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Why CMS & Collaboration Suites don't work

2009-10-14T06:03:00.000-07:00

Or the lack of smart meta-data tagging

During a presentation by Arnd Brugman of Sogeti at the Nite 09 event in Groningen (October 8 2009) on the subject "Het Nieuwe Werken" (The World of Work), he mentioned the importance of tagging.

The World of Work is a new view of how companies should work in a more "modern" way.

Key issues are:

Technology
The World of Work needs to provide a platform were people can work on any location and have access to the right information and resources to work and collaborate wherever they are.
Inspiration
The World of Work requires inspiration. The people in the organization have the space to develop themselves, but also inspired to be the best they can be.
Organization
The World of Work requires a flexible organization. No command & control, just their own initiative and self control.
Culture
The World of Work requires a cultural change. A shift from one way to dialogue, from delegate to coaching, and from work or private to work and private.

Arnd's comment on the importance of tagging was directly related to the technology, to be specific: to the importance of tagging in a mixed environment of information sources like: mail, documents, contacts, tasks, etc...

In my opinion we do not only need tagging but especially meta-data tagging, where tagging restricts itself to use "keys" as tags, meta-data tagging usually works with key-value pairs. Another drawback on tagging is, often some tags behave like keys and in other cases as values.

So what are the benefits of smart meta-data tagging?

Let's take an example where a lot of information in spread over mail, task list, contact list , calendar and documents.
When all mentioned platforms provide the functionality to attach meta-data key/value pairs, being the meta-data tags filled-in automatically and/or manually, we can easily find back information and/or change the view on our information sets depending on the way we build up a search entry.

For example, we add a new task which is related to a project, so we attach a meta-data tag like “Project#=12345”

Assuming our information systems are all using similar meta-data-tags (most of them in an automated way, f.i. a project number is found in the Subject field of an email) we can now do smart searches like:

Show me all documents written by people who are involved on the project related to this task who are scheduled in my calender for the upcoming month and sent me an email on this project during the last 2 weeks.

Another example is that we can easily change the hierarchy in the presentation of data, so we are no longer bound to a fixed hierarchy.

Why is this important?
We still tend to think in the old days structure of data as if the world still consists of Cupboards, Drawers, Folders and Printed files.
By using technologies as described here we can release ourself of this 20th century way of thinking and step into “The Real World of Work” way of working and – more important - our way of thinking.
We now do not need to know how data is structured or filed, but are sure we can always represent information in a structure we need in every specific case.

Doesn't this take a lot of time?

So the first question could be: “Doesn't it take a lot of time to add all this extra meta-data tags, so I lose many ours per day in keeping up all information being tagged correctly?”

The answer is NO.
When you explain people what time management is, they will ask you the same question, but at the end you realize your saving a lot of time.
The same happens when data is correctly tagged. We do not need to spend a lot of time to file our documents in Cupboards, Drawers and Folders. We can even keep all data unstructured because the structure is now in the tagging. And don't forget that most tagging can be fully automated by implementing smart business rules or workflows, which has to be done once (and a while).

Resume
In the past 15 years the really successful CMSes I built or participated on were all using these meta-data tags.
So I'm still surprised that most Collaboration Suites lack or hide this functionality. At least I do not know any of the shelf product which guides you in using this way of structuring your data, while I'm convinced this is THE ONLY way to handle large sets of information.

Anybody out there who knows, please raise your hand!

"The Future of Content Management"

2006-11-28T06:14:00.000-08:00

23 November the CM Pros Benelux Summit gathered around 25 attendants to discuss the future of content management.
see:
CMPros Benelux :: Benelux Summit

Major keywords where:

Tridion: Globalization, Specific Markets, Different Channels.
MediaSurface: CMS will be on 98% of the desktops like spreadsheets are now.
Q42: Content and presentation need to be stricktly seperated.
Hippo: The world is already loaded with content, re-use is only possible when tagging is used and generic API's allow to connect different content repositories.

My conclusion:

Content needs to be broken down into the real content and tagged in its context
Portlets and repositories need to be stricktly seperated (Content and Presentation separated)
A generic API on top of the repository guarantees the future of a Content Management System
Usage of an API like the JSR-170/283 and/or iECM is an absolute need for (E)CM suppliers to survive in the (near) future
Only when suggestions above are used we are ready for Content Grids (very 2.0 ;)

Links:

Version 2 of the Java Content Repository in review

2006-09-29T05:34:00.000-07:00

September 2005 a new proposal for version 2 of the Java Content Repository was started as JSR-283. Version 1 is known as JSR-170.

And now nearly a year later an Early Draft Review of this second version can be downloaded from jcp.org. While it is not easy to dive into the provided documentation and get a first impression on what the new features are of version 2, I recommend to listen to the Podcast on Open Source Talk, Alfresco’s Podcast Series.

Alfresco is an Open Source implementation of an Enterprise Content Management System based on JSR-170.

The Podcast Foccusses on:

What is JSR-170 and what are the goals behind it
How does JSR-170 relate to standard features such as Folders, Documents, Containers and Relationships
What levels of standards does JSR-170 have
What is in level 1
What is in level 2
What is in the optional level
What is JSR-283 and what are the key features of JSR-283
What does Alfresco provide
What are Alfresco’s plans for JSR-170/JCR support
JSR-170 Developer Kit and samples
Scalable JSR-170 support
JSR-170 Roadmap
Alfresco forge for JSR-170 Contributions

Links:

BEA to Integrate JSR 170 Connector from Day

2005-10-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

BEA Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:BEAS) and Day Software announced that they have entered into a technology alliance to deliver a JSR 170 compliant connector for BEA WebLogic Portal.

Read more on: The Gilbane Report

First CMS's implemented on the JSR170

2005-09-06T04:36:00.000-07:00

Recently the first CMS's are available based on the JSR170.
It looks like the market starts to understand the importance of using a 'common' repository.
Having Day Software as Specification Lead for the JSR170, it's not surprising Day Software came with the first implementation based on the JSR170, but recently also Magnolia is running on the Content Repository for Java.

Links:

JSR 170: Java Content Repository

2005-07-18T23:41:00.000-07:00

It seems that the JSR170 : the Java Content Repository is getting more and more attention.

This is a very important step in the (Enterprise) Content Management world, while we now see a market where 500+ closed source and 200+ open source products are available.
All those products - at least - claim to provide content management functionality.

What is the JSR170?
The JSR 170 is a JAVA API for a Content Management Repository, however this does not mean you are locked in by using Java.
Important is that it separates the Business and Presentation tier from the Repository.

A big advantage is the repository can be changed if needed or split over different repositories or consolidated from different repositories into one without any changes in the rest of the (E)CM.

My advise:
Read the Forrester link and the Day Software white papers, and if you are still there, go to the JSR 170 Home Page and download the final specification.

Links:

Content Management

2005-04-26T01:28:00.001-07:00

In this blog I will publish my toughts on Content Management