Bex Huff

Back at Oracle Open World 2008, Oracle gave some lip service to how they would get into cloud computing... in case you are not familiar with the term, "cloud computing" is a way of designing your systems so that your data resources (and sometimes your services) behave as if they are "in the internet cloud." Its a combination of a service-oriented architecture, software-as-a-service, and storage-as-a-service. Developers love it, but system administrators are still a bit weary...

Basically, you rent the computational power and storage you need, and only pay for what you use. In theory you can rely on your provider -- such as Google or Amazon.com -- to take care of backups for you. Its a great idea for startups (Twitter does it) and mid-sized companies, so they can keep costs down, while still leaving room to grow. For large companies with their own dedicated data centers, cloud computing makes less sense for production software... but its usually a great idea for development and testing.

Anyway... I was curious how Oracle's "Cloud" strategy would develop... and I was pleasantly surprised to find some recent collaboration between Amazon and Oracle. They put together some Best Practices for Oracle In The Cloud, which I found on Justin Kestylyn's blog: "Oracle in the Cloud" AWS WebinarView SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: amazon aws)

I really like the idea of encrypting database backups, and storing them in the cloud. That's an excellent idea, for pretty much anybody... and it is supported back to Oracle Database 9i. Check out the Cloud Backup Whitepaper for more info...

I also really see the value for using the Amazon cloud for the persistence layer for archives. The Oracle Universal Online Archive could be a real killer app, but proving its value will need about a Terabyte of storage, just to do a proof-of-concept. Unfortunately, that's not exactly something you can run on a VM Ware virtual machine... but you could do it as an Amazon Machine Image (AMI).

I wouldn't be surprised if we saw more and more archiving solutions that use Amazon's Cloud for persistence...

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I had expected that it would take another 3 weeks to release this, but my second book is now available for purchase! As promised, this is more of a business strategy book, and less of a technical book... however, Andy and I did sneak in some good implementation details along the way. We designed this book so every member of your ECM team should get something useful out of it.

The purpose of the book is to present what we call a "pragmatic strategy for content management." For multiple reasons -- both political and technical -- it is rarely feasible for all of your content management products to be from one vendor. Perhaps you just merged with another company and you each have different vendors; perhaps you need blogs and wikis now and cannot wait for your ECM vendor to create a decent offering; perhaps SharePoint has grown like a fungus in your enterprise, and now you need some way to manage the insanity.

Some say the solution is rationalization: consolidate all content into one system... but that's not the whole story. You don't want to wind up like those poor saps running Lotus Notes, do you? Your users will rebel if you take away their nice collaboration tools, or if you tell them they can't have new ones. Entire departments will collapse if you eliminate content silos without any concern for users' productivity.

Instead, the pragmatic approach is to do the following:

• Consolidate content when possible into a "strategic ecm infrastructure." This can -- if desired -- be the single repository that satisfies all your content management needs; however this is not a requirement.
• Federate content services to tactical and legacy applications. This means managing content in other repositories with a combination of enterprise search, universal records management, and enterprise mashups.
• Secure content wherever it lives. Ironically, in most cases your data is only secure when it is not in use! Once you move it from one system to another, it is at risk. Your information should always be secure, whether it is locked down in a database, or in a USB thumb drive at the bottom of your sock drawer.

The book is 250 pages long... but you don't have to read the whole thing. The chapter breakdown is as follows:

1. The State of Information Management: a good grounding in what exactly ECM is all about, and why it is important.
2. A Pragmatic ECM Architecture: the steps you need to take in order to realize the value of an ECM initiative.
3. Assessing Your Environment: make a big list of what needs to be done, and by whom. Which content should be consolidated, and which is best left where it is?
4. Strategic ECM Infrastructure and Middleware: this is the "strategic" part of the puzzle. Consolidate to this system whenever cost-effective, and extend it to your portals and enterprise applications with SOAs, ESBs, or ECM standards (WebDAV, CMIS, etc.).
5. Managing Legacy and Non-Strategic Content Stores: all the tools for "tactical" integrations with systems that are not (yet) cost effective to consolidate. Your content management strategy should never punish you for failing to consolidate: the goal is to make content manageable.
6. Secure Information Wherever It Lives: tools for making sure content is secure, even when it leaves a secure repository.
7. Bringing Structured and Unstructured Strategies Together: your ECM initiative should be a part of a broader information management initiative. This chapter presents tools that helps you bridge this gap.
8. ECM and Enterprise 2.0: here we present a (better) definition of Enterprise 2.0, and how ECM fits into the ecosystem. It presents a strategy for Pragmatic Enterprise 2.0, and explains how many Enterprise 2.0 initiatives could fail without a comprehensive strategy.

