land of social networking, as explained in Social Nation:
Build your own community. "Social Nation" is a catchy phrase, sure—but what does it really mean? Well, social is the construct of wanting to belong with another, and nation is being part of something that has purpose. Taking that into account, then, your company's social networking goal should be to bring like-minded people together in order to achieve a common purpose.
"It's all about connecting people who need to be connected, allowing them to become a part of your company experience," says Libert. "I've said it before and I'll say it again: Technology is important, but it will never be a substitute for community. If you want to see growth, you've got to develop a social network that helps people grow, engages their minds, satisfies their unmet needs, and connects them to one another."
Don't broadcast but share. Talking to someone whose conversation is constantly "me-me-me" isn't anyone's idea of a good time...and that principle also holds true in the world of social networking. It doesn't matter how frequently you update your company's status or blog about its achievements if you never deliver information that your followers actually want and need to hear.
"Always remember to create and disseminate quality content that helps people make good decisions, improves businesses, and enhances lives," advises Libert. "They want to read about topics that are actionable and applicable—so we always make sure our clients at Mzinga are providing their constituents with information, tools, and tips on subjects that are of interest to them."
Don't be a guest in someone else's home. Think about the differences between a house and a home. A house is only a structure—but a home is a place where you feel like you belong. That, Libert insists, is the difference between joining random social media sites for the sake of doing it and embracing and building a truly social business.
Realize that might does not make right. Just as your company should avoid disseminating "me-me-me" information via social networking, it should also avoid dominating the conversation. And make no mistake—a symbiotic two-way conversation is exactly what's going on here. A successful Social Nation always lets its community be part of telling the story, from start to finish. Look at it this way: Employees, customers, and partners are essentially volunteering their time and energy to serve as developers, sounding boards, and advertisements for your company. They want to belong—so let them, and listen to them.
"Recently, a company came to me and asked what they needed to do to become the leader in their industry," Libert recounts. "The first thing they had to do, I told them, was to stop trying to 'lead' everything! Instead, make it your goal to be the definitive 'community.' This will draw people in, and it will turn them into raving fans."
Social Nation tells the stories of companies that have embraced this shift to more open, social business models in substantive ways, forging new paths to workplace collaboration, product development, customer relationship management, brand loyalty, innovation, and profitability.
"What businesses should be doing is focusing their attention not on social media itself, but on how they can use it as a channel in every facet of their business to establish the genuine connections that are increasingly becoming the new path to profitability," says Libert. "As a business leader today, your job is to make sure these things happen, and I believe Social Nation can help you get there."
What do you think?
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Investment in knowledge workers critical to economic recovery
Posted by Mark Brousseau
One of the keys for economic recovery lies in aggressive investment in Social Business Systems designed to dramatically improve the productivity of middle tier knowledge workers.
That’s according to a new report by AIIM and noted author Geoffrey Moore (Dealing with Darwin, Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game and Living on the Fault Line).
These "Systems of Engagement" enhance the ability of knowledge workers to quickly cooperate with each other in order to improve operating flexibility and customer engagement, the report says.
"We have spent the past several decades of IT investment focused on deploying 'systems of record.' These systems accomplished two important things," notes Moore. "First, they centralized, standardized, and automated business transactions on a global basis, thereby better enabling world trade. Second, they gave top management a global view of the state of the business, thereby better enabling global business management. Spending on the Enterprise Content Management technologies that are at the core of Systems of Record will continue -- and will actually expand as these solutions become more available and relevant to small and mid-sized organizations. However, there is also a new and revolutionary wave of spending emerging on Systems of Engagement -- a wave focused directly on knowledge worker effectiveness and productivity. Social Business Systems are at the heart of Systems of Engagement."
According to AIIM Chair Lynn Fraas, Vice President of Crown Partners, "Social Business Systems provide a means for organizations to build on their investment in content management solutions. Increasingly, Systems of Record have become a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for business success. In the future, organizations will differentiate themselves based on how well they deploy Social Business technologies to improve organizational flexibility and better engage customers. These Social Business technologies are transforming customer engagement through such consumer facing tools as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. They are simultaneously creating new models of employee and partner collaboration, cooperation and conversation within organizations -- models that will eventually replace e-mail as the primary means of internal collaboration."
According to Moore, "The first wave of spending left knowledge workers mostly on their own. We gave our workers laptops, connectivity, email, and the Office suite, and told them to go be more productive. The world of consumer social technology has given our workforces a taste of what is possible beyond this kind of rudimentary e-mail driven collaboration. Given the pressures that global business models are putting on collaboration and coordination across enterprise boundaries, the demand for increased capabilities is escalating rapidly. The implications of this for IT organizations and CIOs are revolutionary -- organizations need to quickly get in front of this curve or they run the risk of getting run over by it. We are on the cusp of a new wave of investment in Social Business Systems that will focus on providing knowledge workers with the tools to collaborate with a business purpose."
"We are not just talking about collaboration for collaboration's sake," concludes AIIM President John F. Mancini. "Nor are we talking about companies tentatively setting up Facebook fan sites or Twitter accounts to appear to be 'social.' We are talking about the strategic deployment of Social Business Systems that can help organizations improve the flexibility and responsiveness of their core processes and be more responsive to customers. As organizations implement these Social Business Systems, they need to meet three criteria: 1) How to do so quickly; 2) How to do so responsibly; and 3) How to do so in a way that achieves a business purpose."
What do you think?
One of the keys for economic recovery lies in aggressive investment in Social Business Systems designed to dramatically improve the productivity of middle tier knowledge workers.
That’s according to a new report by AIIM and noted author Geoffrey Moore (Dealing with Darwin, Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game and Living on the Fault Line).
These "Systems of Engagement" enhance the ability of knowledge workers to quickly cooperate with each other in order to improve operating flexibility and customer engagement, the report says.
"We have spent the past several decades of IT investment focused on deploying 'systems of record.' These systems accomplished two important things," notes Moore. "First, they centralized, standardized, and automated business transactions on a global basis, thereby better enabling world trade. Second, they gave top management a global view of the state of the business, thereby better enabling global business management. Spending on the Enterprise Content Management technologies that are at the core of Systems of Record will continue -- and will actually expand as these solutions become more available and relevant to small and mid-sized organizations. However, there is also a new and revolutionary wave of spending emerging on Systems of Engagement -- a wave focused directly on knowledge worker effectiveness and productivity. Social Business Systems are at the heart of Systems of Engagement."
According to AIIM Chair Lynn Fraas, Vice President of Crown Partners, "Social Business Systems provide a means for organizations to build on their investment in content management solutions. Increasingly, Systems of Record have become a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for business success. In the future, organizations will differentiate themselves based on how well they deploy Social Business technologies to improve organizational flexibility and better engage customers. These Social Business technologies are transforming customer engagement through such consumer facing tools as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. They are simultaneously creating new models of employee and partner collaboration, cooperation and conversation within organizations -- models that will eventually replace e-mail as the primary means of internal collaboration."
According to Moore, "The first wave of spending left knowledge workers mostly on their own. We gave our workers laptops, connectivity, email, and the Office suite, and told them to go be more productive. The world of consumer social technology has given our workforces a taste of what is possible beyond this kind of rudimentary e-mail driven collaboration. Given the pressures that global business models are putting on collaboration and coordination across enterprise boundaries, the demand for increased capabilities is escalating rapidly. The implications of this for IT organizations and CIOs are revolutionary -- organizations need to quickly get in front of this curve or they run the risk of getting run over by it. We are on the cusp of a new wave of investment in Social Business Systems that will focus on providing knowledge workers with the tools to collaborate with a business purpose."
"We are not just talking about collaboration for collaboration's sake," concludes AIIM President John F. Mancini. "Nor are we talking about companies tentatively setting up Facebook fan sites or Twitter accounts to appear to be 'social.' We are talking about the strategic deployment of Social Business Systems that can help organizations improve the flexibility and responsiveness of their core processes and be more responsive to customers. As organizations implement these Social Business Systems, they need to meet three criteria: 1) How to do so quickly; 2) How to do so responsibly; and 3) How to do so in a way that achieves a business purpose."
What do you think?
Friday, September 3, 2010
Meaningful RE-use
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Jim Thumma, vice president of sales and marketing at Optical Image Technology, says insurers can pick up the pace in underwriting, claims and more by re-using data meaningfully:
Recycling is vital as society seeks solutions for sustainable living. For insurers, however, the relevance of recycling lies in reusing valuable information meaningfully. Consider the information you collect from policyholders and others, and how many decisions are contingent on what they supply. How can you extract more value from what you have?
Understanding information value
Technology today is about building bridges so insurers can work efficiently, provide quality service, and compete successfully in a challenging marketplace. Trying to bridge existing gaps in the information flow isn’t new; insurers have discussed it for years. Business process management software tied to ECM is an effective enabler, but technology alone doesn’t guarantee meaningful use. Typically, gaps arise from a failure to understand—and manage—our information and its multiple uses.
Defining meaningful use
To make astute decisions, information must be accurate and timely. Knowledge workers need it whether they’re in the office, traveling, or visiting clients. If you want to capitalize on information value as it’s harvested, it should be captured digitally at the source and shared efficiently everywhere within your business where it could influence processes or outcomes.
Ideally:
Incoming mail, data captured via online forms, and email attachments launch pertinent business processes and advance appropriate actions.
Pertinent policyholder data feeds automatically into billing software as new policies are approved and issued, expediting billing and ensuring accuracy.
Data captured in rules-driven voice mail and faxes launches appropriate business processes.
For information to be worthy of reuse, it must be accurate and readable. Front-end capture makes it instantly useful, restricting human involvement to tasks requiring analytical thinking and decisions. Even the smartest knowledge workers are prone to mistakes when information must be gleaned, copied, or re-keyed.
By implementing rules-driven business process management software as part of your content management strategy, accurate information can be re-used logically, promoting actionable intelligence. Many clients of well-deployed ECM/BPM solutions that re-use meaningful information wisely underwrite upwards of 35% more policies; cut claims turnaround from weeks to days; and handle 30-40% more work using the same staff, increasing profitability significantly.
Discovering where meaning lies
Virtual communication can connect people and processes by enabling the seamless transfer of information to every place it has value. Yet like physical bridges, virtual conduits have requirements that plead to be satisfied. You need to:
... Understand the types of information that flow into your company ― which data is critical, in which business areas, and for which specific decisions.
Know all of the sources where that information is found (email, documents, eForms, faxes, handwritten correspondence, voice mails, images).
... Discover every place within your organization where the information has value.
Identify individuals who require access.
... Ensure the business rules you establish with your enterprise content management (ECM) software reflect your governance policies and controls.
Swift, seamless communication doesn’t happen by accident.
Masterminding meaningful use with BPM and smart integration
Consider the interrelationship between policy administration, claims, and accounts payable in a standard claim submission that is aided by a well-planned ECM and BPM implementation and integrated across all business areas:
Selma, a policyholder, returns from work. Someone has broken into her home, stealing valuable jewelry and small appliances. She contacts her agent to submit a claim.
