Going to an OpenSource ECM World....: janvier 2009

mardi 20 janvier 2009

Interview : Seth Gottlieb, founder and principal of Content Here

Hello readers!

Today is a new interview day !

Remember : The subjects I focused on for these interviews are
1. To introduce men and women playing a role in ECM environment
2. To discover the ECM community
3. To explore ECM Solutions
4. To learn more about technologies and content management practices.

Today, I interview Seth Gottlieb founder and principal of Content Here.

Hello Seth!

First of all, many thanks for the time you are spending to answer this interview.

Seth, you have recently created Content Here.

Could you present it ? What's the purpose and objectives ? What kind of services do you offer ?

Content Her e is a vendor-neutral analyst and consulting firm with a focus on content management technologies. Most of my work is helping clients evaluate and select web content management systems. Many of my clients are from the media and publishing industry but I also work with higher education, technology, and government.

I started Content Here to fill a large gap between analyst firms and systems integrators. I was not satisfied with the level of depth provided by most analyst firms and systems integrators cannot realistically keep up with enough products to give a vendor neutral recommendation of which one to use. In order to know a technology to reliably implement it, you need to keep your focus. Content Here is a compromise between those extremes. My implementation background helps me understand how the different platforms work and my focus on selection helps me from getting too immersed in any one system. I also have a network of systems integrators that I regularly get briefings from so I can hear their war stories and successes.

And you what's your role and what are you doing day after day ?

Content Here is a one man show so I do everything. I spend a lot of time keeping up with the 50 or so technologies that I follow. That includes connecting with my network of systems integrators, playing around with the technologies when I am able, and getting demos when I can't get access to the software. I have a well defined process for taking a client through a software selection and I do roughly 12 of those per year. I also have some longer term projects where I advise clients as they progress along a roadmap of implementing and enhancing their solution.

Another exciting part of my job is writing reports. I have one report out called Open Source Web Content Management in Java that I wrote last year. This summer I will release and updated version. I am also working on a new report that focuses on web content management for media and publishers.

Let's talk about Content Management.
I followed you since I'm working and I learned a lot of things with you and your blog. Could you identify the (hi)story of content management based on your experience ? What was the main trend ?

I have been working in content management for the better part of the last 14 years. My first exposure was at a research company that turned out around 800 reports per week. The key challenges then were workflow and managing the repository so that the researchers could leverage what had been written before. My next job was with a Internet consultancy where my first project was to implement Vignette for a very large computer company. Since then, I have implemented many content management platforms. In fact, I rarely had the luxury of implementing a system more than once.

As for the industry as a whole, things have been much more chaotic - especially on the web content management side. On the document management (or ECM) side, the industry has followed more typical path of leadership by big companies (EMC, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft). On the WCM side, no one appears to be dominating and the companies there is not enough attrition. As a result, the industry is fragmented. Maybe the current economic climate will change that but who knows. One of the things that hurt the upper tier WCM players was their interest in competing in the ECM space and their loss of focus on WCM at precisely the wrong time - when the Web 2.0 momentum was starting to build. If they were leaders before Web 2.0, failure to react to this new wave of innovation made them lose their leadership position. The pure play WCM companies were able to respond and capitalize on new functionality and opportunities much better than the ECM aspirants.

And finally we have ECM ! Can you tell us more about the difference between ECM and WCM ?

When ECM was positioned as the union of all forms of content management, I was pretty vocal in my skepticism. I thought it was unrealistic to expect one system to uniformly handle all four content management disciplines: web content management, document management, records management, and digital asset management. Even if one system could be designed, it would be impossible for a customer to implement and manage a single solution that made every group happy. How would you manage the competing interests of the legal contracts team and the marketing team? If you could abstract your model to the level that it applied to both these business domains, would it make any sense? Also, the document management companies didn't understand that web content management is more than deploying a bunch of documents to the doc root of a web server.

I can live with the more modest vision that ECM has become: the management of the information assets that are used to run an enterprise. In practical terms, what this really means is document management plus process and governance. I say documents because documents have been the de-facto currency of information within companies since the invention of the manilla folder. I am happy to see that tradition change with document-less collaboration tools like wikis and I think that it would be wise for ECM to keep up with the evolution of how we share information.