Chapters 1, 2, and 8 are relevant no matter which vendor you use for Enterprise Content Management. We do mention Oracle numerous times, but you can just BLEEEEEEP over that if you use tools from different vendors.

Chapters 3 through 7 show how to implement a "pragmatic ECM strategy" using Oracle tools. Some of this data may or may not be relevant to non-Oracle customers. In most cases, you should find it helpful to see what is possible, so you can determine the distance between where you are now, and where you want to be tomorrow.

I worked pretty hard on this, and I'm relatively pleased with the results... but I'm sure the haters out there will find something to complain about ;-)

Enjoy!

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Well... this is pretty negative...

CMS Watch came out with their 12 predictions for 2009, and number seven was "Oracle will fall behind in the battle for knowledge workers." Here's the relevant quote:

At one level, Oracle had a banner year in 2008: completing or consolidating numerous large acquisitions that bring in heavy streams of ever-beloved maintenance revenues. But 2009 will expose Oracle's weakness with front-office applications at a time when Microsoft, IBM, and many smaller players are fighting for the hearts and minds of knowledge workers.

Customers are already feeling indigestion, as different Oracle teams market overlapping and often incomplete solutions. For example, Oracle is struggling to combine four different enterprise portal offerings, and many customers are chafing at the financial and architectural challenges of aligning with the putative winner, Oracle WebCenter Suite (OWS). Similarly, collaboration and social software services remain divided between OWS and the new Beehive offering -- a bad situation made worse by the fact that both are really development platforms and not finished toolsets. Meanwhile, longtime Stellent UCM customers complain that Oracle is moving away from the product's Web CMS roots to emphasize heavy-duty document and records management.

Some thoughts...

First, the acquisition of BEA did really shake up Oracle's whole knowledge management / collaboration / Enterprise 2.0 strategy... and yes, there is considerable overlap in the product offerings. However, ultimately this will be a good thing, because only the best of the best will become strategic products under the "WebCenter" brand. This will take time to digest... it may or may not be "all better" by the 11g release in 2009, but I remain optimistic based on the previews I've seen... so the architecture will likely become much more simplified.

Although, I do have to agree that a lot of Oracle's offerings here are platforms, instead of complete applications -- Stellent/ECM being one exception. The WebCenter platform will never be huge, unless it has pre-packaged "Killer Apps" built on it. This is a general fact about all platforms, and is very much true here as well. There are several in the works -- collectively called "Fusion Applications" -- but I have no clue when they will be released.

Second, regarding the financial challenges, I guess I don't know what he means here... the current WebCenter bundle is a bit pricey, mainly because it's a bundle of so many different tools. Remember, WebCenter is a brand, and not just a single piece of technology. Oracle will probably figure out smaller, cheaper bundles that sell better, so I don't see this as that much of a long term problem. Maybe some folks are upset about the price of migration from older platforms to WebCenter... but nobody is forcing them to upgrade. They'll have to do a technology refresh at some point, and Oracle will continue to support and make new released of their non-strategic product lines... so I guess I'll need to hear more before I can respond.

Third, regarding existing Stellent UCM customers, Oracle is actually moving in both WCM and document/records management at the same time. The heavy-duty document and records management offerings are badly needed by many of their existing enterprise customers, so there's a lot of sales opportunity by productizing a few enterprise-level integrations. While at the same time, they spent a lot of time and energy in the next version of Site Studio (Web Content Management) including their Open WCM initiative... This will be big in 2009.

The Stellent faithful have been hearing this line for a long time, but their patience will be rewarded as soon as January.