Agent
· The agent completes the First Notice of Loss (FNOL) and faxes it to the insurer. The fax is imported automatically into the ECM system and key data is used to automatically index the document for immediate, secure retrieval. BPM assigns a unique number to the claim and sends the FNOL to the appropriate reviewer based on information detailing staff roles, current workloads, and schedules.
Claims reviewer
· The assigned reviewer sees the job as the top task in his queue. He clicks on the link to the FNOL and views policyholder’s information, selecting the policy pertinent to the claim. The next click packages the documents and sends them for supervisory review along with the appropriate, automatically generated email message.
Claims supervisor
· The supervisor views the policy via a link in her email. She compares it to the FNOL, verifies the match, and forwards it to the adjuster.
Adjuster
· The adjuster adds relevant photos to the file. He requests police reports. As they arrive, they are imported and indexed. When the file is complete, BPM packages the field survey, images, and reports, linking them to the policy and FNOL, and the folder is returned to the supervisor.
Claims supervisor
· The supervisor receives email notification the claim is ready for final review. She approves it for payment.
Accounting
· Relevant claim information is extracted electronically (name, policy number, contact information, deductible, payment due) and pushed by BPM into the A/P software, ensuring accuracy and expediting payment.
Customer service
· The claimant calls to inquire about the claim’s status. The answering service determines from voice response which claim is in question. The call is routed appropriately. Support views the up-to-date claim status, assuring the customer the check has been sent and providing details.
By integrating policy administration, claims, and billing with ECM and using BPM to orchestrate the flow of information wherever it’s needed according to business rules, Selma’s claim is processed quickly and cost effectively. Work is more efficient. Resources are used wisely. Fewer mistakes are made. The company gains financially and reduces its risk to legal exposure and unhappy clients.
Evaluate your routines
Contrast this with your everyday routines. How many opportunities for meaningful use are overlooked? How much time is wasted? How many customers are underserved? How much money is lost because of inefficiency?
Are the shortcomings acceptable, or are you ready to change?
Take steps toward improvement
Whenever you collect information from applicants, policyholders, staff, or third parties, it likely has value in more than one place. Analyze and understand the value of your business information. Use ECM and BPM to maximize the meaningful use of it. Your business will profit measurably.
What do you think?
Jim Thumma, vice president of sales and marketing at Optical Image Technology, says insurers can pick up the pace in underwriting, claims and more by re-using data meaningfully:
Recycling is vital as society seeks solutions for sustainable living. For insurers, however, the relevance of recycling lies in reusing valuable information meaningfully. Consider the information you collect from policyholders and others, and how many decisions are contingent on what they supply. How can you extract more value from what you have?
Understanding information value
Technology today is about building bridges so insurers can work efficiently, provide quality service, and compete successfully in a challenging marketplace. Trying to bridge existing gaps in the information flow isn’t new; insurers have discussed it for years. Business process management software tied to ECM is an effective enabler, but technology alone doesn’t guarantee meaningful use. Typically, gaps arise from a failure to understand—and manage—our information and its multiple uses.
Defining meaningful use
To make astute decisions, information must be accurate and timely. Knowledge workers need it whether they’re in the office, traveling, or visiting clients. If you want to capitalize on information value as it’s harvested, it should be captured digitally at the source and shared efficiently everywhere within your business where it could influence processes or outcomes.
Ideally:
Incoming mail, data captured via online forms, and email attachments launch pertinent business processes and advance appropriate actions.
Pertinent policyholder data feeds automatically into billing software as new policies are approved and issued, expediting billing and ensuring accuracy.
Data captured in rules-driven voice mail and faxes launches appropriate business processes.
For information to be worthy of reuse, it must be accurate and readable. Front-end capture makes it instantly useful, restricting human involvement to tasks requiring analytical thinking and decisions. Even the smartest knowledge workers are prone to mistakes when information must be gleaned, copied, or re-keyed.
By implementing rules-driven business process management software as part of your content management strategy, accurate information can be re-used logically, promoting actionable intelligence. Many clients of well-deployed ECM/BPM solutions that re-use meaningful information wisely underwrite upwards of 35% more policies; cut claims turnaround from weeks to days; and handle 30-40% more work using the same staff, increasing profitability significantly.
Discovering where meaning lies
Virtual communication can connect people and processes by enabling the seamless transfer of information to every place it has value. Yet like physical bridges, virtual conduits have requirements that plead to be satisfied. You need to:
... Understand the types of information that flow into your company ― which data is critical, in which business areas, and for which specific decisions.
Know all of the sources where that information is found (email, documents, eForms, faxes, handwritten correspondence, voice mails, images).
... Discover every place within your organization where the information has value.
Identify individuals who require access.
... Ensure the business rules you establish with your enterprise content management (ECM) software reflect your governance policies and controls.
Swift, seamless communication doesn’t happen by accident.
Masterminding meaningful use with BPM and smart integration
Consider the interrelationship between policy administration, claims, and accounts payable in a standard claim submission that is aided by a well-planned ECM and BPM implementation and integrated across all business areas:
Selma, a policyholder, returns from work. Someone has broken into her home, stealing valuable jewelry and small appliances. She contacts her agent to submit a claim.
Agent
· The agent completes the First Notice of Loss (FNOL) and faxes it to the insurer. The fax is imported automatically into the ECM system and key data is used to automatically index the document for immediate, secure retrieval. BPM assigns a unique number to the claim and sends the FNOL to the appropriate reviewer based on information detailing staff roles, current workloads, and schedules.
Claims reviewer
· The assigned reviewer sees the job as the top task in his queue. He clicks on the link to the FNOL and views policyholder’s information, selecting the policy pertinent to the claim. The next click packages the documents and sends them for supervisory review along with the appropriate, automatically generated email message.
Claims supervisor
· The supervisor views the policy via a link in her email. She compares it to the FNOL, verifies the match, and forwards it to the adjuster.
Adjuster
· The adjuster adds relevant photos to the file. He requests police reports. As they arrive, they are imported and indexed. When the file is complete, BPM packages the field survey, images, and reports, linking them to the policy and FNOL, and the folder is returned to the supervisor.
Claims supervisor
· The supervisor receives email notification the claim is ready for final review. She approves it for payment.
Accounting
· Relevant claim information is extracted electronically (name, policy number, contact information, deductible, payment due) and pushed by BPM into the A/P software, ensuring accuracy and expediting payment.
Customer service
· The claimant calls to inquire about the claim’s status. The answering service determines from voice response which claim is in question. The call is routed appropriately. Support views the up-to-date claim status, assuring the customer the check has been sent and providing details.
By integrating policy administration, claims, and billing with ECM and using BPM to orchestrate the flow of information wherever it’s needed according to business rules, Selma’s claim is processed quickly and cost effectively. Work is more efficient. Resources are used wisely. Fewer mistakes are made. The company gains financially and reduces its risk to legal exposure and unhappy clients.
Evaluate your routines
Contrast this with your everyday routines. How many opportunities for meaningful use are overlooked? How much time is wasted? How many customers are underserved? How much money is lost because of inefficiency?
Are the shortcomings acceptable, or are you ready to change?
Take steps toward improvement
Whenever you collect information from applicants, policyholders, staff, or third parties, it likely has value in more than one place. Analyze and understand the value of your business information. Use ECM and BPM to maximize the meaningful use of it. Your business will profit measurably.
What do you think?
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Waiting for the LightSwitch to Go On
By Roy Chomko, President, Adage Technologies
Microsoft’s VSLive2010 event was recently held in Orlando, FL. This yearly developer’s event is all about development in the Visual Studio environment, and one of the big announcements this year was the launch date for Visual Studio LightSwitch. LightSwitch is a Rapid Development environment that will allow technical and somewhat-technical people the ability to create light weight Line of Business applications. While many developers don’t think LightSwitch will be useful for creating apps, we think it can be very beneficial to use in the right circumstances. Here are some reasons why.
Right-Sized vs Enterprise Ready
In recent years there has been a growing philosophy that everything needs to be enterprise ready. The prevailing thought is all solutions need to be scalable, flexible, anything-able. While that is true for anything that really does need to be enterprise ready, there are situations where enterprise ready is TOO much. Imagine you are a small start up. You are not focused on enterprise ready. You are focused on getting through your first year. Alternately, you might be an established organization that is considering getting into a new line of business.
Focusing on getting something up and running to let your employees share information in a cost effective way would ensure you are not risking valuable resources (i.e., capital). In today’s economy capital budgets are limited, and in some companies non-existent.
Best of Both Worlds
Traditionally, we have seen tools such as Access, Excel, and more recently SharePoint act as a useful starting point for a low cost prototype. The best thing that can be said of those initial forays in developing Line of Business applications is that usually all of the necessary data points have been identified and that there is a working prototype. We find that having a working prototype when starting an enterprise application development effort is immeasurably helpful.
While Access and Excel solutions do provide value when moving to the next level of maturation, LightSwitch can provide even more. Since LightSwitch can connect to Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle databases, the application can utilize either of those databases during the initial development. LightSwitch also generates an ADO.Net EntityFramework class structure that can be used in the next iteration of development. Finally, the interface is rendered to a Silverlight application.
Recently, we had a customer request a simple application for generating quotes for customers and tracking them in a web format. Taking this use case, we decided to give LightSwitch a go. We were able to build a working prototype for the need within 4 hours, complete with the database tables, class structure, and Silverlight interface. Normally this would have taken close to 40 hours to get to the same point in a traditional web development environment.
Efficiency vs. Maturation
Some people point out that if this right-Sized application is successful that it will need to be rebuilt, usually from the ground up. While this is mostly true, it’s relevant to restate that having a working prototype does reduce the risk (risk = time + money) in starting a new application.
So would it be more efficient to build the enterprise ready version of the application first? The assumption there is that you are going to get the application right the first time. Or that the application will be used for a period of time to recover its ROI. But aren’t those two very big assumptions?
Furthermore, aren’t those two very expensive assumptions?
Also, it’s relevant to say that enterprise software endeavors are never guaranteed successes. We all know the high rate of failure for traditional development, whether it is done using an agile or waterfall approach. As noted in a recent Gartner report, approximately 50% of all features are either never used or rarely used. Why not develop those features inexpensively first and then decide what needs to be in your final application? These are the types of benefits Microsoft’s LightSwitch can provide, making it something to consider moving forward.
Adage Technologies is a Chicago-based web and software development company. In 2001, Roy co-founded Adage Technologies combining a passion for technology and the desire to build a company focused on driving business value through web technology. As President, Roy's energy and customer centric approach have helped to grow Adage to a well respected web and software development firm.
Roy has over 20 years of experience in technology sales, consulting, and development. Prior to founding Adage, Roy was a principle of a Cisco VAR and a web development firm in the late 1990s. Roy has also held business development positions with Wolfram Research and GE Capital.
Microsoft’s VSLive2010 event was recently held in Orlando, FL. This yearly developer’s event is all about development in the Visual Studio environment, and one of the big announcements this year was the launch date for Visual Studio LightSwitch. LightSwitch is a Rapid Development environment that will allow technical and somewhat-technical people the ability to create light weight Line of Business applications. While many developers don’t think LightSwitch will be useful for creating apps, we think it can be very beneficial to use in the right circumstances. Here are some reasons why.
