Dan Antion is a MUCH better computer programmer than chemist. The AIIM Community has had the great benefit of learning from Dan weekly as he writes about things of interest to him and how he’s conquering information challenges (particularly using SharePoint) for his organization. Dan freely shares his knowledge with others just getting started on managing their content as both frequent blogger and active AIIM New England chapter member. He was award AIIM’s Distinguished Service Award in 2012. Dan is Vice President Information Services for American Nuclear Insurers.
Duhon: How did you go from a BS in Chemistry and graduate school in business to a career in IT?
Antion: My initial goal was to be a forensic chemist (crime lab), but when I attended college, there weren’t many schools that offered a degree in that field. Ironically WVU, where I studied as an undergrad, now has a well-recognized forensics program. Back in 1973, my advisor designed a program that focused on “computer-assisted analytic chemistry.” When I graduated, my advisor told me that I was a better computer programmer than I was a chemist. He suggested business for grad school instead of chemistry. I had taken my first programming course in 1967, between 8th and 9th grade so it made sense. About a year later, I started working as a programmer analyst for Burroughs Corporation and the rest is history.
Duhon: What is your proudest accomplishment at work?
Antion: Being accepted into the management group of our company stands above all the technical accomplishments. I love working for a company that understands the value of information and technology and I am honored that they value my opinion in other matters.
Duhon: What is your greatest content management challenge today?
Antion: I want to move from a series of projects dealing with data and content to an environment where managed information is ubiquitous and expected.
Duhon: Best thing about SharePoint? Worst?
Antion: The best thing about SharePoint is how many aspects of business it can support out of the box. The worst thing about it is that it’s such a mediocre solution for all those things. But the best thing is that there are so many add-on products available to make it better, and the worst thing is that most of them are expensive. But then the best thing about SharePoint is that you can make it so much better by changing the configuration and adding some custom coding. But the worst thing is that customizing it and adding stuff to it requires more input from IT. I’m sorry, what was the question?
Duhon: I was fascinated by this in your bio: Developed (and still maintain) a Barcode printing library for multiple dialects of Smalltalk and distributed that library at no charge to developers who had a need to include Barcode production in their applications. What is that?
Antion: Smalltalk is somewhat of an obscure programming language, and there wasn’t a library available to create bar codes. There were plenty of options using fonts and free utilities, but none to form a full bar code with check-digits inside your application. I kept looking at them and saying “it’s just a bunch of rectangles.” Well, a bunch of rectangles specified by a bunch of different symbologies, but it was fun to code. Trying to code a library for others to use is much harder than writing a program at work. When you decide to let everyone look at your code, you want it to be well written. I wrote this before open-source was a big deal, but I offered to distribute the library for free if people asked.
Duhon: You’ve recently done work heavily focusing on usability; why is that so often overlooked in software rollout and development?
Antion: I think we’ve ignored usability because it was considered expensive to provide and we could get away with simply meeting stated requirements. Throughout the 90s, I was giving people either their first or their most advanced PC and I was writing the systems they used on a daily basis. By contrast, today, people are solving problems with free web services and $0.99 apps that all have a great user experience. I never had competition before, and now it surrounds me.
Duhon: What’s the biggest change in IT when you began your career compared to today?
Antion: Computer power became a commodity. I started designing and coding systems when the big new things were an “intelligent terminals” and relational databases. When I started at ANI, we still had 32mb server volumes. People thought building our technology on a LAN was crazy talk. Technology eclipsed our demands in the mid-90s. That change led to an accumulation of data and rich content that we now have to squeeze onto a smart phone. So, in some ways, the biggest change was no change at all; good systems still require a healthy respect for scarce resources.
Duhon: Talk a little bit about the Horace Mann event; which is one of the best things any of the AIIM chapters do.