I think of web content management as tools that manage a website (or a collection of websites). In addition to managing the information itself, a web content management system manages the organization, layout, and branding of the information. Web content management systems also control the visitor facing interaction with that information.

Throughout this history, has content management project evolved ? In functionnal domain is there the same or have you noticed an evolution ? Is it possible to illustrate it with your own project experience ?

As an insider, I see lots of different and exciting trends like AJAX enable contributer interfaces, user generated content, and faceted navigation and other ways to enrich the user experience. I am also excited by social media and its ability to create a dialog *around* the content. Content is turning from a static informational asset to an exchange of information. Finally, thanks to services like Delicous and Flickr, the average user is starting to see the value of tagging. I think that it is great that RSS is becoming so ubiquitous.

On the down side, I am also surprised by the lack of progress. Most companies manage their web content in Word documents passed around as email attachments. It is not until *the end* of the workflow that the content gets into the CMS. Of course, that undermines all the workflow that has been configured in the system. I think that is changing but I expected it to happen faster. One thing that is helping facilitate the change is that the technologies are getting less formal and rigid about process. They are better designed for the average knowledge worker who is more exception driven rather than process driven.

From a publishing perspective, I am very interested in the monetization of content. Something new has to supplement the flaws in the traditional banner advertising model - in particular, in syndication and on small-screened mobile devices.

What's your pronostic for 2009 in content management area (functionnality and technology) ? Only products based on Standard (CMIS for example) ? Ajax only ? RIA ?

I think that user interfaces are going to continue to leverage AJAX. In 2007 many products started to use drag and drop for ordering of assets. In 2008 we started to see drag and drop linking and image placement. We will probably see more of that. I am also interested in thicker clients. For example, one of my customers has a custom built WCM platform and the UI is all in Flex which makes it amazingly responsive for assembling packages of content. One thing that would be really great is a Flash-based WYSIWYG editor. Nuxeo is also doing interesting things with their RCP client.

I think that REST based API's will facilitate content integration and customers will demand more functionality in the APIs. Alfresco's web scripts is a great model.

As for CMIS, I would like to see that become a standard before I get too excited about it.

In your blog, you have often speak about the difference between open source and proprietary business model. What's the main difference from your point of view between them ?

I think there is a lot of confusion still in the marketplace about open source. This is an improvement over the fear of open source that once dominated. From a typical buyers perspective, there are two key concepts to understand; and by "buyer," I mean someone who intends to use the software not resell it.

First, I should clarify that, strictly speaking, open source is a licensing model and not a business model. What I mean by that is that a company can behave like a traditional software vendor and still distribute some of their software under an open source license. The business strategy that tends to leverage the open source licensing model the best (what I often call an "open source business model") is one that uses open source distribution to get the software out there and create a market for services around that that product. This is a huge cost reduction over a traditional software sales model that spends a lot of money on sales and marketing staff (and their T&E expenses). Open source licensing allows customers (and system integrators) to do the work of qualifying themselves as a customer. If the vendor does all that pre-sales work on just the chance of a sale, it is probably expecting some upside in the form of a lucrative, all profit software deal. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth the gamble.

Second, just because the supplier identifies as an open source software vendor, doesn't mean they are selling you open source software. Take, for example, Alfresco. Their Enterprise Edition has a commercial software license. They actively discourage the use of their GPL licensed Community Edition. You can't get support for Community Edition. Alfresco partners are not supposed to help customers who are using Community Edition. Because they are solely in the business of selling a commercial software product (that is their only revenue stream), I consider Alfresco to be a commercial software vendor. That is not to say that I don't like the product. I like lots of commercial software products. I like the Alfresco's technology and think it can be a good value if it meets your requirements. Jahia is another example, they identify as an open source vendor but, today, none of the products are open source licensed.

Is there an obstacle for open source company to have double licence Enterprise(commercial)/GPL (open source) ?

I think the key challenge is around positioning. First, a vendor has to decide how two the versions are different. There has to be a reason to buy the commercially licensed version. The primary dimensions that I have seen the two products differ is in quality and functionality. Alfresco's Community Edition is neither tested nor patched. Enterprise Edition is certified and supported. Magnolia's Community Edition is the same code line as the Enterprise Edition but Enterprise Edition is bundled with components that provide additional functionality. Alkacon develops OpenCms and distributes it under the LGPL. They sell a commercial bundle of modules (OpenCms Enterpise Extensions) that enhance the scalability of the application.