Right-Sized vs Enterprise Ready
In recent years there has been a growing philosophy that everything needs to be enterprise ready. The prevailing thought is all solutions need to be scalable, flexible, anything-able. While that is true for anything that really does need to be enterprise ready, there are situations where enterprise ready is TOO much. Imagine you are a small start up. You are not focused on enterprise ready. You are focused on getting through your first year. Alternately, you might be an established organization that is considering getting into a new line of business.
Focusing on getting something up and running to let your employees share information in a cost effective way would ensure you are not risking valuable resources (i.e., capital). In today’s economy capital budgets are limited, and in some companies non-existent.
Best of Both Worlds
Traditionally, we have seen tools such as Access, Excel, and more recently SharePoint act as a useful starting point for a low cost prototype. The best thing that can be said of those initial forays in developing Line of Business applications is that usually all of the necessary data points have been identified and that there is a working prototype. We find that having a working prototype when starting an enterprise application development effort is immeasurably helpful.
While Access and Excel solutions do provide value when moving to the next level of maturation, LightSwitch can provide even more. Since LightSwitch can connect to Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle databases, the application can utilize either of those databases during the initial development. LightSwitch also generates an ADO.Net EntityFramework class structure that can be used in the next iteration of development. Finally, the interface is rendered to a Silverlight application.
Recently, we had a customer request a simple application for generating quotes for customers and tracking them in a web format. Taking this use case, we decided to give LightSwitch a go. We were able to build a working prototype for the need within 4 hours, complete with the database tables, class structure, and Silverlight interface. Normally this would have taken close to 40 hours to get to the same point in a traditional web development environment.
Efficiency vs. Maturation
Some people point out that if this right-Sized application is successful that it will need to be rebuilt, usually from the ground up. While this is mostly true, it’s relevant to restate that having a working prototype does reduce the risk (risk = time + money) in starting a new application.
So would it be more efficient to build the enterprise ready version of the application first? The assumption there is that you are going to get the application right the first time. Or that the application will be used for a period of time to recover its ROI. But aren’t those two very big assumptions?
Furthermore, aren’t those two very expensive assumptions?
Also, it’s relevant to say that enterprise software endeavors are never guaranteed successes. We all know the high rate of failure for traditional development, whether it is done using an agile or waterfall approach. As noted in a recent Gartner report, approximately 50% of all features are either never used or rarely used. Why not develop those features inexpensively first and then decide what needs to be in your final application? These are the types of benefits Microsoft’s LightSwitch can provide, making it something to consider moving forward.
Adage Technologies is a Chicago-based web and software development company. In 2001, Roy co-founded Adage Technologies combining a passion for technology and the desire to build a company focused on driving business value through web technology. As President, Roy's energy and customer centric approach have helped to grow Adage to a well respected web and software development firm.
Roy has over 20 years of experience in technology sales, consulting, and development. Prior to founding Adage, Roy was a principle of a Cisco VAR and a web development firm in the late 1990s. Roy has also held business development positions with Wolfram Research and GE Capital.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
World of work is changing fast
Posted by Mark Brousseau
The world of today is dramatically different from 20 years ago and with the lines between work and non-work already badly frayed, Gartner predicts that the nature of work will witness 10 key changes through 2020. Organizations will need to plan for increasingly chaotic environments that are out of their direct control, and adaptation must involve adjusting to all 10 of the trends.
“Work will become less routine, characterized by increased volatility, hyperconnectedness, 'swarming' and more,” said Tom Austin, vice president and Gartner fellow. By 2015, 40 percent or more of an organization’s work will be ‘non-routine’, up from 25 percent in 2010. “People will swarm more often and work solo less. They’ll work with others with whom they have few links, and teams will include people outside the control of the organization,” he added. “In addition, simulation, visualisation and unification technologies, working across yottabytes of data per second, will demand an emphasis on new perceptual skills.”
Organizations will need to determine which of the 10 key changes in the nature of work will affect them, and consider whether radically different technology governance models will be required.
1. De-routinization of Work
The core value that people add is not in the processes that can be automated, but in non-routine processes, uniquely human, analytical or interactive contributions that result in words such as discovery, innovation, teaming, leading, selling and learning. Non-routine skills are those we cannot automate. For example, we cannot automate the process of selling a life insurance policy to a skeptical buyer, but we can use automation tools to augment the selling process.
2. Work Swarms
Swarming is a work style characterized by a flurry of collective activity by anyone and everyone conceivably available and able to add value. Gartner identifies two phenomena within the collective activity; Teaming (instead of solo performances) will be valued and rewarded more and occur more frequently and a new form of teaming, which Gartner calls swarming, to distinguish it from more historical teaming models, is emerging. Teams have historically consisted of people who have worked together before and who know each other reasonably well, often working in the same organization and for the same manager. Swarms form quickly, attacking a problem or opportunity and then quickly dissipating. Swarming is an agile response to an observed increase in ad hoc action requirements, as ad hoc activities continue to displace structured, bureaucratic situations.
3. Weak Links
In swarms, if individuals know each other at all, it may be just barely, via weak links. Weak links are the cues people can pick up from people who know the people they have to work with. They are indirect indicators and rely, in part, on the confidence others have in their knowledge of people. Navigating one's own personal, professional and social networks helps people develop and exploit both strong and weak links and that, in turn, will be crucial to surviving and exploiting swarms for business benefit.
4. Working With the Collective
There are informal groups of people, outside the direct control of the organization, who can impact the success or failure of the organization. These informal groups are bound together by a common interest, a fad or a historical accident, as described by Gartner as “the collective.” Smart business executives discern how to live in a business ecosystem they cannot control; one they can only influence. The influence process requires understanding the collectives that potentially influence their organization, as well as the key people in those external groups. Gathering market intelligence via the collective is crucial. Equally important is figuring out how to use the collective to define segments, markets, products and various business strategies.
5. Work Sketch-Ups
Most non-routine processes will also be highly informal. It is very important that organizations try to capture the criteria used in making decisions but, at least for now, Gartner does not expect most non-routine processes to follow meaningful standard patterns. Over time, we believe that work patterns for more non-routine work will emerge, justifying a light-handed approach to collecting activity information, but it will take years before a real return on investment for this effort is visible. In the meantime, the process models for most non-routine processes will remain simple "sketch-ups," created on the fly.
6. Spontaneous Work
This property is also implied in Gartner’s description of work swarms. Spontaneity implies more than reactive activity, for example, to the emergence of new patterns. It also contains proactive work such as seeking out new opportunities and creating new designs and models.
7. Simulation and Experimentation
Active engagement with simulated environments (virtual environments), which are similar to technologies depicted in the film Minority Report, will come to replace drilling into cells in spreadsheets. This suggests the use of n-dimensional virtual representations of all different sorts of data. The contents of the simulated environment will be assembled by agent technologies that determine what materials go together based on watching people work with this content. People will interact with the data and actively manipulate various parameters reshaping the world they’re looking at.
8. Pattern Sensitivity
Gartner has published a major line of research on Pattern-Based Strategy. The business world is becoming more volatile, affording people working off of linear models based on past performance far less visibility into the future than ever before. Gartner expects to see a significant growth in the number of organizations that create groups specifically charged with detecting divergent emerging patterns, evaluating those patterns, developing various scenarios for how the disruption might play out and proposing to senior executives new ways of exploiting (or protecting the organization from) the changes to which they are now more sensitive.
9. Hyperconnected
Hyperconnectedness is a property of most organizations, existing within networks of networks, unable to completely control any of them. While key supply chain elements, for example, may be "under contract," there is no guarantee it will perform properly, not even if the supply chain is in-house. Hyperconnectedness will lead to a push for more work to occur in both formal and informal relationships across enterprise boundaries, and that has implications for how people work and how IT supports or augments that work.
10. My Place
The workplace is becoming more and more virtual, with meetings occurring across time zones and organizations and with participants who barely know each other, working on swarms attacking rapidly emerging problems. But the employee will still have a "place" where they work. Many will have neither a company-provided physical office nor a desk, and their work will increasingly happen 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In this work environment, the lines between personal, professional, social and family matters, along with organization subjects, will disappear. Individuals, of course, need to manage the complexity created by overlapping demands, whether from the new world of work or from external (non-work-related) phenomena. Those that cannot manage the underlying "expectation and interrupt overloads" will suffer performance deficits as these overloads force individuals to operate in an over-stimulated (information-overload) state.
The world of today is dramatically different from 20 years ago and with the lines between work and non-work already badly frayed, Gartner predicts that the nature of work will witness 10 key changes through 2020. Organizations will need to plan for increasingly chaotic environments that are out of their direct control, and adaptation must involve adjusting to all 10 of the trends.
“Work will become less routine, characterized by increased volatility, hyperconnectedness, 'swarming' and more,” said Tom Austin, vice president and Gartner fellow. By 2015, 40 percent or more of an organization’s work will be ‘non-routine’, up from 25 percent in 2010. “People will swarm more often and work solo less. They’ll work with others with whom they have few links, and teams will include people outside the control of the organization,” he added. “In addition, simulation, visualisation and unification technologies, working across yottabytes of data per second, will demand an emphasis on new perceptual skills.”
Organizations will need to determine which of the 10 key changes in the nature of work will affect them, and consider whether radically different technology governance models will be required.
1. De-routinization of Work
The core value that people add is not in the processes that can be automated, but in non-routine processes, uniquely human, analytical or interactive contributions that result in words such as discovery, innovation, teaming, leading, selling and learning. Non-routine skills are those we cannot automate. For example, we cannot automate the process of selling a life insurance policy to a skeptical buyer, but we can use automation tools to augment the selling process.
2. Work Swarms
Swarming is a work style characterized by a flurry of collective activity by anyone and everyone conceivably available and able to add value. Gartner identifies two phenomena within the collective activity; Teaming (instead of solo performances) will be valued and rewarded more and occur more frequently and a new form of teaming, which Gartner calls swarming, to distinguish it from more historical teaming models, is emerging. Teams have historically consisted of people who have worked together before and who know each other reasonably well, often working in the same organization and for the same manager. Swarms form quickly, attacking a problem or opportunity and then quickly dissipating. Swarming is an agile response to an observed increase in ad hoc action requirements, as ad hoc activities continue to displace structured, bureaucratic situations.
3. Weak Links
In swarms, if individuals know each other at all, it may be just barely, via weak links. Weak links are the cues people can pick up from people who know the people they have to work with. They are indirect indicators and rely, in part, on the confidence others have in their knowledge of people. Navigating one's own personal, professional and social networks helps people develop and exploit both strong and weak links and that, in turn, will be crucial to surviving and exploiting swarms for business benefit.