For those who watched the December 10 customer call, you'd know that you will be able to play with this next-generation of Site Studio relatively soon. A lot of it will be released as Site Studio 10gr4 at the beginning of 2009. The rest will be released in 11g, which is slated for some time in 2009. Alan Baer will be doing a Deep Dive into Oracle Site Studio 10gr4 in January, if you want to know more.

And finally, we should note that of the dozen 2008 predictions by CMS Watch, they claim seven came true, three did not, and two are in the "maybe" pile... so take this prediction with a grain of salt. Oracle has several decent ECM products due out in 2009... so this warning could be both a wake-up call, and a self-denying prophesy.

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President elect Obama announced parts of his economic recovery plan in his weekly "radio" address. There are a lot of good pieces to it that should help America's down economy, and some that will be a huge boon for the Enterprise Content Management industry:

In addition to connecting our libraries and schools to the internet, we must also ensure that our hospitals are connected to each other through the internet. That is why the economic recovery plan I’m proposing will help modernize our health care system – and that won’t just save jobs, it will save lives. We will make sure that every doctor’s office and hospital in this country is using cutting edge technology and electronic medical records so that we can cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes, and help save billions of dollars each year.

Gee... Obama says medical records should all be electronic to help save the economy? I agree! And there's nothing like a presidential endorsement to boost your industry, eh?

Many ECM experts have been preaching this for years... in fact, a lot of them have recently reminded folks about how much hard cash you save with a coherent, electronic, information management system. Just recently, over on the AIIM Blog, John Mancini's most popular posts are all about using ECM to cut costs. Oracle recently started their Survive Or Thrive with ECM web conferences, which give hard data from customers about how ECM made them more efficient. There should be one or two per month for a while... The presentation by Emerson Process has some especially useful statistics for Return On Investment.

Aside: I know some free-market fundamentalists hate the idea of government spending, but this kind of initiative is necessary. The economy is in the early stages of a deflationary spiral... which makes banks are scared to loan cash, consumers hesitant to spend cash, and debtors without cash will find themselves deeper in debt. Deflation may be a good thing for gas and house prices... but the spiral soon forces business to sell products for less than the costs of production. In order to stay in business, they are usually forced to lay off workers...The best way to stabilize deflation is for the government to purchase a wide range of commodities.

This month, there is a great article in Forbes about deflation... what are its risks, and how to we stop it? Instead of throwing money at banks and wall street, the best option is for the government to purchase glass, steel, concrete, computers, light bulbs, and stuff like that. This drives up overall demand, which reduces supply, which stabilizes prices, and ensures businesses don't have to lay off workers.

The Forbes article questioned whether Obama could launch an initiative of sufficient size and usefulness in time... but I'm hopeful, because everything Obama proposed -- make government building more energy efficient, launch a large-scale broadband initiative, repair broken school buildings and bridges, and force municipalities to "use or lose" their federal grants -- all sound practical and swift. The government will soon be buying up a bunch of commodities, and using them to make America more efficient. This will create new jobs, stabilize prices, and get the economy going again. More projects are needed, but this is a promising start.

The potential extra business for my industry is just an added bonus ;-)

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For the longest time, many people believed that one of the biggest information management problems is simply getting access to data. Previously, data was hidden away in a "silo," making it difficult to obtain, because you had to deal with an "information broker." You know the stereotype: somebody who rations their hoard of information for job security purposes, and refuses to share unless forced to... Not always, but many times this "broker" frequently acted more like a "bottleneck."

20 years ago, this led people to believe that if we could only bypass these brokers, and access the information directly, then all our problems would be solved! If only we could get the raw, unfiltered data, we would be much more efficient!

It turns out, not so much...

If you want a successful ECM/Knowledge Management/ Enterprise 2.0 initiative, one of the biggest mistakes you could make is to focus too much on sharing information.

Don't get me wrong: there are many situations where sharing information is vital... however, those situations are pretty obvious. You won't need to look hard to find them, and solving information access problems is fairly straightforward. Sometimes its technical, in which case basic content management tools can help out. Some times the problem is political, in which case the optimal information management strategy requires you to first understand the cultural reasons why your employees refuse to share information... after which you can either chose a software solution, or just force everybody to go to anger management training.

