Hello readers!
Today is the day for a new interview !
Remember : The subjects I focus on for these interviews are
1. Introducing men and women playing a role in ECM environment
2. Discovering the ECM community
3. Exploring ECM Solutions
4. To learn more about technologies and content management practice.
Today I am delighted to interview Atle Skjekkeland, Vice President at AIIM International.
Hello Atle !
First of all, many thanks for your time you are affording to answer this interview and to share your knowledge about ECM with us.
So Atle, can you tell us more about AIIM ? What exactly is AIIM ? A training Institute ? a federation of ECM company’s ? A standardization organization ? A consulting company ... both of them ?
What kind of services does AIIM offer nowadays?
Do you have any statistics about AIIM Members (geographic distribution, number of Integrators, number of editor,...) ? Is there a difference between U.S and Europe Members ? Furthermore, Is there a difference between AIIM US and Europe ?
And you, Atle, what's your role in this organization? What are you doing day after day?
To resolve this, is there a standardized methodology to implement and use ECM?
Many thanks, Atle, for this interview. We wish you a nice and exciting journey on the ECM Road!
To find out more about
You can download this interview at this url : http://www.scribd.com/doc/9068530/Open-Source-ECM-Interview-ENG-Atle-Skjekkeland-AIIM
and follow some news about AIIM on my netvibes universe
Read More...
Today is the day for a new interview !
Remember : The subjects I focus on for these interviews are
1. Introducing men and women playing a role in ECM environment
2. Discovering the ECM community
3. Exploring ECM Solutions
4. To learn more about technologies and content management practice.
Today I am delighted to interview Atle Skjekkeland, Vice President at AIIM International.
Hello Atle !
First of all, many thanks for your time you are affording to answer this interview and to share your knowledge about ECM with us.
So Atle, can you tell us more about AIIM ? What exactly is AIIM ? A training Institute ? a federation of ECM company’s ? A standardization organization ? A consulting company ... both of them ?
AIIM is a non-profit industry association that provides education, research, and best practices to help organizations find, control, and optimize their information. We are run by our members for our members.In a few words, what has the evolution/history of AIIM been like ?
AIIM was founded in 1943 as the National Microfilm Association and in 1969, changed our name to the National Micrographics Association. In 1983, due to the introduction of computers and document imaging systems (!), we changed our name and focus to the Association for Information and Image Management. Approximately 8 years ago, we repositioned again and refocused on Enterprise Content Management, - even though very few people knew what ECM meant 5-8 years ago. Today we are focused on helping organizations find, control and optimize their information assets more intelligently.
What kind of services does AIIM offer nowadays?
AIIM is international in scope remaining independent, implementation-focused, and, the representative of the entire ECM industry - including users, suppliers, and the channel - acting as the industry's intermediary. We provide education through webinars and events, and professional development programs leading to Certificates and designations as an AIIM Practitioner, Specialist, and Master in several practices; industry advocacy with research and press releases; and industry networking with local chapter events and our online community – www.InformationZen.org.
Do you have any statistics about AIIM Members (geographic distribution, number of Integrators, number of editor,...) ? Is there a difference between U.S and Europe Members ? Furthermore, Is there a difference between AIIM US and Europe ?
AIIM was started in the US, and therefore still has a strong presence in North America. But we have, in the last 5-10 years, focused on expanding our community through our European presence and increasing the number of partners across the world. We currently have education partners in Hong Kong, Nigeria, South Africa, the Caribbean, and Brazil, and association partners across the world. We have over 65,000 Associate and Professional members, with approximately 60% being users or buyers of content management technologies; 1/3 are information and records management professionals, 1/3 are IT staff, and 1/3 are business people.
And you, Atle, what's your role in this organization? What are you doing day after day?
I am responsible for all education and research offerings, which means that a lot of the day is spent doing administration and management tasks in addition to promoting the industry and the association. This means doing regular webcasts, attending meetings, presenting at events, interviews, etc. But I also enjoy teaching some of our 4 day Master classes every month, which means that I can spend almost an entire week discussing existing and emerging technologies and best practices with industry professionals.What was your previous position and what was your educational and professional background?