4. Working With the Collective
There are informal groups of people, outside the direct control of the organization, who can impact the success or failure of the organization. These informal groups are bound together by a common interest, a fad or a historical accident, as described by Gartner as “the collective.” Smart business executives discern how to live in a business ecosystem they cannot control; one they can only influence. The influence process requires understanding the collectives that potentially influence their organization, as well as the key people in those external groups. Gathering market intelligence via the collective is crucial. Equally important is figuring out how to use the collective to define segments, markets, products and various business strategies.
5. Work Sketch-Ups
Most non-routine processes will also be highly informal. It is very important that organizations try to capture the criteria used in making decisions but, at least for now, Gartner does not expect most non-routine processes to follow meaningful standard patterns. Over time, we believe that work patterns for more non-routine work will emerge, justifying a light-handed approach to collecting activity information, but it will take years before a real return on investment for this effort is visible. In the meantime, the process models for most non-routine processes will remain simple "sketch-ups," created on the fly.
6. Spontaneous Work
This property is also implied in Gartner’s description of work swarms. Spontaneity implies more than reactive activity, for example, to the emergence of new patterns. It also contains proactive work such as seeking out new opportunities and creating new designs and models.
7. Simulation and Experimentation
Active engagement with simulated environments (virtual environments), which are similar to technologies depicted in the film Minority Report, will come to replace drilling into cells in spreadsheets. This suggests the use of n-dimensional virtual representations of all different sorts of data. The contents of the simulated environment will be assembled by agent technologies that determine what materials go together based on watching people work with this content. People will interact with the data and actively manipulate various parameters reshaping the world they’re looking at.
8. Pattern Sensitivity
Gartner has published a major line of research on Pattern-Based Strategy. The business world is becoming more volatile, affording people working off of linear models based on past performance far less visibility into the future than ever before. Gartner expects to see a significant growth in the number of organizations that create groups specifically charged with detecting divergent emerging patterns, evaluating those patterns, developing various scenarios for how the disruption might play out and proposing to senior executives new ways of exploiting (or protecting the organization from) the changes to which they are now more sensitive.
9. Hyperconnected
Hyperconnectedness is a property of most organizations, existing within networks of networks, unable to completely control any of them. While key supply chain elements, for example, may be "under contract," there is no guarantee it will perform properly, not even if the supply chain is in-house. Hyperconnectedness will lead to a push for more work to occur in both formal and informal relationships across enterprise boundaries, and that has implications for how people work and how IT supports or augments that work.
10. My Place
The workplace is becoming more and more virtual, with meetings occurring across time zones and organizations and with participants who barely know each other, working on swarms attacking rapidly emerging problems. But the employee will still have a "place" where they work. Many will have neither a company-provided physical office nor a desk, and their work will increasingly happen 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In this work environment, the lines between personal, professional, social and family matters, along with organization subjects, will disappear. Individuals, of course, need to manage the complexity created by overlapping demands, whether from the new world of work or from external (non-work-related) phenomena. Those that cannot manage the underlying "expectation and interrupt overloads" will suffer performance deficits as these overloads force individuals to operate in an over-stimulated (information-overload) state.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Tips to reduce risk and liability using EMRs
Posted by Mark Brousseau
According to the 2010 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Analytics Report: Security of Patient Data, the number of healthcare organizations that reported a breach in data security increased by 6 percent in 2010, totaling 19 percent. As more healthcare organizations migrate to electronic medical records (EMRs), it’s important to take the proper steps to reduce risk and prevent medical liability suits.
Cintas offers the following tips for maintaining secure and compliant EMRs:
1. Collaboration. The most successful, secure medical healthcare record programs are the result of a collaborative process. In hospitals, it’s critical to include the chief security officer, chief financial officer, chief medical officer and medical records director to outline and define a comprehensive program that meets the needs of the entire organization and provides maximum security for patient files. Likewise, smaller healthcare organizations must include relevant senior staff members to develop and execute a successful program.
2. Digitize information. Digitizing healthcare records is the first step to ensure compliance with evolving industry regulations. By partnering with a vendor that provides secure document imaging and scanning services, physicians and clinicians will have real-time access to a patient’s entire medical history. Further, healthcare organizations will increase security through unique user identification to prevent unauthorized access and minimize risk of regulatory exposure, fines and penalties.
3. Create a strict security policy with password restrictions. Ensure authorized physicians and staff members have their own passwords and are unable to share. This will ensure an accurate audit trail if an incident is to occur. It’s also important to limit access to records. Create different levels of security based on the job functions of staff members. Only those working directly with the patient should have the ability to modify records.
4. Protect healthcare records throughout their entire lifecycle. Since medical records require long-term retention with a low volume of retrieval, it’s important to utilize a secure document management provider that has the capability to protect patient data information from the cradle to grave. By selecting a vendor that provides imaging, storage and shredding services, a healthcare organization can ensure both their electronic and physical medical records live in a secure environment and can be properly destroyed if required.
5. Train staff regarding proper documentation and retention practices. Incomplete and improper documentation and retention may lead to damaging financial and compliance issues. In addition, a staff member associated with improper documentation may be held liable in a malpractice case. To protect oneself, the organization and staff against allegations of negligent care and compliance violations, it’s important to provide continuous training to ensure that files are always complete, securely maintained and properly destroyed if required.
6. Have a disaster recovery program in place. Catastrophic events can and will take place. It is critical to ensure a hospital’s digital repository is backed up and can be recreated if necessary.
“As more healthcare organizations adopt EMR systems, it’s important to identify and work to alleviate potential risks before they occur,” said Tom Griga, Global Healthcare Manager, Cintas Document Management. “Healthcare Risk Management Week is an optimal time to reflect on your organization’s practices to ensure it is using up-to-date efficient and secure processes to protect patients and the organization from falling victim to a data breach.”
According to the 2010 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Analytics Report: Security of Patient Data, the number of healthcare organizations that reported a breach in data security increased by 6 percent in 2010, totaling 19 percent. As more healthcare organizations migrate to electronic medical records (EMRs), it’s important to take the proper steps to reduce risk and prevent medical liability suits.
Cintas offers the following tips for maintaining secure and compliant EMRs:
1. Collaboration. The most successful, secure medical healthcare record programs are the result of a collaborative process. In hospitals, it’s critical to include the chief security officer, chief financial officer, chief medical officer and medical records director to outline and define a comprehensive program that meets the needs of the entire organization and provides maximum security for patient files. Likewise, smaller healthcare organizations must include relevant senior staff members to develop and execute a successful program.
2. Digitize information. Digitizing healthcare records is the first step to ensure compliance with evolving industry regulations. By partnering with a vendor that provides secure document imaging and scanning services, physicians and clinicians will have real-time access to a patient’s entire medical history. Further, healthcare organizations will increase security through unique user identification to prevent unauthorized access and minimize risk of regulatory exposure, fines and penalties.
3. Create a strict security policy with password restrictions. Ensure authorized physicians and staff members have their own passwords and are unable to share. This will ensure an accurate audit trail if an incident is to occur. It’s also important to limit access to records. Create different levels of security based on the job functions of staff members. Only those working directly with the patient should have the ability to modify records.
4. Protect healthcare records throughout their entire lifecycle. Since medical records require long-term retention with a low volume of retrieval, it’s important to utilize a secure document management provider that has the capability to protect patient data information from the cradle to grave. By selecting a vendor that provides imaging, storage and shredding services, a healthcare organization can ensure both their electronic and physical medical records live in a secure environment and can be properly destroyed if required.
5. Train staff regarding proper documentation and retention practices. Incomplete and improper documentation and retention may lead to damaging financial and compliance issues. In addition, a staff member associated with improper documentation may be held liable in a malpractice case. To protect oneself, the organization and staff against allegations of negligent care and compliance violations, it’s important to provide continuous training to ensure that files are always complete, securely maintained and properly destroyed if required.
6. Have a disaster recovery program in place. Catastrophic events can and will take place. It is critical to ensure a hospital’s digital repository is backed up and can be recreated if necessary.
“As more healthcare organizations adopt EMR systems, it’s important to identify and work to alleviate potential risks before they occur,” said Tom Griga, Global Healthcare Manager, Cintas Document Management. “Healthcare Risk Management Week is an optimal time to reflect on your organization’s practices to ensure it is using up-to-date efficient and secure processes to protect patients and the organization from falling victim to a data breach.”
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Why PDF?
Posted by Mark Brousseau
What's the purpose of PDF? Why can't you just send Word or Excel files? And why should you bother converting to PDF? Duff Johnson (duffjohnson@appligent.com), CEO of Appligent Document Solutions, explains:
Very few “love” PDF, but we all need it, because PDF is electronic paper.
For the efficient and reliable delivery of final-form electronic documents, there's nothing else quite like a PDF file.
For business and government organizations, “posting the PDF” is now essentially THE physical act of publication. Pretty much everyone with a computer is assumed to have a PDF Reader; it's a standard assumption in millions of interactions between consumers, business and government everyday. Hundreds of millions of people “PDF it” when they want to share some content.
Current squabbles between the two companies aside, even Apple's display technology is based on Adobe's PDF.
So how did electronic paper get defined as PDF?
Fundamentally, it's all about portability. Reliable viewing and printing across platforms is one of the great Killer Apps of all time.
There are other technologies that deliver some of PDF's complete package, but PDF is built from the outset to work the same way in all places, period. It turns out that's the most important thing of all. There are a set of very specific reasons why PDF is the world's choice for electronic paper. No other format offers this combination of attributes.
Easy to make and share
Sure, you can send a Word, HTML, PowerPoint or any other file. But other formats, while just as easy to attach to an email, aren't quite as easy to share as PDF.
First and foremost, you can't be sure the recipients have the same version of PowerPoint (or whatever you are sending). You may not want to give them the ability to edit the document, you don't want hassle with passwords. Making a PDF is usually just a click or two, and for that amount of effort, it's clearly a smart move.
A typical Acrobat or Reader user doesn't think about their choice to use PDF at a fundamental level. They make, send and use PDF files precisely because, hey – why worry? PDF just works.
WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: Who doesn't like it easy?
Reliable, manageable presentation
There's just no excuse for poor presentation. From elaborate graphic-design to simply making sure the page-breaks happen just the way you've set it up, PDF delivers you from worrying about what it's going to look like or print on the other end.
Other formats might don't look quite the same when opened on different machines, or can't be opened on a Mac. There may be font dependencies, or differing page-sizes or other application or user settings that affect appearance. There may be undesirable information such as slide-show notes, metadata or track-changes information that's really a part of the file, and you might not want to share it!
Not only does PDF provide a completely faithful, high-fidelity rendering of your source document, but you can mix and match it with other documents from other sources. There's detailed management of all sorts of document functions, navigation features, accessibility and more, and it's all just ready to go, for users on every platform, inside of each and every PDF file.
WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: PDF delivery is entirely manageable and utterly predictable.
Convert from any source, use in every workflow
PDF files may be created from any application that can print, including desktop publishing, office software, design, database report and other applications. PDF files may also be produced from scanners, either with or without searchable text via OCR. You can even take a screen-shot and convert it to PDF and combine it with other PDF pages.
WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: Users can learn to make PDF files from any software in seconds, and every PDF file works with every other PDF file, so they can be shuffled and reorganized like... paper pages.