But... assuming that you break down the cultural bottlenecks to innovation, now you have another problem: "infoglut." In other words, information overload. Emails you don't read, presentations that don't make sense, reports that don't flow, the proliferation of websites, blogs, wikis, and social software across the enterprise... people talking a lot, but communicating very little.

In many ways, the best solution to infoglut is to bring back the information broker. Now that information is completely free, you need some kind of filter to let you know what information is relevant. This does not mean that you should bring back the information bottlenecks... instead, you need tools that makes the information broker more effective. This may include:

• Smarter search engines: the current ones try to determine relevance just based on keywords, which doesn't work so well. Google's search engine does a great job on the heavily hyperlinked web, but its a terrible tool for the whole Enterprise. Smarter search engines need to use identity management and analytics to know what content is currently popular with people similar to the current user. They also need a human to maintain a controlled thesaurus, in order to get a vague idea about what content is similar.
• Polite relevance filters for email: how many of you would love to have a customer support queue for your email inbox? "Thank you for your email! I currently have 1000 unread items in my inbox, all flagged 'important.' The average wait time for a response is 97 hours." Of course, you might also need one for your phone...
• Recommendation sites: these allow your greater audience to "vote" on what content is relevant. Examples include Digg and Reddit, which are both good, but only for highly broad topics. I know what's hot in "Technology," but not what's hot in "Embedded Linux."
• Better tools for human information brokers: I firmly believe the broker is the solution, not the problem. Instead of replacing them with technology, work with them to design systems that are more effective at brokering information. If they see their influence increase the more they share, they will do everything they can to get the right information to the right people at the right time. There isn't much commercially software along these lines at the moment... but that doesn't stop sites like AllTop from doing it anyway.

In short, don't blindly bash content silos and information brokers. Sure, they kept data hidden from you... but it was data you probably didn't want to see in the first place. Replacing a human broker with a Digg-clone may work for a while... but that's easy. And since its easy, soon everybody will be doing it, and it will cease to be a competitive advantage. As I've said many times, no technology can ever replace a human being who actually gives a damn.

Technology should empower your brokers, not replace them. Otherwise, you'll soon be swimming in useless information... just like everybody else.

UPDATE: There's a bit of confusion about what I mean by "broker." I do not mean to imply that information should go back to being "locked away." That is both illogical and impossible. Rather, I'm stating that the role of the "broker" has changed into being more of a "filter," and is arguably more important than ever. As Clay Shirky says, "It’s Not Information Overload. It’s Filter Failure." Sometimes a broker is one person, sometimes its several people, sometimes its a software algorithm. None is superior to the other: they all have merits. Therefore, its important for the filter to be a combination: better search algorithms based on relevance, Digg clones for the enterprise, and better tools to help individuals who choose to become brokers. This means multiple silos will be built upon the same raw information, based solely on which filter you pick. Like it or not, its already happening... and people will use whichever one makes them more productive.

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The Trappist Monks are widely known for making the best beer in the world... most of it is made in monasteries located in Belgium, using centuries-old processes. These Trappists are the quintessential monks: quiet, pious, hard working, and frugal. And man, they make great beer!

Contrary to popular belief, Trappist monks do not take a vow of silence; rather they vow to speak only when necessary. Which, surprisingly, is almost never.

To gabby outsiders, they speak so little that we just assumed many of them took a vow to never speak... Who wouldn't be making idle chit-chat while brewing a batch of awesome beer!?!? The alternative was just too bizarre for us to comprehend: speaking is rarely necessary, even when creating a world-class product.

And this rule applies for people who aren't even monks. Let me explain...

Last year I was introduced to a technique called Non-Violent Communication, which had many excellent suggestions for effective dialogs and running productive meetings... They stressed that besides empathy, the most important communication skill is brevity. Specifically, you should limit yourself to no more than 40 words before coming to an actionable request.

State your case quickly, express what you need briefly, and then make a positive request of one specific person.

For example, a manager shouldn't just call a meeting, let out a deep sigh, and lament about how the sales numbers really suck this quarter... and then go on and on and on about what's wrong. That's a waste of everybody's time. I'm certain your employees already know that the numbers are bad. I'm certain your employees already know they "shouldn't drop the ball next time." They know, they know, they know... and now you just wasted an hour of everybody's productive day.

