Blogs

With this article I make my debut as a contributor to the blogosphere. Earlier this year I joined the AIIM Board of Directors, with an objective to increase the representation of ECM end-users on the Board, as well as to offer perspective from the mid-market financial institution viewpoint. In the past few months I have found the learning curve to becoming a bonafide ECM practitioner quite a bit steeper than I would have anticipated.

I have been a dues paying AIIM member for a decade, have overseen the evolution of ECM in my organization for 15 years, and I consume an array of business, technology and IT related news & information. I have presumed that ECM and all that it entails must fit fairly neatly in with general technology and information management, but as I now pay more attention to what matters to AIIM and its members I am seeing things a bit differently.

For much of my career I have used a modified version of the 1960s and 1970s adage that nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM (i.e., big, strong, stable, and a market dominator). When feasible, I tend to quickly filter options by seeking the top 3 or so solutions in Gartner's Magic Quadrant (or a comparable authoritative source), and we have successfully standardized our infrastructure on modern-day giants such as Cisco, Dell, HP, Microsoft, EMC, and Oracle. When the dominator route is not available, we routinely network with colleagues who have similar business models to determine the solutions and partners that have worked well for them. This strategy has served me and my employers quite well over the years, but upon reflection I wonder now what benefits, opportunities, and rewards we may have bypassed by not even exploring the higher risk, higher reward options.

I also now realize that over the years I have generally used the benefits of my AIIM membership, including the AIIM.org website, whitepapers, the Magazine, & periodic attendance at annual conferences, to validate many of the ECM processes & philosophies that have worked in the past and seem comfortable going forward. As I now delve further into topics such as ECM, ECM 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, BPM, Knowledge Management, Collaboration, and many more interlinked areas of focus, I am realizing a new appreciation for the depth and breadth of available content and for the passion and spirited discourse of those who seem to care deeply about using and exploiting technologies & process to empower organizations. I see a small irony that the capabilities of Web 2.0, via interactive blogs, electronic social interaction, wikis, and the like, have provided the platform that makes content so much more compelling because much of it is written, validated, and contested by the stakeholders who know best.

I have been involved with credit unions and affiliated organizations for 30+ years, but look forward to the challenge of stepping outside of a comfort zone by sharpening my focus on AIIM and ECM. As I continue a crash course on ECM's place in the tech world, I hope to use this forum to share some of what I learn and what it means to me, as well as to take advantage of the opportunity to solicit feedback, opinion, and guidance.