Smaller file-size, yet fully searchable
When converting to a PDF file, it's usually possible to reduce the file-size substantially below that of the original source files. Even for scanned documents, conversion to PDF generally means smaller files - and more importantly, scanned pages can be made into searchable PDFs.
WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: Although hard-drives are getting larger and larger, a 195kb PDF file is usually preferred over a 2.95 MB Word file, especially if users aren't expected to edit it.
Self-contained
Unlike most authoring formats, a properly-made PDF file includes all content, fonts, images, structure, signatures, encryption, scripts and other resources necessary to the appearance and proper function of the file in an ISO 32000 conforming reader.
PDF just works everywhere; it has no server or style-sheet dependencies, and each page may be extracted into it's own self-contained PDF file.
WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: Self-contained files are inherently rugged and adaptable, for example, they can go offline, be emailed, FTPed or accessed in any preferred manner, always with the same result.
Makes content from any source accessible to users with disabilities
One of the great beauties of PDF is the ability to make almost any source content accessible to users with disabilities who must use Assistive Technology (AT) in order to read. From scanned documents to drawings, diagrams and multilingual content, PDF files may be tagged to provide a complete, high-quality reading and navigating experience.
Many applications can't generate accessible content by themselves, but converted to PDF, these documents may be structured and tagged for complete accessibility.
WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: For Federal agencies and contractors, Section 508 requires that electronic documents be accessible. Other jurisdictions are beginning to adopt similar regulations, and many businesses are choosing to post accessible content.
A multiplatform International Standard
PDF is a truly multiplatform technology, and it's here to stay. PDF is equally at home on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, UNIX, Android and any other operating system.
No-one has ever had to pay Adobe a royalty to make PDF files, and the company has published the PDF Reference since the beginning. Until recently, Adobe kept the copyright and updated the Reference, the “rules of the road” for PDF, as they wished.
In 2008, Adobe ceded control of the PDF specification to ISO, the International Standards Organization. Now known as ISO 32000, PDF is an International Standard; it is no longer owned by Adobe Systems but is managed by diverse members of the electronic document industry, with free and open access to all interested parties as observers or full voting members.
WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: While PDF is everywhere, one lingering doubt for some has been the idea that Adobe Systems “owned” PDF and therefore, adopting PDF for critical business functions would create a vulnerability. Turning over PDF to ISO is the categorical solution to this concern – Adobe Systems or no, PDF is here to stay, and no-one owns your PDF files except you.
What do you think?
What's the purpose of PDF? Why can't you just send Word or Excel files? And why should you bother converting to PDF? Duff Johnson (duffjohnson@appligent.com), CEO of Appligent Document Solutions, explains:
Very few “love” PDF, but we all need it, because PDF is electronic paper.
For the efficient and reliable delivery of final-form electronic documents, there's nothing else quite like a PDF file.
For business and government organizations, “posting the PDF” is now essentially THE physical act of publication. Pretty much everyone with a computer is assumed to have a PDF Reader; it's a standard assumption in millions of interactions between consumers, business and government everyday. Hundreds of millions of people “PDF it” when they want to share some content.
Current squabbles between the two companies aside, even Apple's display technology is based on Adobe's PDF.
So how did electronic paper get defined as PDF?
Fundamentally, it's all about portability. Reliable viewing and printing across platforms is one of the great Killer Apps of all time.
There are other technologies that deliver some of PDF's complete package, but PDF is built from the outset to work the same way in all places, period. It turns out that's the most important thing of all. There are a set of very specific reasons why PDF is the world's choice for electronic paper. No other format offers this combination of attributes.
Easy to make and share
Sure, you can send a Word, HTML, PowerPoint or any other file. But other formats, while just as easy to attach to an email, aren't quite as easy to share as PDF.
First and foremost, you can't be sure the recipients have the same version of PowerPoint (or whatever you are sending). You may not want to give them the ability to edit the document, you don't want hassle with passwords. Making a PDF is usually just a click or two, and for that amount of effort, it's clearly a smart move.
A typical Acrobat or Reader user doesn't think about their choice to use PDF at a fundamental level. They make, send and use PDF files precisely because, hey – why worry? PDF just works.
WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: Who doesn't like it easy?
Reliable, manageable presentation
There's just no excuse for poor presentation. From elaborate graphic-design to simply making sure the page-breaks happen just the way you've set it up, PDF delivers you from worrying about what it's going to look like or print on the other end.
Other formats might don't look quite the same when opened on different machines, or can't be opened on a Mac. There may be font dependencies, or differing page-sizes or other application or user settings that affect appearance. There may be undesirable information such as slide-show notes, metadata or track-changes information that's really a part of the file, and you might not want to share it!
Not only does PDF provide a completely faithful, high-fidelity rendering of your source document, but you can mix and match it with other documents from other sources. There's detailed management of all sorts of document functions, navigation features, accessibility and more, and it's all just ready to go, for users on every platform, inside of each and every PDF file.
WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: PDF delivery is entirely manageable and utterly predictable.
Convert from any source, use in every workflow
PDF files may be created from any application that can print, including desktop publishing, office software, design, database report and other applications. PDF files may also be produced from scanners, either with or without searchable text via OCR. You can even take a screen-shot and convert it to PDF and combine it with other PDF pages.
WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: Users can learn to make PDF files from any software in seconds, and every PDF file works with every other PDF file, so they can be shuffled and reorganized like... paper pages.
Smaller file-size, yet fully searchable
When converting to a PDF file, it's usually possible to reduce the file-size substantially below that of the original source files. Even for scanned documents, conversion to PDF generally means smaller files - and more importantly, scanned pages can be made into searchable PDFs.
WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: Although hard-drives are getting larger and larger, a 195kb PDF file is usually preferred over a 2.95 MB Word file, especially if users aren't expected to edit it.
Self-contained
Unlike most authoring formats, a properly-made PDF file includes all content, fonts, images, structure, signatures, encryption, scripts and other resources necessary to the appearance and proper function of the file in an ISO 32000 conforming reader.
PDF just works everywhere; it has no server or style-sheet dependencies, and each page may be extracted into it's own self-contained PDF file.
WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: Self-contained files are inherently rugged and adaptable, for example, they can go offline, be emailed, FTPed or accessed in any preferred manner, always with the same result.
Makes content from any source accessible to users with disabilities
One of the great beauties of PDF is the ability to make almost any source content accessible to users with disabilities who must use Assistive Technology (AT) in order to read. From scanned documents to drawings, diagrams and multilingual content, PDF files may be tagged to provide a complete, high-quality reading and navigating experience.
Many applications can't generate accessible content by themselves, but converted to PDF, these documents may be structured and tagged for complete accessibility.
WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: For Federal agencies and contractors, Section 508 requires that electronic documents be accessible. Other jurisdictions are beginning to adopt similar regulations, and many businesses are choosing to post accessible content.
A multiplatform International Standard
PDF is a truly multiplatform technology, and it's here to stay. PDF is equally at home on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, UNIX, Android and any other operating system.
No-one has ever had to pay Adobe a royalty to make PDF files, and the company has published the PDF Reference since the beginning. Until recently, Adobe kept the copyright and updated the Reference, the “rules of the road” for PDF, as they wished.
In 2008, Adobe ceded control of the PDF specification to ISO, the International Standards Organization. Now known as ISO 32000, PDF is an International Standard; it is no longer owned by Adobe Systems but is managed by diverse members of the electronic document industry, with free and open access to all interested parties as observers or full voting members.
WHY YOU MIGHT CARE: While PDF is everywhere, one lingering doubt for some has been the idea that Adobe Systems “owned” PDF and therefore, adopting PDF for critical business functions would create a vulnerability. Turning over PDF to ISO is the categorical solution to this concern – Adobe Systems or no, PDF is here to stay, and no-one owns your PDF files except you.
What do you think?
Monday, May 24, 2010
Dot connecting in the new data world
Posted by Mark Brousseau
The flood of digital information increases the need for accuracy -- including knowing which data to leave out. Scott Schumacher, Ph.D., a government security and technology expert with Initiate, an IBM Company, explains:
Remember when we used to ride around in our cars and listen to AM radio? Maybe you’re not quite old enough to remember, but there was a time when AM radio was all we had – and that was fine. There also used to be only a handful of television channels, which we had to get up out of our chairs to change. That was fine, too.
I don’t remember longing for a wider variety of music on the radio, or more channels to watch on TV. We had what we had, and it was all fine – it was all “good enough.”
There was also a time when the level of accuracy that our intelligence and law-enforcement systems offered was “fine.” We connected the dots well enough to eliminate the greatest threats.
Not any more.
Today, there is an intense push for accuracy in our data and, particularly, in our ability to accurately “connect the dots.” Why now? What’s changed? What’s pushing the accuracy button more than it’s been pushed before?
Turn off the radio, put down the remote, and I’ll explain.
What is accuracy?
I’m a mathematician. When I think of accuracy I think of numbers and percentages, of false-negatives and false-positives. But for law enforcement or intelligence officials, accuracy means tracking down and mitigating a potential risk before it happens.
Both perspectives are critical in understanding what accuracy is and how to improve your results.
Mathematically, accuracy is a pair of numbers. Accuracy compares the number of times you “miss” (present a false negative) and the number of times you incorrectly “hit” (present a false positive). Accuracy measures how well your process makes a decision – how well it can find a “true-positive” result amid the false negatives and false positives.
When you hear a phrase like, “our system is 95 percent accurate,” it usually refers to the false-negative rate – or the connections it missed. To gauge the true accuracy of that system, you also need to know the false-positive rate. If the system floods you with false positives, and touts a 95 percent accuracy rate (focusing on the things it missed), that’s not going to get you very far. You’re going to be spending all your time chasing false threats.
From an intelligence perspective, accuracy is just as much about keeping data apart as it is putting it together. If there were a security threat in a particular airport at a particular time, a less-than-accurate system might flag every person who was in the airport at that time as a suspect. A highly accurate system would be able to parse through the vast numbers of individuals in the airport at that time, “connect the dots” between those people and other data points within other records, and present a highly targeted list of suspects.
Accuracy is being able to make the best use of all the information you have – putting data together where necessary, and keeping it apart where necessary, to create a highly targeted list of “true-positive” results.
Why now?
The description of accuracy hasn’t changed since the time of AM-only radio, but the need has changed – because our circumstances have changed. Two primary factors are driving the push for greater accuracy:
• More information. Today’s law enforcement officials have to deal with millions of terabytes more data than they have ever had to work with in the past. Not only are there more records about more people – a simple function of our digital times – there is significantly more travel (international travel in particular), more people traveling on visas, more types of communication and a wider variety of threats.
• More fragmentation. As the amount of information grows, so do the different locations and different types of information. From local police records to state databases to federal watch lists – and all the different types of entities (people, phone numbers, weapons) that reside in each – intelligence and law enforcement officials are faced with a daunting task of connecting dots between and among all this information. Their job is akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
Adding to the challenge, the risks are greater for missing important connections – or, not connecting the dots between data that already exists. Being marginally accurate is no longer good enough.