They don't care about what they shouldn't do... they only care about what they should do in order to move things forward.

Instead, try to realize that speaking is rarely necessary, even for a world-class team. Get clear on what it is that you need... determine specifically what actions need to be taken, and by whom. If you don't know what actions need to be taken, then your request would be to have your team help you find out. State your case in 40 words or less, make your request, and move on to new business.

Naturally, there are some concepts that are difficult to explain in fewer than 40 words. In those cases, you should write a report. No, I don't mean a mind-boggling array of Power Point slides... I mean a real, honest to god report. Publish it to your content management system, where it is widely available, then share it with your team. That way, your request would simply be "Please read my report, and send me your comments." Otherwise, the data will still be there in the future, on the off chance that anybody needs it.

Verbose information belongs in a published report, or a wiki... not in an email, and not in a meeting. Keep this in mind at all times, or you'll never make anything as good as a bottle of Westvleteren 12...

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The next Oracle customer call for UCM users is coming soon:

As before, you need to register for the conference. There will be a repeat of the webcast at 7pm PST on December 10th, for those in Asia.

If you miss it, they will have old recordings on Metalink... but you might want to check this one out. Last time they announced that Oracle was supporting the Site Studio Blogs and Wikis... and I have it under good authority that something equally cool will be announced at the next call...

Speculate amongst yourselves...

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When there is a lack of unified purpose, information sharing leads to chaos... and sometimes can cause more problems than it solves. To illustrate this point, I'd like to share the legend of King Ammon.

In a dialog between himself and Phaedrus, Socrates told the tale of king Ammon. He was a wise and just ruler, and all the gods admired him and his virtues.

One day, Ammon was met by the Egyptian god Thoth, who was an inventor, and the "scribe of the gods." Thoth admired Ammon, and wanted to share his inventions with Ammon and all his Egyptian subjects. Ammon was impressed with most of the inventions... except for one: writing.

Ammon was not a fan of writing... and chided Thoth for creating it:

What you have discovered is a receipt for recollection, not memory. And as for wisdom, your pupils will have the reputation for it but not the reality: they will receive a quantity of information without proper instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant. And because they are filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom, they will be a burden to society.

Hmmm... so Ammon feared what would happen if somebody read something, didn't understand it, quoted it anyway to appear wise, but in actuality had no real wisdom... and in doing so became more powerful, perhaps even respected, so that people even followed him... but because he only appeared to be wise, he made bad decisions, and ultimately became a significant burden to his fellow men.

gee... sound like anybody you know?

Naturally, we only have this great story because of the written word... so nobody would go so far as to claim that writing is bad. However this legend does bring up a valuable point for knowledge management systems:

We should NOT focus on sharing information; we should focus on teaching knowledge.

You shouldn't just dump data to a blog and expect people to read it... you shouldn't dump half-baked documentation into a wiki and expect others to maintain it... you shouldn't just deploy an enterprise search or ECM system, then allow it to become a dumping ground for "data."

What we need are systems that teach; not systems that share. Because without that context, without teaching, and without experience, sharing information could very likely lead to problems...

...and it might actually make you a burden to your fellow men.

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No time for a full-blown post today folks... so I thought I'd share some links of interest:

• Cloud Computing is Stupid according to Richard Stallman -- Its just an excuse Google and Amazon invented for holding your data for ransom. Many disagree...
• 10 Facts About Document Management -- Pam Doyle put together an ECM presentation for a recent AIIM road show, and it had some pretty nteresting numbers for folks who want to calculate ROI
• Gartner's Latest Magic Quadrant on Enterprise Content Management -- Pie Guy has a good analysis. The people you expect are in the leaders quadrant (Oracle, EMC, IBM, Microsoft). Be sure to read the full report as well. Notably, the open source Alfresco finally made the list...
• 8 Things To Watch For In The Coming Recession -- since ECM folks like to say they improve efficiency, this is a pretty good post on how you can cut costs by making your information management processes more efficient.
• Tony Byrne Defends Blogging -- those oh so clueful at Wired speculated that the economic downturn would reduce blogging. Maybe, maybe not... I agree with Seth Godin that people will re-focus on whatever helps them grow a "tribe," whether it be Web 2.0, Web 1.0, or just plain old word of mouth.

