Content Management 2009

In 2009, companies will continue to expand and improve their Content Management practices by making better use of the technologies they own, today. The overriding theme: making better use of currently licensed technologies in order to get more from the organization’s existing investment.  As organizations downsize those who are left behind are being asked to do more with less. Closer examination of existing ECM tools and making better use of them to create efficiencies will allow downsized organizations to maintain productivity in the face of smaller staff sizes. ECM and improved Content Management practices will be used to streamline and do more with fewer hands.

Organizations that will benefit most will have clearly defined goals and objectives for improving content management practices and the use of ECM technologies by following an articulated Content Management Strategy. Organizations that have already begun developing their strategies are finding the following on the list for 2009:

Improved ECM use through Process Alignment. Assumption of good Content Management practices has lagged behind the introduction of Content Management technologies. IT departments can fill the trough but user communities have not rushed to drink. Recognizing the need to align Content Management system use with business process has been one of the most common drivers for greater acceptance and use.  Forward thinking IT organizations and Content Management business sponsors who desire to increase productivity will focus more on process alignment in 2009.

Improving Content Management system use is inherently tied to improving Regulatory Compliance since even the best thought out system designs will not pass muster if none of your users have filled them with content. Structured management of content to comply with external regulations is here, isn’t going away, and will continue to increase in 2009. Regardless, users will find alternative and less efficient ways to achieve ways to be compliant if the Content Management system presented is unintuitive and invasive.

Even though we have Great Depression levels of unemployment (Maybe I’m exaggerating but doesn’t it feel like it?) there’s one part of the economy booming off the charts: Legal. e-Discovery demands will continue to grow and IT organizations will continue to struggle with the growing sea of content they must manage; content sitting on files shares, local drives, tape, difficult to access archives, and Content Management systems that lack effective organization and indexing. Justification of Content Management investments will look at the benefit of e-Discovery cost reduction as a result of improvements in Content Management practices, indexing, and archiving efficiencies.

Enterprise 2.0 and social computing in business will continue to grow. With a focus on streamlining the sharing of information that is critical in business relationships, content will get created and stored in Wiki’s, Blogs, Forums, Chats, and a plethora of other web objects. Much of this content will constitute business records or regulated documents. Business people investing in these technologies and IT professionals charged with their deployment will not overlook the need for effective indexing, good retrieval methods, and solid controls against alteration or deletion of this information.

Records, records, records! Your records manager will continue to talk about them, consul will continue to think about them, business people will be bothered by them, and IT professionals will continue to wonder what the heck they are. Some will discover the new paradigm for records management that fits with how people use and create content, today. Records management plans will be divided between record identification of existing content and finding better ways to apply controls to content as it’s created.

These are just a few examples of what could be popping up in your 2009 Roadmap.  Let me now some of the other ones your seeing and the benefit you expect to see from them?