Are you investigating technology for protecting your company’s high-value documents and other intellectual property? Is better content security on your company’s plate for 2008? Need to know the current state-of-the-art regarding enterprise rights management?
Gilbane Group is conducting a survey of companies that are investigating, adopting, and using rights management solutions for high-value enterprise content (contracts, HR policies, product strategies, regulatory compliance certifications, and so on). The results will be included in our upcoming study on Enterprise Rights Management: Business Imperatives and Implementation Readiness.
We are seeking input from IT, content management, and IT security professionals across multiple industries (excluding consumer media companies, which are outside the scope of this study). Some familiarity with enterprise rights management (ERM) or information rights management (IRM) is necessary (i.e., respondents need to have at least heard of the term).
The survey is online and takes about fifteen minutes to complete. In exchange for participation, qualified respondents will receive the aggregated survey results and the executive summary of the analysis. Respondents who fill out the survey in full and provide a valid email business address are also entered into a random drawing for a free one-hour phone consultation with the Gilbane ERM analyst team. Take the survey now. Contact us if you have any questions about the research or qualifications to take the survey.
Author: Mary Laplante (Page 8 of 13)
SDL continues to execute its growth and expansion strategies with today’s announcement that it has acquired Idiom for approximately $22 million US. The current plan is to operate the Idiom business as an autonomous unit under the direction of Idiom CEO Mike Iacobucci.
The acquisition raises all kinds of questions, of course. Idiom is one of the companies with big potential to bring innovation to the language services industry, which has been ripe for change for some time now. More resources to execute could mean more value for customers sooner. Will the Idiom technology (and SaaS offer) reach its full potential as an agent of change under SDL? What about the impact on buyer choice — how will the acquisition affect companies coming into the market? Stay tuned for analysis of these and other key questions coming out of today’s news.
The topic of the globalization track keynote was billed as “delivering the global customer experience.” Earlier in the conference (in the Wednesday keynote, I believe), a speaker eloquently offered an alternative for the now-almost-meaningless term “customer experience.” Customer experience can be good, bad, or indifferent, as noted elsewhere in our blogs. This speaker distilled the business requirement as “enabling valuable interactions.” This phrase resonated with us, and we used it to introduce the globalization keynote session. How are companies, today, enabling valuable interactions with customers in any language, through any channel?
We set the panel up to answer this question from the various perspectives that should be represented at the table in the conference room when planning global content strategies: the business people responsible for delivering content to customers, the translation professionals who make sure that content in the customer’s language is of the highest possible quality, the content management professionals who facilitate the content lifecycle, and the analysts and consultants who can give stakeholders access to industry knowledge and best practices.
The goal of the session was to give our audience guidance on framing the globalization discussion within their organizations. What matters to which constituents? What’s the lens through which they look at the problem and the opportunity? Participants were Brian Shorey, director of engineering at Cisco Systems; Donna Parrish, publisher of Multilingual; Dean Berg, currently with Sajan, formerly with Stellent, now Oracle; and my colleague Leonor Ciarlone.
The panel offered insights too numerous to report, but the key topics included small successes with “unfunded but mandated programs,” the need for translation professionals to begin considering themselves project managers, and the growing requirement for collaboration across the global content lifecycle, which Leonor identified as a potential hot topic at next year’s Gilbane Boston conference. Personally, the keynote brought together the key themes that defined content globalization for me in 2007, especially the changing nature of the business case for investment in people, process and technologies that support global content — and therefore enable valuable customer interactions.
The other personal observation worth sharing, I think, is that content globalization was, for the first time, an integral part of the industry dialog that takes place at Gilbane conferences. All of the sessions in the track were well attended. Multi-lingual business communication was discussed throughout the entire conference program, not just in the globalization track. Eyes no longer glazed over at the mention of translation process management. Improvements in the quality of machine translation were even mentioned in the keynote on the future of content management.
What’s fueling the content globalization discussions within your organizations? How can we bring your hot topics to the forefront at Gilbane San Franciso 2008? Email us with ideas for sessions in the globalization track. If you’re game to tell your own story, consider submitting a speaker proposal. The deadline for submission is January 15.
Looking for a unique and meaningful holiday gift?
OLPC has extended its “Give One, Get One” program through the end of the year. A donation of $399 US (a portion of which may be deductible) covers two XO laptops. OLPC will send one device to a child in an OLPC educational zone, and you’ll get one XO device for yourself (or child in your family or local area). Giving options include donating both XOs covered by your contribution.
A recent article in the WSJ points out alternate approaches to addressing OLPC’s mission (“to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child”). Regardless of who will ultimately provide solutions that take hold, OLPC offers an affordable way to do some good now. Think of it as an opportunity to give new meaning to the term “social computing.” Happy holidays!
CM Professionals is now accepting nominations of candidates for the Board of Directors. The nominations period runs from now until December 21.
In a balloting period beginning January 7, CM Pros members will elect four new directors to two-year terms set to expire in January 2010. Eleven candidates ran in the 2007 elections held this past January. The Elections Committee expects to attract an equal number of qualified candidates for this election, given the growing profile of content management as a business practice and higher visibility of content management professionals within enterprises worldwide.