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As I mentioned previously, Oracle is finally supporting the UCM Blogs and Wikis that Stellent released almost 3 years ago...

This led many people to ask, where can I get them?!?!? I recently got word that these will not be released as a separate download from OTN, but instead will be released as patch on Metalink. The officially released name is Content Server Blogs and Wikis Components (2008_09_18), which you download from Metalink as patch number 7504090.

Please note, in order to make these work, you'll need the latest Site Studio patches as well. Specifically, the Site Studio 10.1.3.3.4 - October 2008 roll-up patch (Build 8.0.0.323), which is patch number 7007799 on Metalink.

Naturally, you will need a Metalink account to download these... which means you need to be an Oracle customer... or a partner who shells out extra for access even though you should get it for free just by being an ACE Director :-\

But I digress... Enjoy the Web 2.0 goodness!

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A while back, Infovark had an article about new Enterprise 2.0 applications... they mentioned an article by Paul Grahm -- the self-appointed startup king -- about how he's looking to fund Enterprise Software 2.0 startups:

5. Enterprise software 2.0. Enterprise software companies sell bad software for huge amounts of money. They get away with it for a variety of reasons that link together to form a sort of protective wall. But the software world is changing. I suspect that if you study different parts of the enterprise software business (not just what the software does, but more importantly, how it's sold) you'll find parts that could be picked off by startups. One way to start is to make things for smaller companies, because they can't afford the overpriced stuff made for big ones. They're also easier to sell to.

interesting... Although kind of false.

Look... A lot of enterprise software is sold because of the "one throat to choke" rule. In other words, there is value in streamlining your business so that you only purchase from a handful of companies. In some sense, that's vendor lock-in, but in another sense you can avoid finger pointing. If the integration between Software Company ABC and Software Company XYZ doesn't work, they will each blame each other. However, if they both are created by the same company, you'll likely spend less time screaming at them to get their software to work together, or to integrate properly. Since integrations are 40% of IT budget, that's real money... People pay a premium to enterprise software companies, in order to get this assurance of supportability.

A startup simply cannot match that head-on...

This isn't to say that only big companies can sell to big companies... I remember back when Stellent was a 500 person company, we made several deals to HUGE companies... However, the ecosystem for enterprise software that's not made by big companies is kind of small. The good stuff usually falls into one of three categories:

1. Open source,
2. Software as a service,
3. An incredibly useful application that is nearly unique, and not sold by the big boys.

If you're going after the "wow" factor, then you can forget trying to play with the big boys in the sales cycle. Selling enterprise software is a royal pain, and takes forever. It has a lot to do with relationships and trust, quite frankly... its about an assurance that even if you don't have every feature in the checklist, that your company is dedicated to making the product better.

Let me put it this way... which is better, Java or C#? The answer is Python. But that's pretty much irrelevant...

The optimal technology for you is not always the best technology available; its that which allows your team as a whole to be more productive. This means its more of a human problem (ie, training, resources, support) than a technical one. The fact is, enterprise software is usually so complex that you need to have a strong relationship with the software company before you can get the assurance you need that you are making a good decision. This trust goes a long way, its hard to build, and therefore the enterprise software sellers usually try hard to maintain it... It will be tough for a new guy to break through that "wall." It doesn't matter if you have better software, if the customer feels no assurance.

If you're a small company who wants to get into the Enterprise 2.0 market, don't try to mimic the sales process of the big boys... That's probably suicide. Instead, do the following:

• find something that the big boys just don't "get," and aren't likely to "get" for a long time
• alternatively, find something they "get", ride the coattails of their marketing, and do it better
• ensure your software installs quickly, if you need to install it at all
• focus on usability more than features: startups will never win the features arms race, but they can easily win the usability arms race
• make it easy to customize your product
• make sure your customers can go from zero to kick ass in 30 minutes or less
• think about security, scalability, interoperability, and internationalization from day one... because the enterprise-y competition will hit you hard about that
• price it to move

After that, find a department head who is frustrated because their enterprise system doesn't meet their needs, and hope they have budget!

