Open Text Corporation has announced plans to expand its suite of Web solutions with products and technologies from recently acquired Vignette playing a central role. Offered as part of the Open Text ECM Suite, the solutions should help organizations establish deeper connections to customers and use the Web as a channel for new revenues. As part of this strategy, Open Text will leverage technologies from both Vignette and its existing solutions to deliver new next- generation Web offerings. Vignette Content Management will form the foundation of Open Text’s Web business solutions, providing personalized and multi-channel capabilities integrated with the Open Text ECM Suite. Open Text has said it will continue to develop both Vignette Content Management and Open Text Web Solutions as complementary offerings to meet the full range of WCM needs. Open Text will release Vignette Content Management version 8.0 and Vignette Portal version 8.0 in the second half of 2009. The recently released Web Solutions 10.0 will be followed by the release of Web Solutions 10.1 in the first half of 2010. Within 24 months, Open Text will launch an offering that combines key strengths of Web Solutions with the Vignette Content Management platform. Vignette Social Media Solutions (Community Applications and Community Services) will be the basis of a new Social Marketplace offering, which will be added to Open Text’s Social Media solutions, targeting Internet-style social media interactions and enabling existing Web sites with social content. Current Open Text WCM customers will be able to take advantage of this new Social Marketplace package. In addition, Vignette Collaboration will continue to be enhanced as part of the underlying Vignette Social Media technology stack. http://www.opentext.com/
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Over at TeleRead, David Rothman has a really fine writeup discussing our digital publishing report. He summarizes some of our key points about asset management and flexibility, but also raises some interesting related issues about DRM and the risks of "publishers as mixmasters."
My thanks to David for his thoughtful response.
Mary Laplante, Senior Analyst, speaks on the topic of Overcoming Language Afterthought Syndrome:
Gilbane’s 2009 research on multilingual content indicates that global companies are making steady progress towards overcoming language afterthought syndrome – a pattern of treating language requirements as secondary considerations within their content strategies and solutions. This presentation delivers insight into how market-leading companies are adopting content globalization strategies, practices, and infrastructures that position language requirements as integral to end-to-end solutions rather than as ancillary post-processes. The session is designed for content and language professionals and managers who need to know how to bring capabilities like automated translation management, terminology management, multilingual multichannel publishing, and global content management into the mainstream. Takeaways include data and case studies that can be used in business cases to move language requirements out of the back room once and for all.
Localization World Silicon Valley, 20-22 October, Santa Clara Convention Center
Dennis Howlett has once again started a useful and important debate, this time with his Irregular Enterprise blog post entitled Enterprise 2.0: what a crock. While I am sympathetic to some of the thinking he expressed, I felt the need to address one point Dennis raised and a question he asked.
I very much agree with this statement by Dennis:
“Like it or not, large enterprises – the big name brands – have to work in structures and hierarchies…”
However, I strongly disagree with his related contention (“the Big Lie” as he terms it) that:
“Enterprise 2.0 pre-supposes that you can upend hierarchies for the benefit of all.”
Dennis also posed a question that probably echoes what many business leaders are asking:
“In the meantime, can someone explain to me the problem Enterprise 2.0 is trying to solve?”
Below is the comment that I left on Dennis’ blog. It begins to answer the final question he asked and address my disagreement with his contention that Enterprise 2.0 advocates seek to create anarchy. Is my vision for the co-existence of structured and recombinant organizational and work models clear and understandable? Reasonable and viable? If not, I will expand my thoughts in a future post. Please let me know what you think.
Enterprise 2.0 is trying to solve a couple levels of problems.
From a technology standpoint, E2.0 is addressing the failure of existing enterprise systems to provide users with a way to work through exceptions in defined business processes during their execution. E2.0 technology does this by helping the user identify and communicate with those who can help deal with the issue; it also creates a discoverable record of the solution for someone facing a similar issue in the future.
From a organizational and cultural perspective, E2.0 is defining a way of operating for companies that reflects the way work is actually accomplished — by peer-to-peer interaction, not through command and control hierarchy. Contrary to your view, E2.0 does not pre-suppose the destruction of hierarchy. Correctly implemented (philosophy and technology), E2.0 provides management a view of the company that is complementary to the organization chart.
Addendum: See this previous post for more of my perspective on the relationship of structured and ad hoc methods of working.
I have a new post over at EMC’s Community site, "Preserving Electronic Public Records: Lessons from the Washington State Digital Archives." This is part of our ongoing series for EMC on the use of ECM and XML in the public sector.
We have been very pleased with the interest in our new report, Digital Platforms and Technologies for Publishers: Implementations Beyond “eBook.” We have had hundreds of downloads already, the vast majority of which are senior people in the publishing industry. This tells us that the timing for the research is good and that interest is strong, and we are thinking about what to do next with this topic.
One idea we have thought about is helping publishers think through their eBook strategy. If our research (and other recent research) is correct, many larger publishers are jumping in with both feet, but some larger publishers, many medium-sized, and perhaps most smaller publishers are staying on the sidelines or testing the waters with pilots and low-cost and low-impact tests with third parties. Perhaps these efforts are part of developing a strategy? Perhaps some of you think the market is too nascent?
An eBook strategy would necessarily be multi-faceted, and would include input from sales, marketing, editorial, production, fulfillment, and others with a stake in the process. It would need to be informed by good market data, and with good understanding of what technology and channel partners can truly offer publishers. It would also need to be pragmatic, balancing the capabilities of your organization with a realistic assessment of the market opportunities you have.
We’d like to gauge interest in this kind of offering through the following simple poll. Just one question, and no requirement to log in or register. If you would like to talk in more detail about this idea, please email me with any questions.
Google has announced an upgraded suite of GSA Connectors for the Google Search Appliance (GSA)- including connectors to integrate offline company data with information stored in the cloud. GSA Connectors connect the GSA with content management systems and other repositories, so that users can find the information they are looking for in unified search results. With the upgraded Google Search Appliance Connectors, the connector framework is simplified so that it can search content stored across various databases. One of the featured GSA Connectors is for Salesforce, enabling the GSA can search content in Salesforce, providing sales, marketing, and customer support personnel access to the information they seek regularly. In addition, new updates and features have been made to the connectors for SharePoint, Livelink, FileNet, and Documentum. Specifically, the SharePoint connector supports batch authorization and multiple site collection, and has added 64-bit Windows support. Additionally, the Google Search Box can be implemented within SharePoint, which would be powered by the GSA, giving results from databases outside of the SharePoint system. Multiple connectors now support more recent versions of content systems, such as the Documentum v6.5, or the FileNet v4. www.google.com/enterprise/search/gsa.html
Atex released an update to their Web content management system, Polopoly 9.13, which integrates with their Text Mining engine to automatically tag, and categorize content. A new Polopoly widget also allows content to be “batch categorized”, which enhances the search results for end users, while providing internal users with a discovery and knowledge management tool. Instead of editors applying relevant categories manually, the text mining engine will now do it automatically. Editors can instruct the engine to analyze a piece of content and suggest relevant categories based on the text, and receive suggestions based on the metadata and IPTC categorization. With Polopoly 9.13, classified content is automatically placed in dynamic lists based on metadata selections in the repository. These lists can automatically serve up older stories with links for related content, which are placed in context alongside the current articles. Interested users could be encouraged to “read more” or “find similar” stories based on information from the articles they are viewing. Publishers can even create new pages based entirely on archived content that’s been categorized by metadata. http://atex.com
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