A story on page 1 of the Nov 10 Wall Street Journal reports that the SEC is re-evaluting interpretation of Section 404 of the SOX rule, which dictates internal review and external auditing of financial reporting systems.
Citing pressure from “the nation’s business lobby,” the SEC is taking steps to allow a “more flexible reading,” and intends to “propose guidance . . . to help companies and auditors interpret Section 404 in a way likely to save them time and money.” The new guidance is expected next month.
See “Business Wins Its Battle to Ease A Costly Sarbanes-Oxley Rule” for details.
Category: Content management & strategy (Page 194 of 483)
This category includes editorial and news blog posts related to content management and content strategy. For older, long form reports, papers, and research on these topics see our Resources page.
Content management is a broad topic that refers to the management of unstructured or semi-structured content as a standalone system or a component of another system. Varieties of content management systems (CMS) include: web content management (WCM), enterprise content management (ECM), component content management (CCM), and digital asset management (DAM) systems. Content management systems are also now widely marketed as Digital Experience Management (DEM or DXM, DXP), and Customer Experience Management (CEM or CXM) systems or platforms, and may include additional marketing technology functions.
Content strategy topics include information architecture, content and information models, content globalization, and localization.
For some historical perspective see:
https://gilbane.com/gilbane-report-vol-8-num-8-what-is-content-management/
I know I’m not alone here when I say that content management projects are HARD to do right. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this subject – particularly around the project management aspect of it. All is rosy at the beginning when you put together a master project plan, but it seems that within a very short time, you’re heading towards scope creep, over budget, way over schedule, and stress! There must be a better way.
Over the span of my career (the last 15 years or so), a project manager has become standard fare for any corporate IT project. As I’m sure many of you recall, however, there was a time when having a person dedicated as a “Project Manager” was seen as an unnecessary frill. Thankfully, that’s changed (in most places).
When you embark on something as complex as a major content management initiative, not only do you need a dedicated project manager, you need a highly skilled and experienced project manager. That’s another issue.
The good news is that organizations like the Project Management Institute (PMI) have their PMP certification, which I believe sets a really good foundation for project managers. But even PMP certified individuals who have managed other types of system implementations or software development projects may struggle with a content project.
So what’s different about content management projects?
$25 billion.
That’s the cost of compliance in the U.S. Securities Industry for 2005 according to the Securities Industry Association (SIA).
59 percent.
That’s the percentage of respondents to a SearchStorage.com poll that did not know if they were in compliance because they could not figure out what they have to do.
$15 million.
That’s the amount Morgan Stanley was fined for failing to produce tens of thousands of e-mails during SEC investigations from December, 2000 through through July, 2005.
No wonder compliance issues today = fear. They don’t have to.
Compliance is about recordkeeping. The core issue is surprisingly clear — focus on the lifecycle of paper and electronic communications – how information is created, routed, managed, accessed and archived.
Join us tomorrow, November 9, 2006 at 11:00am EDT for my panel discussion with Omtool CTO Thaddeus Bouchard and HP Financial Services Solutions Manager Joseph Wagle to discuss how to make compliance practices a seamless part of your business processes. Register here.
$25 billion.
That’s the cost of compliance in the U.S. Securities Industry for 2005 according to the Securities Industry Association (SIA).
59 percent.
That’s the percentage of respondents to a SearchStorage.com poll that did not know if they were in compliance because they could not figure out what they have to do.
$15 million.
That’s the amount Morgan Stanley was fined for failing to produce tens of thousands of e-mails during SEC investigations from December, 2000 through through July, 2005.
No wonder compliance issues today = fear. They don’t have to.
Compliance is about recordkeeping. The core issue is surprisingly clear — focus on the lifecycle of paper and electronic communications – how information is created, routed, managed, accessed and archived.
Join us tomorrow, November 9, 2006 at 11:00am EDT for my panel discussion with Omtool CTO Thaddeus Bouchard and HP Financial Services Solutions Manager Joseph Wagle to discuss how to make compliance practices a seamless part of your business processes. Register here.