Candidates must be CM Pros members in good standing (i.e., current in their dues). The organization seeks individuals who are committed to the content management community and to the goals of CM Pros, can effectively lead international teams of volunteers and accomplish project and program goals, and have professional networks that can drive participation by all consitutents in the community. CM Pros from outside North America are especially encouraged to consider running for the board.
For more information about opportunities to serve CM Pros, please see the nominations page on the CM Pros website. You can also send email to elections@cmprofessionals.org.
Globalisation and the spread of information technology allow the creation of unexpected and disruptive business models. Many executives feel the heat is on and that they must innovate faster just to stand still. “Revving up,” from the Economist, October 2007.
That about says it all. Innovate faster just to stand still. One of the reasons for our research back in February was that we believe globalization innovation from a technology perspective will include the integration of content and translation management. SDL’s acquisition of Tridion in May sparked a bevy of commentary in the press and analyst blogs, including our own. What would “Under One Roof” mean for the industry’s approach to globalization demands and challenges? Our answer? Various approaches, but ones focused on bringing these disparate software markets much closer together. You know, the “i” market.
Since then, there’s a lot more brewing — and it all has to do with one of our favorites topics. In fact, we’re hoping that recent trends enable us to expand our definitions of integration levels in a big way. Hint: more 360-degree business process management than fundamental workflow integration. Given the events to date in the translation and localization market, we’re optimistic that it will. Consider the list:
- Clay Tablet Technologies, with its “seamless integration solution” is coming on strong since a major launch in 2005. Since September, the company has announced integrations with translation management solutions and service providers such as across systems and SDL, adding to a roster that includes Language Weaver, TRANSLATED, and content management provider DocZone.
- Idiom has teamed with both EMC and Astoria in recent months to promote the benefits of “an integrated, state-of-the-art content management and globalization management solution.” The company announced an integration with XyEnterprise’s Contenta back in April.
- Lionbridge has multiple content management providers in the “CMS Provider” section of the company’s Globalization Alliances description.
- Sajan has content management integration on its agenda, making impressive progress with the release of GCMS 4.0 and more specifically, its X-Content Integration framework in March and June respectively.
- SDL has taken the Tridion acquisition a step further, describing the October content and translation management implementation at Atlas Copco as an “off-the-shelf integrated solution.”
These trends are signs of what is sorely needed for organizations to strategically — and successfully — more toward global expansion. However, a favorite question of ours in in this brave new world of integration is: “Who’s the buyer?” In reality, it is unfortunate that in many cases, content and translation management professionals do not collaborate and even worse, may not know that technology integration is possible.
If you are a buyer that’s interested in this trend, come to Gilbane Boston 2007 to find out what’s next for the “i” word and more importantly, what kind of technology approach is right for you. We think the entire Globalization track is pretty impressive, but for integration fans, “GCM-2: Integrating Content and Translation Processes: Managing Global Customer Experience” stands out.
Attention, buyers and users of content and globalization management solutions! Wondering about the right integration approach for your company?
The globalization track at Gilbane Boston 2007 includes a session entitled “Integrating Content and Translation Processes: Managing Global Customer Experience.” The panel brings together two content management vendors, two providers of translation technology and services, and one middleware company that connects multiple CM and GM systems. Our goal is to explore the different options that you have when integrating the two technologies to create solutions supporting the global content life cycle.
In the session description, we promise to use “real world scenarios” to drive the panel. We’re issuing an invitation to our readers to submit suggestions for the scenarios that we’ll use for discussion. Do you have CM and GM practices that need to be streamlined? Are you planning to acquire and deploy CM/GM in the future, but not sure how to best fit the technologies together? Need fresh ideas for outmoded processes? Then think about proposing a scenario for the integration session at Gilbane Boston.
We’ll arrange a call with you to discuss your scenario and its context. If your scenario is chosen for use in the session, you’ll help us write up a description that we’ll share with the panel participants prior to the conference. Whether we choose your scenario or not, you’ll have the benefit of a little free advice from the Gilbane Group in the course of discussing your situation, constraints, requirements, etc. Please note that you need not register for Gilbane Boston in order to submit a scenario for possible use in the session. But if you do plan on attending the conference, you’ll have the option of presenting your own scenario to the panel.
Send scenarios or questions about the session to me or to my colleague Leonor. We’d welcome the chance to speak with you about this unique opportunity.
Solutions for document-intensive business processes have traditionally been among the workhorse applications for enterprise content management–complex workflow requirements, high-volume throughput, lots of documents processed on a daily basis. Buyers with light-duty but high-value applications have been underserved by the suppliers of document management technology. Enter SharePoint. Has Microsoft stepped up with a solution that will do the job for a new class of buyers and an expanded range of applications?
Bill Trippe discusses SharePoint and platform strategies for enterprise document management with Bob Bueltmann, co-founder of KnowledgeLake. How does SharePoint change the solutions landscape? How does it stack up in terms of core capabilities like security and metadata support? How do you recognize a good fit for SharePoint?
Thursday, Nov 8, 11:00 am ET. Registration is open. Sponsored by KnowledgeLake.