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I uploaded my four Open World presentations to Slideshare, so those who missed my talks can still download and view them...

My first talk was on A Pragmatic Strategy For Oracle Enterprise Content Management. This one is mainly based on my next book, Transforming Infoglut! It was pretty well attended, and people seemed to like the approach. You can download the slides, or view it below:

My next presentation was Enterprise 2.0: How You Will Fail! I uploaded those to slideshare last month, so you can view it there, or download it.

Then I did my Communication For Geeks talk. That didn't have any slides, it was just me... communicating. I had hand-outs, but they are still kind of sketchy. I hope to some day upload some videos of it to YouTube, because its hard to get the point across in just the handouts...

Finally, on my last day was the Top 10 Ways To Integrate With Oracle ECM. This was loosely based on my old 50 Ways To Integrate talk, plus some new material. I tweaked up the AJAX example to do a Stellent search, and display the results in a YUI DataTable control. Pure JavaScript search and display! I also used the Oracle Ensemble technology to hijack a Google search result, and inject Stellent results in the sidebar! That was fun... Anyway, download the slides, or view it below:

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As I mentioned after last year's Open World conference, Andy MacMillan and I have been working on a book on Oracle Enterprise Content Management (ECM). I'm pleased to say that it is mostly finished, and it should be available for purchase on January 9, 2009. You can pre-order our book on Amazon right now, if you wish. Note: Amazon's graphic is using the book cover, which contained our old working title... that should be fixed in a few months.

I should be clear... this is not a technical book about content management: its about what we call a pragmatic strategy for managing your content. It is intended for CIOs, CEOs, and project managers so they can understand what ECM is, how its useful, and why it is desperately needed. This strategy entails solutions for existing ECM systems, legacy systems, portal, web applications, and enterprise search. It covers archives, especially email archives, and enterprise wide security beyond the repository. It also covers the retention and destruction of your documents, no matter where they exist within your enterprise.

In the strategy, there are seven steps... but the big three are:

• Consolidate: Bring as much content as possible into one strategic repository.
• Federate: Extend content management services to existing tactical repositories, when consolidation is not cost effective.
• Secure: Make sure your content is secure, no matter where it exists.

Naturally, when we suggest what tools to use to implement the strategy, we lean towards Oracle's suite. However, we feel this strategy is equally applicable to any ECM initiative. We worked hard to ensure that 50% of the book is vendor-agnostic.

We took this approach because we wanted to make sure that this book helps align business and IT strategies, therefore it needs to contain some implementation specifics, and not just broad strategic goals. We wanted to say what you need to do, why you need to do it, and how to get started. Most books on ECM only give you the "what", a rare few tell you "why"... and very very few tell you "how".

Business needs the "what" and the "why," and IT needs the "how." After reading this book, everybody on your team will hopefully be speaking the same language...

Enjoy!

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Let' just get all of these out of the way at once... ;-)

I didn't get to see many sessions this week... I spent most of my time up in the OTN lounge in Moscone West, floor 3. That's where most of the Oracle ACE's hung out and met up. Chris Bucchere and I spent a great deal of time hacking together a Ensemble / Stellent demo... I presented it at my Top 10 Ways to Integrate with Oracle ECM was pretty well attended, considering it was the last day of the conference. We were able to take a standard Google search result, and inject Stellent search results in the sidebar! So when you do a Google search, you magically also get back content from your intranet!

That went over pretty well... once I clean up the example, I'll share the code.

My un-conference talk on Wednesday -- Communication for Geeks -- wasn't too well attended... In fact, very few of the un-conference sessions had more than 5 people. I'm not sure why the un-conference wasn't a bigger hit. It might be the lack of awareness, or the wrong crowd... Its easy to get lost at Open World. We might need small, dedicated sessions instead.

I like how MinneBar does it: everything on a wiki, including the RSVP.