Antion: I can only accept a certain glory-by-association w.r.t. this great event, as I only joined the committee in 2011. The AIIM NE Chapter has been working with the Horace Mann School for the Deaf for about 30 years. Many members of the chapter have worked to provide equipment, training, and to help find jobs for the schools deaf and hard of hearing students. I met some of these kids and some of the teachers when the AIIM Conference was in Boston, and I was very impressed. Seventeen years ago, AIIM NE began an annual golf tournament to raise additional funding for the school. It’s a fun, full day event involving golf, a wonderful dinner, an auction, and other fundraising activities.
Duhon: Why be involved in chapters? And AIIM in general?
Antion: With so much information coming from vendors or people with a vested interest in one vendor’s solution, an organization like AIIM is critical for professionals working in this industry. AIIM is a fantastic source of unbiased root level information about our industry, the challenges we face, and the ones we will soon face and sound advice on how to meet those challenges. Being involved in your local chapter puts a friendly local face on AIIM. I have met some of the nicest, brightest and most helpful people through AIIM NE, and I have attended many interesting, informative, and affordable events. The personal input, particularly that of other end-users, helps me make sense of the issues and choices I have.
Duhon: Favorite part of being involved in the content management industry?
Antion: Personally, I love it when stuff works, but right now, the best thing is helping to introduce this subject to a new generation of people within our company. This responsibility was thrust onto me relatively late in my career. I hope to make information management, structured and non-structured a part of their lives from the outset.
Duhon: You’ve taken a number of the AIIM training courses. How have they helped you?
Antion: The ECMm and ERMm courses gave me the fundamental understanding of how to build content management solutions, and listening to the other students helped me understand how the concepts can actually be applied. In the absence of that foundation, I would be just applying the features of the tools at hand base on what seemed a close fit. Technology like SharePoint should be made to serve a company’s needs; it should never be allowed to define the process. The training from AIIM helped me to learn how to put process and business requirements first and then work to make SharePoint support those goals.
Duhon: Finally, why are you an information professional?
Antion: When I started out in my career, I was proud to be able to simply store and manipulate data and provide information, but I never really cared what happened to the information. As I have grown within the organizations I have worked for, I have come to realize that what happens with the information is critical to a company’s success. Everyone deals with information; my job is to help bring them all together. Like many in this industry, I watched for years as we struggled with what to call ourselves. Architects, engineers, analysts, developers; it seemed we were either narrowly defining our roles based on task, or we were trying to be like some other profession, one that was accepted. I think the world is ready to accept the fact that we are information professionals and that we are necessary.
Just for fun:
Duhon: What are your three favorite websites?
Antion: NHRA.com – I am a big fan of drag-racing and this is about the only place to get in-depth high quality information about this sport.
TheOatmeal.com – The guy is clearly twisted, but sometimes it’s just what I need to keep things in perspective.
Flickr.com – I love photographs and of all the social media-like places I am involved with, this is the one I visit every day, in fact, it is my homepage.
Duhon: What are the three greatest books ever written—and what’s on your nightstand today?
Antion: The Twenty-Elephant Restaurant – Emily Arnold McCully – If you have young children, find a copy of this book and read it to them. Then wait for them to ask you to read it to them again.
The Axemaker's Gift – Burke and Ornstein – Every information professional should read this
The Matarese Circle – Robert Ludlum – I absolutely could not put this book down
I am currently reading No.9, the story of the 1968 Farmington Mine Disaster by Bonnie Stewart.
Duhon: What are the three greatest movies of all time—and what’s the last one you’ve seen?
Antion: I’m not much of a popular movie fan, but I liked: Midway, A Christmas Carol (with George C. Scott or The Muppets) & Animal House; but the last great movie I saw was Wall-E.
Duhon: What was your first concert—and what are the three greatest songs on your iPod?
Antion: The Allman Brothers (opening act Loggins & Messina)
Halley Came to Jackson – Mary Chapin Carpenter
Seven Year Ache – Rosanne Cash
Backroads – Ricky Van Shelton
#SharePoint #EnterpriseContentManagement