A Discussion about Content

As I ponder the next 20 hours of flying. I think of the goals that I would like to get out the training on xCP. Sure there is the obvious transfer the technical knowledge of how to configure and leverage this fantastic solution. But I think more importantly to me it is about building a culture around his product starting with a feeling of community. One of the the items that I need to accomplish is to let these teams understand that there is support for them. Support in terms of other consultants, our product teams, and Emc’s leadership.

Well stay tuned for more updates. I’m looking forward to the cultural diversity on this trip!

Tim

Progress.  How do you define it?  The key to progress is quantification.  Anyone can claim to progress, by claim acts and deeds of unimaginable proportions.  However if those deeds are not associated with a recognized reaction, can you really claim progress?  We see this all the time in government, these programs represent progress.. do they?  i mean how are they measuring progress.  No I won’t get on a political soapbox. But several things need to line up when measuring progress.

Lets move forward, Progress is the measurement of defined actions that result in a desired response.

It is inherently important to identified the metrics that need to be measured prior to the start of any action, not doing so leaves you with nothing to measure against.

People come to me and indicate that progress is the measurement of Return on Investment (ROI) what they with out fail seemingly miss, is the starting point. What is the cost of today, so that i can measure that tomorrow and get the difference.  Many times it is impossible to measure the cost of a business solution that is in place today, so the ROI shifts to more esoteric items such as process improvements or quality, but those to can be hard to measure.  Or are they?

Humm,  lets talk about Quality improvements.  You can measure the point at where the quality is in an organization by looking at help desk volumes, product recalls, scrap levels, etc. etc.  You could then measure the the improvement and the trends of these metrics over time post the implementation of your new solution.

Think for a moment what the possibilities would be if you could show over a given spectrum of time those improvements, and the associated gains, then map them against the cost of the product, to show how fast it paid for itself.

Why don’t people do this more often?

T

The odd thing is that when looking at facilitating a clients requirement we always gravitate towards a defined solution.

Seemingly missing is the path to the solution. Or as I’m sure has been written the path to enlightenment.

We as people don’t do anything with m a plan. If your building a house you spend time looking at or designing the home.

Why when dealing with software do we run to the product. Why is there

Today we’ve been working out of our Madrid office.

Listening to my coworkers present today their project reviews. It occured to me that the understanding of there struggles were universal. Even with language seperating us, common problems unite us.

It is really great watching these fine folks work together.

T

I find it heartily gratifying when gambles payoff.  For I have forgotten how many weeks now i’ve been on the road.  Sure it isn’t as bad as some, but when does it become truly intolerable?  I think it would come to that, if and or when, the investment didn’t pay off.

Today I had the pleasure of getting the best minds in the world in the realm of content management together to look at how to improve our delivery capabilities around around our burgeoning xCP solution.  I found it quite remarkable what 1 day of face to face meetings can accomplish.

To see two accomplished academics and successful individuals validate the direction i’ve been pushing for, yield a common understanding and purpose is remarkable.  Sure there is plenty of work to do, this is just the start of something far greater than i could have expected. Now the question is can we actually put it into action, can we mobilize to achieve the vision.  The short answer is going to be absolutely.

Tomorrow we will develop a plan and move it forward,  Thursday and Friday we will work with our EMEA team to validate the approach, then wrap in our colleagues  from the rest of the world.  The only regret is that we couldn’t have more people here contributing.  That aside we have to start somewhere.  I just hope others will appreciate and most importantly contribute.

T

Yesterday I, with most of my brethren went to the Mark Lewis keynote.  After a pretty cool video introduction on how information really impacts the world, Mark entered the stage, and embarked on a journey of where the Information Intelligence Group is heading.

I did like the case studies on how clients were implementing our technologies such as SourceOne and not just getting the benefits around compliance but also how it has reduced their IT footprint, and enabling faster more scalable backups.  That was pretty impressive and to Mark’s point showed how SourceOne pulls together the aspects of Archiving / Compliance and eDiscovery.

The other item that was introduced was SourceOne for SharePoint.  It is a first of its kind and works with SharePoint 2010, it truly addresses the viral nature of SharePoint in organizations while maintaining a robust mechanism for compliance.

The three things it does

1. Manages Risk
2. Simplifies eDiscovery
3. Reduces storage costs

This new tool can be used with or without SourceOne for email.

The next area Mark articulated was around Case Management.

Truly the future of Enterprise Content Management.  The new xCP offering really enables People / Process / Content.  While this is not a new concept , what is defining is that xCP is a configuration based solution that allows it to be achieved in a rapid manner.

Mark, then articulated the multifaceted approach EMC is taking from a UI perspective.  I think it was a very poignant concept, where he described a scenario where companies can not control how employees consume their information.

The talk ended with a great little video of the exec’s.

T

Well it is that time where all of the EMC faithful gather to learn, share, and explore the next generation of technologies.  For all the glamour and glitz, the best thing about EMC world is the networking, and the camaraderie that can be had at such events.

That being said, I still have duties to perform.  Supporting our consulting business in the both, and espousing the virtues of how enterprises “should” implement our technologies.