Second, the company needs to figure out how the two products fit into their business. A critical part of that is whether the open source version is part of the revenue side of the balance sheet. As mentioned earlier, Alfresco Community Edition is not part of their revenue model. Many companies will offer support packages for the open source versions of their software. eZ Systems offers a commercial license for eZ Publish (which hardly anyone buys) for other companies to OEM but they make all their revenue from services around the GPL licensees.

By the way, Why have you started blogging ? What is the goal ? Is it possible to know some anecdotes?

I started blogging after a colleague (Dave Gynn who never blogs) told me to blog. I signed up for a Blogger account and wrote my first post that night. I couldn't think of a good title and that is how I can up with "Enter Content Here." The name just stuck. Blogging has been very valuable to me. It is the most efficient and effective way for me to think through and learn how to express ideas. It helps me remember things that I learned. I think I would blog even if was just me reading. What puts the value over the top for me is my readership. I really love getting feedback on what I write and hearing that I helped people.

Are you a member of an open source community promoting WCM or ECM? Do you make other contributions (Animation, articles, posts, forums ...) ?

Being vendor neutral, I don't actively participate in any projects. However, I do subscribe to a lot of mailing lists and from time to time jump into an IRC channel. I have also spoken at conferences for OpenCms, Daisy, and Plone to inform them what is happening outside of their respective projects. Before becoming an industry analyst, I participated a little on forums and I even wrote the workflow documentation for an open source WCM product. 100 MB of software off Source Forge for any one of your readers that can comment in with the name of the project!

In 2009, Can you advise us on public meeting/ event or conference we must not miss ? Will you be present ?

I try to make it to Jboye in Århus every year. This spring JBoye is holding conference in Philadelphia.

Finally, can you recommend us weblinks or blogs about ECM or IT in general ?

Here is a short list of what I follow:

CMSWire (http://www.cmswire.com)
ContentCentric (http://www.contentcentric.org/)
Dave Kellogg (http://marklogic.blogspot.com/)
Gadgetopia (http://gadgetopia)
JBoye (http://www.jboye.com/)
Jeff Potts (http://ecmarchitect.com/)
John Eckman (http://www.openparenthesis.org/)
Ostatic (http://ostatic.com/)
Planet Plone (http://planet.plone.org/)
Planet Drupal (http://drupal.org/planet)
Ron Miller (http://byronmiller.typepad.com/byronmiller/)
Stefano Mazzocchi (http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/)

And, of course...

Going to an OpenSource ECM World (http://www.open-source-ecm.com/)

What would you say to conclude this interview?

Thanks for having me. Your questions really made me think. Hopefully my answers will do the same for your audience. Keep on blogging!

Many thanks, Seth, for this interview. We wish you a nice and exciting journey on Open Source ECM Road!

To find out more about Content Here : http://www.contenthere.net/

PS :
You can download this interview at this url : http://www.scribd.com/doc/10965460/Open-Source-ECM-Interview-ENG-Seth-Gottlieb-Enter-Content-Here

jeudi 15 janvier 2009

Slidecast : What's ECM ?

Welcome readers!

Today it's another first time day!

I have the great honor to present my first slidecast !

The subject of this presentation is "ECM" (in a simplify and different way...)

Indeed, since I discover ECM, I try to explain what's ECM means for my family, friends and non-geek person. It's clearly not easy...

So I decided to make a simple, rapid and easy presentation to explain the main principle of ECM.
This slidecast follow one (and very important for me) idea :
If you can simplify what you do day after day, you have understand what you do :o)

So let's take a look and enjoy...

ECM - Simple Definition ENG

PS : Sorry for my prononciation and accent... I'm a poor non-native english guy... But I'm working on it and I will create a new version... Me too, i will be able to speak easily shakespeare language (one day...).

PS 2 : If you have any sound/image synchronization problem, don't hesitate to press any of play button under the slide.

lundi 12 janvier 2009

Interview : Jeff Potts, Experienced ECM architect at Optaros & ECMArchitect blogger

Today, it’s a real great day!

For the first interview of the year, I interviewed one of my "Guru"!

I read his blog (ecmarchitect.com), his tutorials (Alfresco Developer Series) and finally his book (Alfresco Developer Guide)... He participated (indirectly) to the creation of my blog and presentation.