Finding the right technology
Finding the right solution is all about understanding what accuracy is and what you should expect from a highly accurate system. The most effective technology will let you look at the right 10,000 things, not just the top 10,000 things. The right technology will help you reduce the noise, particularly the signal-to-noise ratio.
The most effective technology also will have a level of intelligence. Technology that produces the most accurate results will be able to account for errors and other misspellings – or purposeful deception, a practice common among persons of interest trying to avoid detection. That technology also will have the ability to recognize and account for cultural anomalies and unique factors in different languages.
The technology you use also has to be adaptable; it has to be able to allow you to introduce new information and new agents, as well as securely exchange information between – and allow appropriate access from – other reliable sources.
Finally, your technology has to be flexible, so you can readjust your priorities according to changing threats, threat levels and resources.
Accuracy involves many factors. And, it’s a moving target. Because of the evolving nature of threats, we must keep working at this – we must keep pushing the envelope.
“Good enough” just doesn’t work any more. As soon as we can do more, we have to do more. And we have to keep pushing for greater accuracy and a greater ability to connect the dots. Our national security is at stake.
The flood of digital information increases the need for accuracy -- including knowing which data to leave out. Scott Schumacher, Ph.D., a government security and technology expert with Initiate, an IBM Company, explains:
Remember when we used to ride around in our cars and listen to AM radio? Maybe you’re not quite old enough to remember, but there was a time when AM radio was all we had – and that was fine. There also used to be only a handful of television channels, which we had to get up out of our chairs to change. That was fine, too.
I don’t remember longing for a wider variety of music on the radio, or more channels to watch on TV. We had what we had, and it was all fine – it was all “good enough.”
There was also a time when the level of accuracy that our intelligence and law-enforcement systems offered was “fine.” We connected the dots well enough to eliminate the greatest threats.
Not any more.
Today, there is an intense push for accuracy in our data and, particularly, in our ability to accurately “connect the dots.” Why now? What’s changed? What’s pushing the accuracy button more than it’s been pushed before?
Turn off the radio, put down the remote, and I’ll explain.
What is accuracy?
I’m a mathematician. When I think of accuracy I think of numbers and percentages, of false-negatives and false-positives. But for law enforcement or intelligence officials, accuracy means tracking down and mitigating a potential risk before it happens.
Both perspectives are critical in understanding what accuracy is and how to improve your results.
Mathematically, accuracy is a pair of numbers. Accuracy compares the number of times you “miss” (present a false negative) and the number of times you incorrectly “hit” (present a false positive). Accuracy measures how well your process makes a decision – how well it can find a “true-positive” result amid the false negatives and false positives.
When you hear a phrase like, “our system is 95 percent accurate,” it usually refers to the false-negative rate – or the connections it missed. To gauge the true accuracy of that system, you also need to know the false-positive rate. If the system floods you with false positives, and touts a 95 percent accuracy rate (focusing on the things it missed), that’s not going to get you very far. You’re going to be spending all your time chasing false threats.
From an intelligence perspective, accuracy is just as much about keeping data apart as it is putting it together. If there were a security threat in a particular airport at a particular time, a less-than-accurate system might flag every person who was in the airport at that time as a suspect. A highly accurate system would be able to parse through the vast numbers of individuals in the airport at that time, “connect the dots” between those people and other data points within other records, and present a highly targeted list of suspects.
Accuracy is being able to make the best use of all the information you have – putting data together where necessary, and keeping it apart where necessary, to create a highly targeted list of “true-positive” results.
Why now?
The description of accuracy hasn’t changed since the time of AM-only radio, but the need has changed – because our circumstances have changed. Two primary factors are driving the push for greater accuracy:
• More information. Today’s law enforcement officials have to deal with millions of terabytes more data than they have ever had to work with in the past. Not only are there more records about more people – a simple function of our digital times – there is significantly more travel (international travel in particular), more people traveling on visas, more types of communication and a wider variety of threats.
• More fragmentation. As the amount of information grows, so do the different locations and different types of information. From local police records to state databases to federal watch lists – and all the different types of entities (people, phone numbers, weapons) that reside in each – intelligence and law enforcement officials are faced with a daunting task of connecting dots between and among all this information. Their job is akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
Adding to the challenge, the risks are greater for missing important connections – or, not connecting the dots between data that already exists. Being marginally accurate is no longer good enough.
Finding the right technology
Finding the right solution is all about understanding what accuracy is and what you should expect from a highly accurate system. The most effective technology will let you look at the right 10,000 things, not just the top 10,000 things. The right technology will help you reduce the noise, particularly the signal-to-noise ratio.
The most effective technology also will have a level of intelligence. Technology that produces the most accurate results will be able to account for errors and other misspellings – or purposeful deception, a practice common among persons of interest trying to avoid detection. That technology also will have the ability to recognize and account for cultural anomalies and unique factors in different languages.
The technology you use also has to be adaptable; it has to be able to allow you to introduce new information and new agents, as well as securely exchange information between – and allow appropriate access from – other reliable sources.
Finally, your technology has to be flexible, so you can readjust your priorities according to changing threats, threat levels and resources.
Accuracy involves many factors. And, it’s a moving target. Because of the evolving nature of threats, we must keep working at this – we must keep pushing the envelope.
“Good enough” just doesn’t work any more. As soon as we can do more, we have to do more. And we have to keep pushing for greater accuracy and a greater ability to connect the dots. Our national security is at stake.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Is PDF an open standard?
Is PDF an open standard? Duff Johnson, CEO, Appligent Document Solutions, weighs in:
On May 13, the founders of Adobe Systems stepped up to the microphone to deliver a response to Steve Jobs' open letter about Flash. They say Adobe has acted on open standards while Apple offers mere words.
At the outset, I must acknowledge that I owe my livelihood to the genius of these two gentlemen. The inventors of PostScript and PDF and the creators of Adobe Systems, Warnock and Geschke are gods in my Pantheon. They are the founding fathers of technologies that have been instrumental in making computers relevant to the modern everyday operations of government and business.
That said, claims about PDF being a true open standard need to be placed in context.
Adobe Systems has published the PDF Reference, the rulebook for PDF developers, since 1993. At the very beginning, if you wanted to make, view or manipulate PDFs you bought the book in the store for a few dollars. Pretty soon it was (and still is) available online at no charge.
On July 1, 2008, version 1.7 of the PDF Reference was rewritten as ISO 32000, a document managed by committees under the auspices of the International Standards Organization. ISO 32000 is managed by individual representatives of interested parties in open meetings under parliamentary rules. Anyone can observe and participate. While they are obviously heavily invested in the outcome of the committee's decisions, Adobe Systems has only one vote at the table, the same as any other.
By now, the rulebook for PDF is relatively mature and precise in its language. It was not always so. Adobe's very openness – their willingness to let third-parties in to make their own PDFs before the PDF Reference was a mature document – was and continues to be a source of pain.
Three of five PDF viewers displayed this PDF incorrectly.
When millions of PDF files from hundreds of different applications started flying around, two major problems with the rulebook for PDF emerged.
First, while the Reference set rules it is not a cookbook; it included no recipes for how to create content on a PDF page.
Second, the Reference was ambiguous in some areas and left other matters under-considered, sometimes unaddressed.
When dealing with real-world documents, Adobe's software had to deal with these vagaries, so more rules were written; specific details of their implementation were crafted to address the issues encountered in the real world.
These new rules, however, were in the software, not the Reference. As the Reference developed, Adobe's implementation and the published rules began to diverge. It became possible to create a “legal” PDF file that otherwise perfectly serviceable software couldn't handle quite right (or handled dead wrong). In fact, because the early versions of the PDF Reference were so vague (relatively speaking), the range of possible oddities that were legal in a PDF was very wide indeed. A lot of sloppy PDF software was (and still is) written for this reason.
I remember discussing this problem with Adobe developers in the late 1990s. First and foremost, we all knew PDF had to be reliable. PDFs had to display the same way on-screen and in-print, no matter the platform. The problem with these “legal” but otherwise oddball PDF files was that if they displayed with problems in Adobe Reader, then Adobe (not the PDF's producer) would get the blame.
A pattern was established in which poorly-structured PDF files were roaming around in the wild, and that problem has worsened over time. As PDF has grown more popular, more and more applications of widely varying quality make bad PDF.
Adobe's solution was to engineer Adobe Reader to handle all the various oddball PDF files out there. It's one of the main reasons why Adobe Reader is a larger application to download and install compared to its rivals. Reader includes lots of code to deal with the thousands of different types of exceptions to “good” PDF that Reader users worldwide can and will encounter on a regular basis.
In their attempt to ensure that even the sloppiest PDF files still worked, Adobe created a situation in which developers could (and have) used Adobe's Reader as the reference implementation for their PDF software.
In 2010, there is still no alternative to Adobe Reader when it comes to validating third-party software.
As the vice-chair of ISO 32000, that bothers me, and if you're relying on the idea that PDF is indeed an International Standard in your organization, it should bother you too.
To make the final move in ensuring PDF is a durable international standard, Adobe should release their test suite of PDF files used to test Adobe Reader. This could take form in several ways, the simplest of which would be a collection of PNG images demonstrating the authoritative rendering of example PDF pages.
This test suite should be referenced in the upcoming ISO 32000-2, the forthcoming update to the International Standard for PDF.
When this step is taken will it become possible to validate the open standard of ISO 32000 without the proprietary Adobe Reader, an objective which is fundamental to the project of PDF as an International Standard.
Establishing an open test suite will make PDF truly an open standard in the spirit of Warnock and Geschke's letter. The advantages for consumers will be substantial. Adobe and software developers can produce conversion software to resolve the old files.
With no further excuse for sloppy code, non-compliant software will tend to die away, removing a major source of problems.
PDF will become truly reliable and based not only on an international standard, but one that may be readily validated.
Adobe will have begun the process of liberating itself from supporting old (and now invalid) PDFs, and will eventually be free to re-direct engineering resources away from propping up other people's software and into creative development.
I can't imagine a world without PDF; if it didn't exist it would have to be invented. PDF is indeed an open standard, but it's incomplete. It's time to finish the story and end the practice of making Adobe Reader a de facto reference implementation.
What do you think?
On May 13, the founders of Adobe Systems stepped up to the microphone to deliver a response to Steve Jobs' open letter about Flash. They say Adobe has acted on open standards while Apple offers mere words.
At the outset, I must acknowledge that I owe my livelihood to the genius of these two gentlemen. The inventors of PostScript and PDF and the creators of Adobe Systems, Warnock and Geschke are gods in my Pantheon. They are the founding fathers of technologies that have been instrumental in making computers relevant to the modern everyday operations of government and business.
That said, claims about PDF being a true open standard need to be placed in context.
Adobe Systems has published the PDF Reference, the rulebook for PDF developers, since 1993. At the very beginning, if you wanted to make, view or manipulate PDFs you bought the book in the store for a few dollars. Pretty soon it was (and still is) available online at no charge.