I started working for AIIM in early 2004 as Managing Director for our European operation when our strongest presence in Europe was the UK and Ireland. I usually joke that I must have done something wrong the first year since I was “promoted” to the US headquarters in mid 2005. Before AIIM I spent time working as a document management consultant in a company I started with two partners back home in Oslo, Norway.Have you always been working in the ECM World? How did you discover Content Management?
My first exposure to content management must have been in 1991 when I started working for a small system integrator in the southern part of Norway. They were just introducing Electronic Records Management (ERM) solutions for doctors in the region, a DOS based system that we installed on Victor or IBM desktops. Some offices were still using the system almost 10 years later according to my brother who is a doctor working in the same region.Now let's talk about ECM. What's the "official" definition of ECM ?
AIIM defines ECM as the strategies, methods, and tools used to capture, store, manage, preserve, and deliver content in support of business processes. This means that ECM is usually a group of aligned systems supporting organizations manage unstructured content like office documents, emails, and images.It's really easy to understand... But why is it so generic ? Can you give us your definition to explain it more precisely?
You get at least 10 different definitions when asking 10 consultants to define ECM… Why? A definition of ECM will depend on the content and context, - what are you trying to manage, for what purpose, for what users, etc. I also like to explain ECM this way; An organization often has 3 types of assets,- you need ERP systems to manage money, you need HR systems to manage people, and you need ECM systems to manage your information assets!So technologies aren't very important in ECM. The main problem is what we want to do with it and how to link business process with our "new" content management.
No, but AIIM over the last several years has been promoting a 12 step model for implementing ECM. This model should not replace your project management methodology, but compliment it, and the AIIM ECM Specialist course educates you in best practices for implementing ECM using AIIM’s 12 step program. I am also eager to see if the Mike2 open methodology for information management evolves into a standard model for implementing ECM.What do you think about the recent announcement of the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) specification ?
I think this is great step in the right direction, but people also need to remember the value of standard metadata schemes and vocabularies. Interoperability has been a challenge for years, and I am delighted to see the momentum CMIS is getting. In fact, the Federal Aviation Agency started this project several years ago with AIIM, under the working name of iECM, or Interoperable ECM.To conclude, is it possible to have more information about InformationZen.org ? What's the purpose of this site ? Can we call it the "ECM Facebook" ?
Networking has been important to AIIM member for many years, and we have currently 35 chapters across the US. But many people do not have time to attend local events, or lack a local chapter. We decided therefore, to introduce this online community to allow people to share, discuss and learn best practices, existing and emerging technologies. It is open to all, - you do not have to be a member. Initially, we actually thought about calling it ECM Facebook instead of InformationZen…Can you recommend any weblinks or blogs about ECM or IT in general?
I subscribe personally to approx 50 blogs, but that’s too many to mention here. I really like Digital Landfill by John Mancini (my boss), but also enjoy reading The Content Log by John Newton, The Content Economy by Oscar Berg and Henrik Gustafsson, and Andrew MacAfee’s blog. I am also a big fan of AIIM’s new magazine Infonomics, and you can access the digital version at http://www.aiim.org/Infonomics/What would you say to conclude this interview?
I would like to thank you for the opportunity to present AIIM, and recommend readers to visit aiim.org for more information. I also have a Holiday gift for you; Go to www.aiim.org/testdrive, enter the code X1YZA, and you will be given free access to one online module from each of AIIM’s six Certificate Programs.
This would have cost you $450 if you did not have this code.
Many thanks, Atle, for this interview. We wish you a nice and exciting journey on the ECM Road!
To find out more about
- AIIM (US) : http://www.aiim.org/
- AIIM (Europe) : http://www.aiim.org.uk
You can download this interview at this url : http://www.scribd.com/doc/9068530/Open-Source-ECM-Interview-ENG-Atle-Skjekkeland-AIIM
and follow some news about AIIM on my netvibes universe