The first talk is Wednesday afternoon, ” How to do and Enterprise Deployment”  This talk will be centered on three main topics

1. Strategy / Vision / Capacity

2. EMC’s Enterprise Roadmap Study

3. An technologic use case.

Oh I know you can’t wait.   In this presentation i’m really going to try to articulate the need for a Vision, how we can facilitate an implementation plan for that vision, and then wrap it up with a basic scenario.

My next talk will be Thursday Afternoon. “Getting the Most out of your deployments”  This is going to be a demonstration of one of our preeminent solution frameworks.  the goal will be to show how to get more by configuring one of our frameworks, vs. custom code.

The second talk really feeds off the first talk as the first sets up the topic of the framework and the technology.

The reality is, that these show are heavily focused on the technology, I like taking the time to articulate sound proven principles that lead to successful ECM Deployments.

While I wait for the final leg of my trip back to the States (Frankfort – Philly) I sit her contemplating the trip.  Lets talk about the goals.  First was to get our India IDC group and our India country resources trained on xCP.  Consider the training the technical fundamentals.

I want to dispel the a few myths that generally comes to mind:

First that our India counterparts are out for our jobs, or will take our jobs, or any similar myth.

For us it is all about capacity, I view our resources in our India Development Center as an essential part of our delivery strategy, this strategy encompasses both capacity and cost.

Second i had heard we would have a heck of a time training people in India due to the language barrier.  Simply just not the case. Sure there was the occasional i want to go directly back to the hotel, and end up at a trinket shop miscommunication but really i don’t think we could even remotely consider it a barrier.

We had run two training sessions in parallel, both sessions got quality feedback.  The feedback included areas where we can improve, and fundamentally showed that they understood what they were taught by virtue of what they want to see in subsequent training sessions.

I am a firm believer that when you are in a meeting or a training that you should be focused on that task at hand.  Not checking email or your iPhone, or whatever.  It has always frustrated me when giving a talk or facilitating a class, when a participant asks a question on content you just covered because they were busy doing something else.  Most places in the world i am resigned that this is simple a fact of life.  During our India sessions, i have never had a group of people so engaged as we had in our classes.

Think about it, these people wanted to learn.  I got a glimpse of what it must be like for a teacher when they hit on a subject and the entire class becomes engaged, even enthralled.  This is a huge difference from other classes that i’ve done. My Indian colleagues came to play.

As always training on new technology is only the first part, now becomes the challenge of keeping the momentum, making sure that they get the proper projects so that they can leverage what they have learned.  Also including them in a broader community so that they have a network of support, and finally and probably most simply, giving them a chance to fail.

Humm, your saying a chance to fail?? Think about it.  The reality is that we all make excuses because we are afraid of failing, I must and if your reading this you must take and make decisions that put you on the precipice of failure.  If every decision you make ensures a win with no possibility of failing then your not getting very far in life.  So in other words lets take the training wheels off and let-r-rip!

T

My time here this week in India, well has been excellent.  Like most westerners I’m sure I had my bias.  But I was more looking forward to the trip to experience something you just can get in a western country.

Even though i fell ill due to a poorly conceived sandwich, my medical preparations kept me in the game.  Yes i said a sandwich made me sick…Note the irony.

A couple of things to note.

First is the overall hospitality in this country.  The people have been fantastic.

Second the cuisine (aside from one ill conceived sandwich) has been excellent

A gentleman that worked for me called me prior to my departure, and while i thought i had an opened mind, he reminded me to take it all in.  It is really the best advice for anyone visiting here.  If you have an open mind, you will enjoy yourself.

We wrapped up the xCP training today, with a demo of one of our solutions and with a recap of our best practices.  The best part of the day came at the closure of the session.  The group would not stop asking questions and we really hated to end the session.

My colleagues and I headed over to our Accenture partner office where we enjoyed lunch and then took care of more mundane items, like our go to market strategies and other details.

I’m looking forward to heading out tonight for my 24 hours of travel home.. Yeah I’m being sarcastic.

T

I’m in the midst of the first stop of EMC’s CMA PS xCP Training. You got to love those acronyms.

Anyway, I’m very thankful to have one of the worlds premier experts to deliver the bulk of the xCP training.  oh wait your asking what is xCP, it is Documentum’s new xCelerated Composition Platform.  I’ll go into further deatils on the nuts and bolts of xCP later. For now it is redefining content and document management, by focusing on rapid application deployment that is centric to case management.

The training in India this week is the first stop on my Asia Roadshow.  We are working to get our field trained not just on the technical aspects of xCP but also on the best practices of an xCP deployment.  (for more information sign up for EMC World 2010 in Boston)

So far the visit has been fantastic, the group we are training are engaged and really picking up this technology. Granted the technology that makes up xCP isn’t new, how they are being combined to solve business problems are.

Given the general negative attitude that outsourcing has placed on India, I feel that it is totally unjustified.  I think much of the bias is due to the projection of our own misconceptions on an ultra capable people.

As I sit in these classes, I feel no difference from any other class that I’ve sat in any other part of the world.  Of course when I step outside, I know immediately that I am a world away from home.

After being here for several days, I know that i can’t fit in here, but i can be comfortable.  The people and their rich culture have so much to offer that it is humbling to be here.

T