On July 1, 2008, version 1.7 of the PDF Reference was rewritten as ISO 32000, a document managed by committees under the auspices of the International Standards Organization. ISO 32000 is managed by individual representatives of interested parties in open meetings under parliamentary rules. Anyone can observe and participate. While they are obviously heavily invested in the outcome of the committee's decisions, Adobe Systems has only one vote at the table, the same as any other.
By now, the rulebook for PDF is relatively mature and precise in its language. It was not always so. Adobe's very openness – their willingness to let third-parties in to make their own PDFs before the PDF Reference was a mature document – was and continues to be a source of pain.
Three of five PDF viewers displayed this PDF incorrectly.
When millions of PDF files from hundreds of different applications started flying around, two major problems with the rulebook for PDF emerged.
First, while the Reference set rules it is not a cookbook; it included no recipes for how to create content on a PDF page.
Second, the Reference was ambiguous in some areas and left other matters under-considered, sometimes unaddressed.
When dealing with real-world documents, Adobe's software had to deal with these vagaries, so more rules were written; specific details of their implementation were crafted to address the issues encountered in the real world.
These new rules, however, were in the software, not the Reference. As the Reference developed, Adobe's implementation and the published rules began to diverge. It became possible to create a “legal” PDF file that otherwise perfectly serviceable software couldn't handle quite right (or handled dead wrong). In fact, because the early versions of the PDF Reference were so vague (relatively speaking), the range of possible oddities that were legal in a PDF was very wide indeed. A lot of sloppy PDF software was (and still is) written for this reason.
I remember discussing this problem with Adobe developers in the late 1990s. First and foremost, we all knew PDF had to be reliable. PDFs had to display the same way on-screen and in-print, no matter the platform. The problem with these “legal” but otherwise oddball PDF files was that if they displayed with problems in Adobe Reader, then Adobe (not the PDF's producer) would get the blame.
A pattern was established in which poorly-structured PDF files were roaming around in the wild, and that problem has worsened over time. As PDF has grown more popular, more and more applications of widely varying quality make bad PDF.
Adobe's solution was to engineer Adobe Reader to handle all the various oddball PDF files out there. It's one of the main reasons why Adobe Reader is a larger application to download and install compared to its rivals. Reader includes lots of code to deal with the thousands of different types of exceptions to “good” PDF that Reader users worldwide can and will encounter on a regular basis.
In their attempt to ensure that even the sloppiest PDF files still worked, Adobe created a situation in which developers could (and have) used Adobe's Reader as the reference implementation for their PDF software.
In 2010, there is still no alternative to Adobe Reader when it comes to validating third-party software.
As the vice-chair of ISO 32000, that bothers me, and if you're relying on the idea that PDF is indeed an International Standard in your organization, it should bother you too.
To make the final move in ensuring PDF is a durable international standard, Adobe should release their test suite of PDF files used to test Adobe Reader. This could take form in several ways, the simplest of which would be a collection of PNG images demonstrating the authoritative rendering of example PDF pages.
This test suite should be referenced in the upcoming ISO 32000-2, the forthcoming update to the International Standard for PDF.
When this step is taken will it become possible to validate the open standard of ISO 32000 without the proprietary Adobe Reader, an objective which is fundamental to the project of PDF as an International Standard.
Establishing an open test suite will make PDF truly an open standard in the spirit of Warnock and Geschke's letter. The advantages for consumers will be substantial. Adobe and software developers can produce conversion software to resolve the old files.
With no further excuse for sloppy code, non-compliant software will tend to die away, removing a major source of problems.
PDF will become truly reliable and based not only on an international standard, but one that may be readily validated.
Adobe will have begun the process of liberating itself from supporting old (and now invalid) PDFs, and will eventually be free to re-direct engineering resources away from propping up other people's software and into creative development.
I can't imagine a world without PDF; if it didn't exist it would have to be invented. PDF is indeed an open standard, but it's incomplete. It's time to finish the story and end the practice of making Adobe Reader a de facto reference implementation.
What do you think?
Thursday, April 22, 2010
7 Steps to Structured Content
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Structured content can be a powerful change agent within the organization. But to reap the power, Tom Magliery, an XML Technology Specialist at JustSystems, says organizations must first embrace the change. Magliery offers the steps below to help make the change happen:
Companies that adopt structured content have consistently seen it accelerate the creation, simplify the maintenance, and improve the quality of their content. They've seen structured content drive higher quality information, reduced publishing costs, and faster times to market for their technical manuals, policy documents, financial information, and other content and content-based
products and services.
So how does an organization - a department, division, or an entire company - get on the structured content bandwagon? Or, if it's already on the bandwagon, how does it expand the use of structured content within its operations? In either instance, the organization needs a strategy for moving to structured content and managing the change such a move creates. After years working with companies and helping them with their structured content adoption, I've found several common steps in the process.
Step 1 - Find a champion. You need a manager to sponsor the project, someone with a vested interest in the success of the structured content project. The champion's title is not as important as his or her commitment. Depending on the size of the organization, the title may be relatively modest. Department managers can be just as effective in the champion role as senior vice presidents. In fact, the department manager may be more effective than the senior VP in a department-level adoption. Regardless, the champion needs to be someone with a strategic vision and influence in the organization when it comes to content processes, and someone who stands to benefit by the move to structured content.
Step 2 - Understand the problem. What are the problems associated with your current content practices? And what are those problems costing today in terms of money, lost time, redundancies, inefficiencies, etc? Companies in regulated industries or litigious fields need to consider costs associated with penalties and litigation. For most companies, a typo is embarrassing, but it can lead to a huge fine or worse for companies in financial services or pharmaceuticals or other regulated industries. Finally, consider opportunity costs, the opportunities you can't pursue due to unstructured content constraints - e.g., adding multiple languages in a product line or publishing content in new formats.
Step 3 - Propose the alternative. Given the problems revealed in the previous step, define how structured content is going to resolve them. Map structured content's key functional attributes - content reuse, separation of format and content, etc. - to the challenges currently posed by unstructured content. Identify how reusable content could drive down costs by eliminating duplicate content creation or mitigate risk by ensuring the right content is used in all technical, legal and financial documents. Explain how the separation of format and content accelerates time to market by simplifying the creation of new content deliverables. Bottom line, you need to provide your champion with a vision of how structured content will solve those specific business problems that you just articulated.
In step 3, you also begin gathering requirements for the new structured content systems. This is a good place to start engaging the people who will be using the new tools and working with the new processes. You get a better idea of users' needs, and you get users invested in and excited by the new system, all of which promotes successful adoption.
Step 4 - Implement the change. Most organizations starting from scratch with structured content are better off starting small, getting their feet wet with a departmental pilot project instead of a broader departmental - or enterprise - rollout. Even organizations expanding their use of structured content are encouraged to move slowly, racking up a series of small successes rather than risking one spectacular failure. So start small and get professional assistance with the technical details rather than trying to do it all, even the tasks that are within your skill set.
Similarly, don't reinvent the wheel when it comes to using structured content within your specific business. If DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) or some other schema is an appropriate solution for you, use it. The proof of concept is the proof of value. Later, you can expand the pilot into a larger implementation.
Step 5 - Hold users' hands. The last thing you want to do is implement a structured content solution only to have writers sneak off, create content in Word, and then copy and paste it to the structured content system because they're not comfortable. Make the users comfortable, especially the power users who others look to for how-to tips and advice. Too many organizations implement a project and move on, forgetting the people who have to use the new tools. Don't underestimate the amount of training and support users will need to be successful. And don't forget to give the users a voice in the adoption process. Implement a feedback cycle that lets them communicate their challenges and requests, and nurtures the feeling of investment that you initiated during Step 3.
Step 6 - Adjust and extend. Pilot projects are highly recommended for organizations that can afford them. The benefits of the pilot are the lessons learned from experience in the pilot. A pilot project reveals areas that can be improved and ways to make structured content tools and standards better fit the organization. So the pilot lets the organization make adjustments and corrections as it moves forward and builds out its structured content system.
Note the typical pilot project advice is "avoid customizations." In structured content, the pilot advice is "don't worry about getting your customizations perfect." Customization and specialization is inherent in the value of structured content. You can modify the systems to best serve your business needs. So as structured content adoption grows beyond the pilot, one of the key issues involves selection of the right products and the right standards. Those choices give you the right balance between what works out of the box and what is flexible - i.e., customizable - enough to meet future needs. You don't want a system that requires a lot of customization to be usable, but you do want a system that is capable of such customization to meet your evolving needs.
Step 7 - Acknowledge the success. No matter what size the organization or project, success needs to be communicated to project champions, project stakeholders, and the organization at large. This helps stakeholders look to other business units that may be suffering similar problems and help drive change in those areas of the organization. Ideally, those successes will be supported by before-and-after metrics that demonstrate quantifiable improvements - time or money saved, process efficiencies realized, etc.
What do you think?
Structured content can be a powerful change agent within the organization. But to reap the power, Tom Magliery, an XML Technology Specialist at JustSystems, says organizations must first embrace the change. Magliery offers the steps below to help make the change happen:
Companies that adopt structured content have consistently seen it accelerate the creation, simplify the maintenance, and improve the quality of their content. They've seen structured content drive higher quality information, reduced publishing costs, and faster times to market for their technical manuals, policy documents, financial information, and other content and content-based
products and services.
So how does an organization - a department, division, or an entire company - get on the structured content bandwagon? Or, if it's already on the bandwagon, how does it expand the use of structured content within its operations? In either instance, the organization needs a strategy for moving to structured content and managing the change such a move creates. After years working with companies and helping them with their structured content adoption, I've found several common steps in the process.
Step 1 - Find a champion. You need a manager to sponsor the project, someone with a vested interest in the success of the structured content project. The champion's title is not as important as his or her commitment. Depending on the size of the organization, the title may be relatively modest. Department managers can be just as effective in the champion role as senior vice presidents. In fact, the department manager may be more effective than the senior VP in a department-level adoption. Regardless, the champion needs to be someone with a strategic vision and influence in the organization when it comes to content processes, and someone who stands to benefit by the move to structured content.
Step 2 - Understand the problem. What are the problems associated with your current content practices? And what are those problems costing today in terms of money, lost time, redundancies, inefficiencies, etc? Companies in regulated industries or litigious fields need to consider costs associated with penalties and litigation. For most companies, a typo is embarrassing, but it can lead to a huge fine or worse for companies in financial services or pharmaceuticals or other regulated industries. Finally, consider opportunity costs, the opportunities you can't pursue due to unstructured content constraints - e.g., adding multiple languages in a product line or publishing content in new formats.
Step 3 - Propose the alternative. Given the problems revealed in the previous step, define how structured content is going to resolve them. Map structured content's key functional attributes - content reuse, separation of format and content, etc. - to the challenges currently posed by unstructured content. Identify how reusable content could drive down costs by eliminating duplicate content creation or mitigate risk by ensuring the right content is used in all technical, legal and financial documents. Explain how the separation of format and content accelerates time to market by simplifying the creation of new content deliverables. Bottom line, you need to provide your champion with a vision of how structured content will solve those specific business problems that you just articulated.