As usual, the demo grounds were the best place to learn about new product features... and it was nice to finally meet people face-to-face. The conference is pretty much over, and after this most folks are heading back to Oracle HQ to do some kind of ECM advisory council... then a big wrap-up BBQ for the ECM folks. I'll be attending he latter, but not the former.

so tired... late nights, lots of last-minute work, four speaking engagements, and not enough sleep... but it was worth it!

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I had two talks on Monday... one about the Pragmatic Strategy for Enterprise Content Management, and a repeat of my session Enterprise 2.0: How You Will Fail! Overall, they went well, but by the end of the day was exhausted...

In my second talk, I met up with two folks who were recording every event at Open World. Some with just audio and slides, but a lot with video as well. The plan is to put it into a huge, full-text searchable system, so you can scan for keywords of interest... They will give away the "top 10 presentation" for free, but access to all 1700 sessions will rn you about $400.

That would be a lot cheaper than going to the full conference, but I think it would be in Oracle's best interests to just give away all 1700 sessions for free. Sure, maybe the attendance will be down by 10% next year, but so what? Its a massive lead generation tool, and a great way to start honing best practices for emerging Oracle technologies.

Besides, people don't just go to conferences for demos and presentations... customers want human interaction with experts that can give advices on highly specific, personal issues. They also like hanging out and having spontaneous hallway conversations to generate new ideas. I see very few negatives to giving away the conference content for free...

Late night out with the UCM team... not enough time to blog or hone my Thursday talk... but that's Tuesday is for ;-)

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long day...

It started out with the Oracle ACE Director briefing... it was nice to meet all the other ACEs again, and to see what Oracle wanted to tout to all of us... Some of what Oracle presented was an extension of what they said last year... although there was a good amount that surprised and amazed me... but I'm not allowed to say what.

Needless to say, I'm very curious about their next generation of SOA tools...

After that, I listened to a podcast about Alexander Hamilton's economic theories, then snuck down into the Demo Grounds before they were officially open. While down at the demo grounds, I was also politely informed that my "blogger" credentials meant that people were less likely to talk candidly about their products with me, out of fear that it might be documented.

Stupid blogger credentials... all the drawbacks of being a part of the press, but none of the advantages...

I skipped the keynote with crazy Carville and his nutty wife, because it sounded far too political. I enjoy politics, but mixing politics and business is risky, because you will always alienate half of your audience. Its best to just state what everybody can agree to: all politicians are crooks. Then you're home free ;-)

Last, I headed over to the Thirsty Bear for the Oracle Blogger meetup. I hung out with Billy, Jake, Dan, Matt, Marius, David, Woody, and others... commiserating on our "blogger" fate. Dan was kind enough to print up some additional ribbons to attach to our badges. You'll have to look closely this week to see what mine says.

Well, I should get some sleep... I have two presentations tomorrow!

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Open World Starts Sunday! I've been putting my finishing touches on my presentations, so I haven't had much time to blog... I figured I should remind everybody of my presentation schedule:

1. Monday 1pm-2pm: Enterprise 2.0, What it is and How You'll Fail, at Moscone West, 3rd Floor Overlooks #1
2. Monday 4pm-5pm: A Pragmatic Approach to Oracle ECM, at Moscone South, Rm 301, session 299246.
3. Wednesday 11am-12pm: Communication For Geeks -- How to influence your peers, your boss, and your clients, at Moscone West, 3rd Floor Overlooks #2
4. Thursday 10:30am-11:30am: Top 10 Ways To Integrate With Oracle ECM, at the Marriott, Golden Gate room C1, session 300043.

The first and third talks are a part of the Open World Unconference. The second talk is one I'm giving with Andy MacMillan about our upcoming book... the last one is based mostly on the talk I gave at IOUG Collaborate 2008, but with a few twists...

I'll be Twittering my location throughout the conference, in case you'd like to meet up. I'll likely be attending mostly ECM talks, or hanging out at one of these places:

• OTN Lounge: Moscone West, Floor 3 , near the Unconference.
• Fusion Middleware Lounge: in the Yerba Buena Foyer at the Marriott Hotel (north of Moscone North).
• Exhibition Hall Demo Grounds: usually at the back of the hall, filled with folks who know their stuff, and ask interesting questions.

See you there!

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