Is your web site any good?
I bet that question made a lot of you cringe and start down a guilt spiral of rationalizations about why your web site isn’t really quite what you wish it was. If you have a bad web site, it’s because your organization is producing a bad web site. And no one who is visiting your site cares why. They don’t care about the bickering between marketing and IT over web site control. They don’t care about the 18-month argument about who gets a link on the homepage, or about the 30 years of history which makes it “impossible” for all the various programs and offices in your organization to cooperate in order to create the integrated web presence that your site visitors long for. They don’t care. But, everyday they are clicking away on your site, frustrated, trying to do business with your organization and trying to get information from your organization. And your organization continues to dither. By rationalizing low quality, you are prioritizing your organization’s bad habits over your customer’s and constituent’s needs.
For a business or an organization with a clearly articulated mission, the intent and purpose of its web site(s) should be obvious–expressed most clearly as a high quality web product. The mission should also be front and center for those producing the organization’s web site(s)- expressed as a coherent set of strategic policies and tactical standards for web site product development. But, we all know this is seldom the case. Web site quality is frequently at the mercy of some set of ill-thought-out, status quo web production processes and a lack of strategic oversight by senior management. All this for what is most likely the first point of contact for individuals interacting with your organization.
Every organization, regardless of size or market, shares a common set of goals: generate and grow revenue, satisfy customers, and operate at optimum levels of efficiency. In recent years, executives and boards of directors have put another critical mandate on the plate for management: regulatory compliance ranging from Sarbanes Oxley to SEC mandates to HIPAA. This mandate is daunting. The number and scope of worldwide laws, regulations and standards is staggering and continues to expand. Overlay geographic and industry-specific regulatory environments, and it’s easy to understand the frustration and concern within all global companies.
Implementation deadlines, audits, and high-profile non-compliance prosecutions have created a “culture of fear” in organizations that is counter-productive to standard corporate goals. Many regulations are complex, subject to interpretation, and lack best practices.
A culture of compliance strives to bring “order to disorder” by focusing on three tenets for overcoming corporate challenges: focus on people, process and technology. Shared, enterprise-wide understanding, business process optimization, and infrastructure content technologies are some of the key components to this approach. Join us on Thursday, November 9, 2006, 11:00am EDT for my panel discussion with Omtool CTO Thaddeus Bouchard and HP Financial Services Solutions Manager Joseph Wagle to discuss how to make compliance practices a seamless part of your business processes. Register here.
Leonor is quoted extensively in “The Rocket Science of Technology Procurement,” a piece on fallout from a recent bid process at NASA. Leonor addresses a few of the larger issues associated with acquisition, such as the trade-off between going with existing solutions versus introducing new technology. On the one hand, incumbents have established relationships and “processes [that are] deeply entrenched in a buyer’s infrastructure.” On the other hand, alternative solutions can bring new and different capabilities that enable true innovation in addition to improved efficiencies.
Leonor also points out that while choices may be made jointly by business and IT, the two groups are not always in agreement. A timely observation, as more and more suppliers of content technologies add new features that make it possible for business users to bypass IT and control content themselves.
Strategies for dealing effectively with the tensions surrounding technology acquisition will be one of the topics that we’ll cover during the analyst debate on Wed, Nov 29, at Gilbane Boston 2006. Add a comment to this entry with acquisition issues you’d like our panel of experts to address, or send mail to mary@gilbane.com.
From the Microsoft Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Team Blog:
The ECM Starter Kit updated for B2TR is in the process of being published to MSDN. But in the meantime, just thought I’d post an “unofficial” version.
The samples are pretty much the same as in the Beta 2 kit, but there are a few additions:
Whitepaper: How to Add Activities to SharePoint Designer
Records Management Sample: Sample Barcode Generator
ECM Workflow Activity: FindManager activity
Also, the workflow templates come with some WSP solution package files to help with bundling workflows for deployment on production servers.
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