In step 3, you also begin gathering requirements for the new structured content systems. This is a good place to start engaging the people who will be using the new tools and working with the new processes. You get a better idea of users' needs, and you get users invested in and excited by the new system, all of which promotes successful adoption.
Step 4 - Implement the change. Most organizations starting from scratch with structured content are better off starting small, getting their feet wet with a departmental pilot project instead of a broader departmental - or enterprise - rollout. Even organizations expanding their use of structured content are encouraged to move slowly, racking up a series of small successes rather than risking one spectacular failure. So start small and get professional assistance with the technical details rather than trying to do it all, even the tasks that are within your skill set.
Similarly, don't reinvent the wheel when it comes to using structured content within your specific business. If DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) or some other schema is an appropriate solution for you, use it. The proof of concept is the proof of value. Later, you can expand the pilot into a larger implementation.
Step 5 - Hold users' hands. The last thing you want to do is implement a structured content solution only to have writers sneak off, create content in Word, and then copy and paste it to the structured content system because they're not comfortable. Make the users comfortable, especially the power users who others look to for how-to tips and advice. Too many organizations implement a project and move on, forgetting the people who have to use the new tools. Don't underestimate the amount of training and support users will need to be successful. And don't forget to give the users a voice in the adoption process. Implement a feedback cycle that lets them communicate their challenges and requests, and nurtures the feeling of investment that you initiated during Step 3.
Step 6 - Adjust and extend. Pilot projects are highly recommended for organizations that can afford them. The benefits of the pilot are the lessons learned from experience in the pilot. A pilot project reveals areas that can be improved and ways to make structured content tools and standards better fit the organization. So the pilot lets the organization make adjustments and corrections as it moves forward and builds out its structured content system.
Note the typical pilot project advice is "avoid customizations." In structured content, the pilot advice is "don't worry about getting your customizations perfect." Customization and specialization is inherent in the value of structured content. You can modify the systems to best serve your business needs. So as structured content adoption grows beyond the pilot, one of the key issues involves selection of the right products and the right standards. Those choices give you the right balance between what works out of the box and what is flexible - i.e., customizable - enough to meet future needs. You don't want a system that requires a lot of customization to be usable, but you do want a system that is capable of such customization to meet your evolving needs.
Step 7 - Acknowledge the success. No matter what size the organization or project, success needs to be communicated to project champions, project stakeholders, and the organization at large. This helps stakeholders look to other business units that may be suffering similar problems and help drive change in those areas of the organization. Ideally, those successes will be supported by before-and-after metrics that demonstrate quantifiable improvements - time or money saved, process efficiencies realized, etc.
What do you think?
TAWPI @ AIIM
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Next year, info360 -- AIIM international's exposition + conference will be held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., March 22-24, 2011.
“Every two years we move info360 and ON DEMAND to another major city, and Washington is one of the most accessible cities on the east coast. The expansive convention center is located right in downtown, convenient to hotels and nightlife making it a perfect setting for a large convention,” says Debra Brown, event director for ON DEMAND. “Many of our exhibitors have expressed interest in having the events in Washington giving them a distinct opportunity to meet new customers from the government sector.”
“Washington was the No. 1 location identified by our attendees in an event survey, so we are feeling positive about the move to Washington, DC,” adds Beth Torrey, event director for info360. In 2011, info360 and ON DEMAND will also be held at the same time as ITEX, the trade show for Office Technology and Business Solutions.
Next year, info360 -- AIIM international's exposition + conference will be held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., March 22-24, 2011.
“Every two years we move info360 and ON DEMAND to another major city, and Washington is one of the most accessible cities on the east coast. The expansive convention center is located right in downtown, convenient to hotels and nightlife making it a perfect setting for a large convention,” says Debra Brown, event director for ON DEMAND. “Many of our exhibitors have expressed interest in having the events in Washington giving them a distinct opportunity to meet new customers from the government sector.”
“Washington was the No. 1 location identified by our attendees in an event survey, so we are feeling positive about the move to Washington, DC,” adds Beth Torrey, event director for info360. In 2011, info360 and ON DEMAND will also be held at the same time as ITEX, the trade show for Office Technology and Business Solutions.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
TAWPI @ AIIM
TAWPI Vice President of Sales Jason Glass greets Debby Kristofco, director of corporate communications and events, ibml, this afternoon at info 360 -- AIIM international's exposition + conference at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.
TAWPI @ AIIM
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Based on what he saw yesterday, Jim Thumma (jthumma@docfinity.com), vice president of sales, marketing and professional services for Optical Image Technology, Inc. (OIT), says it is clear that info 360 – AIIM international’s exposition + conference continues to shrink. Many vendors I spoke with today share his assessment, noting that expo hall traffic has been steady for most of the show, but lighter than in years past.
Thumma’s other observations on info 360:
… “There are lots of companies pushing the cloud,” Thumma said
… Thumma found it ironic that despite all the "squawking" over the past few years about “what SharePoint isn’t,” the SharePoint pavilion was positioned in the front of the expo hall, and featured a cast of companies marketing SharePoint add-ons.
… “There are many old faces here, but also many new faces,” Thumma said.
What did you notice at info 360?
Based on what he saw yesterday, Jim Thumma (jthumma@docfinity.com), vice president of sales, marketing and professional services for Optical Image Technology, Inc. (OIT), says it is clear that info 360 – AIIM international’s exposition + conference continues to shrink. Many vendors I spoke with today share his assessment, noting that expo hall traffic has been steady for most of the show, but lighter than in years past.
Thumma’s other observations on info 360:
… “There are lots of companies pushing the cloud,” Thumma said
… Thumma found it ironic that despite all the "squawking" over the past few years about “what SharePoint isn’t,” the SharePoint pavilion was positioned in the front of the expo hall, and featured a cast of companies marketing SharePoint add-ons.
… “There are many old faces here, but also many new faces,” Thumma said.
What did you notice at info 360?
TAWPI @ AIIM
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Nine top IT leaders -- comprising the Council for Information Advantage -- published a report at the AIIM conference providing a blueprint for transforming information in assets to gain competitive advantage. The council was assembled by EMC Corporation.
“When an organization leverages information to revolutionize how it competes and transforms how it does business, it has gained an information advantage,” says Mark Lewis, President of Content Management and Archiving Division at EMC. “Throughout my countless customer visits, we have found that organizations are still really struggling with how to make intelligent use of the information they have. EMC convened the Council for Information Advantage because its members have deployed strategies for leveraging information to compete more efficiently, increase customer loyalty, grow market share and identify new sources of business value. We believe that their personal experiences and lessons learned will help other organizations blaze their own trails toward an information-advantaged future.”
The first report from the Council for Information Advantage outlines fundamental strategies that are often overlooked as companies work to achieve information-driven competitive advantage. Council members drew from their professional experiences to provide actionable recommendations that can be executed, for the most part, without costly investments in new IT solutions or programs. This practical, straightforward guidance focuses on how to increase the accessibility and value of corporate information and win organizational support for information-based change initiatives. These guiding strategies which are explored in detail within the report are:
Transform information liabilities into business assets through information governance. Define and institute an enterprise-wide information governance policy to control how information is kept, shared and used. Consider appointing a Chief Information Architect who is responsible for maximizing the value and reusability of information by taking a long-term view of technology development.
Elevate information architecture. Rather than fine-tuning data for specific applications or narrow business processes, align data and technology solutions in order to maximize the potential value of information through access and reuse.
Balance people and process with technology. Increase the time and resources devoted to managing changes in how people work as a result of new technology investments.
“It’s a major advantage to have a culture that values information because it removes a lot of the barriers to creating knowledge,” commented council member Deirdre Woods in the report. “That’s one of the advantages universities have. The sharing of information and knowledge is inherently understood to be a good thing and a priority because it’s part of our core mission.”
The members of the Council for Information Advantage include:
Dave Blue, Senior Manager, Enterprise Data Services, The Boeing Company
Andrew Brown, Managing Director, Head of Strategy Architecture and Optimization, Bank of America
Guy Chiarello, Chief Information Officer, JPMorgan Chase
John Chickering, Vice President, Fidelity Investments
Paul Cushing, Senior Vice President of Technology and Media Infrastructure, ESPN
Dimitris Mavroyiannis, Group Chief Information Officer, Eurobank EFG Group
Sanjay Mirchandani, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, EMC Corporation
Joe Solimando, Senior Vice President of Global Operations and Technology, Chief Information Officer, Disney Consumer Products
Deirdre Woods, Associate Dean and Chief Information Officer, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
What do you think?
Nine top IT leaders -- comprising the Council for Information Advantage -- published a report at the AIIM conference providing a blueprint for transforming information in assets to gain competitive advantage. The council was assembled by EMC Corporation.
“When an organization leverages information to revolutionize how it competes and transforms how it does business, it has gained an information advantage,” says Mark Lewis, President of Content Management and Archiving Division at EMC. “Throughout my countless customer visits, we have found that organizations are still really struggling with how to make intelligent use of the information they have. EMC convened the Council for Information Advantage because its members have deployed strategies for leveraging information to compete more efficiently, increase customer loyalty, grow market share and identify new sources of business value. We believe that their personal experiences and lessons learned will help other organizations blaze their own trails toward an information-advantaged future.”
The first report from the Council for Information Advantage outlines fundamental strategies that are often overlooked as companies work to achieve information-driven competitive advantage. Council members drew from their professional experiences to provide actionable recommendations that can be executed, for the most part, without costly investments in new IT solutions or programs. This practical, straightforward guidance focuses on how to increase the accessibility and value of corporate information and win organizational support for information-based change initiatives. These guiding strategies which are explored in detail within the report are:
Transform information liabilities into business assets through information governance. Define and institute an enterprise-wide information governance policy to control how information is kept, shared and used. Consider appointing a Chief Information Architect who is responsible for maximizing the value and reusability of information by taking a long-term view of technology development.
Elevate information architecture. Rather than fine-tuning data for specific applications or narrow business processes, align data and technology solutions in order to maximize the potential value of information through access and reuse.
Balance people and process with technology. Increase the time and resources devoted to managing changes in how people work as a result of new technology investments.
“It’s a major advantage to have a culture that values information because it removes a lot of the barriers to creating knowledge,” commented council member Deirdre Woods in the report. “That’s one of the advantages universities have. The sharing of information and knowledge is inherently understood to be a good thing and a priority because it’s part of our core mission.”
The members of the Council for Information Advantage include:
Dave Blue, Senior Manager, Enterprise Data Services, The Boeing Company
Andrew Brown, Managing Director, Head of Strategy Architecture and Optimization, Bank of America
Guy Chiarello, Chief Information Officer, JPMorgan Chase
John Chickering, Vice President, Fidelity Investments
Paul Cushing, Senior Vice President of Technology and Media Infrastructure, ESPN
Dimitris Mavroyiannis, Group Chief Information Officer, Eurobank EFG Group
Sanjay Mirchandani, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, EMC Corporation
Joe Solimando, Senior Vice President of Global Operations and Technology, Chief Information Officer, Disney Consumer Products
Deirdre Woods, Associate Dean and Chief Information Officer, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
What do you think?
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