That's why readers, I'm proud to interview Jeff Potts, Experienced ECM architect at Optaros, blogger and writer.

Hello Jeff!

First of all, as usual, many many thanks for the time you are spending to answer this interview and to share your knowledge about ECM.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity, Jean Marie, I'm happy to do it.

So Jeff, where the "ECM Experience" has begun for you? How was your first date with ECM?

Back in the early 1990's, I began going deep into Lotus Notes development. What I liked about it was the unstructured nature of the content, the focus on people, how they worked together, and how they could become more efficient, and the rapid application development that the Notes platform provided. At the time, business people who needed to get a solution in place were finding that they could go around their IT shops and implement their own systems by using a platform like Notes so there was a lot of uptake in the market. From a techie point-of-view, it wasn't just an end-user tool--you could really dig your hands in there and work on some interesting technical problems.

Notes added a web server just when businesses started exploring the web. The server was later branded as Lotus Domino and we were doing some really cool web apps on that platform in the very early days of the commercial web.

Interest in WCM grew as interest in the web grew and before long I was working on custom WCM solutions first on Domino and then using purpose-built packages like Interwoven and Documentum. Interest in Notes began to fade so I shifted my focus to Documentum and broadened the solutions to include broader document management--not just WCM. At the same time I was exploring all kinds of open source software including dev tools, of course, but also packages that were further up the stack like blogging tools, wikis, search engines, and content management. That's when I found Alfresco and it wasn't long after that, I decided to get behind open source full-time.

Could you identify the ECM birth? Is it a new notion or an old idea?

The idea of "Enterprise Content Management" is really used in a couple of different ways. When it is used as a term to describe software that really came about by folks like Gartner AIIM, and big vendors like Documentum and IBM looking to be one-stop-shops for their customers. They were acquiring or developing document management-related packages like imaging, collaboration, and records management, and they really wanted to tell customers, "Hey, you should let us solve your content management problem for ALL of the content in your enterprise by buying our suite of software."

The second way it is used is to describe an approach or a strategy in how a company deals with its rich content. You can look at books like Rockley's "Managing Enterprise Content" or Boiko's "Content Management Bible" to get a feel for what I'm talking about there.

Either way, I think it is an old idea. The bottom line is that you have data that doesn't fit neatly into rows and columns. It needs to be secure, discoverable, taggable, accessible, reusable, etc. And there are many different types of content-centric applications that need to deal with this rich content which includes the types of systems typically lumped under "ECM" like WCM, imaging, records management, document management, digital asset management, etc.

Is there a difference between Open Source ECM solution and Proprietary?

I think the difference is getting smaller all of the time in terms of functionality provided. When I think back across the different systems I've implemented on commercial ECM platforms, there are very few--almost none--that I couldn't do using an open source alternative today. Now the disclaimer there is that most of the solutions I've implemented have been either WCM or custom content-centric apps with a significant workflow component which are both sweet spots for open source ECM. Open source ECM still has a ways to go in some of the other ECM areas (like imaging and records management), which, just aren't that interesting to me, to be honest.

Have you your personal ECM definition?

Sure. To me ECM is about how you leverage your rich content assets with the entire content domain (which might actually go beyond the enterprise, BTW) in mind. It means at a minimum providing "basic content services" like search, security, metadata, check-in/check-out, and workflow--these are "table stakes" for any ECM repository. But it also requires that it be drop-dead simple for both people and systems to get content into and out of the repository in the right way (user interface, API, protocols) and the right format that is useful to them. The "E" in ECM also implies something about scalability and performance--we're talking about solutions that scale beyond departments to handle very large data and transaction volumes.

Let's back to you, Can you tell us more about your position? What's your role and what are you doing day after day?

Well I'm the ECM Practice Lead at Optaros so I wear a lot of different hats which is something I really like about my job. On any given day (and sometimes any given hour in a day) I might be:

Ø Writing code for a client project or an Optaros product/solution

Ø Contributing to an open source project by writing code, documentation, or bug reports

Ø Providing architectural or technical support to an Optaros client or solution team

Ø Providing feedback to a partner about strategic product direction

Ø Following numerous news feeds on ECM, related technology, and open source

Ø Blogging internally, on optaros.com, or on ecmarchitect.com

Ø Presenting at a conference or a webinar

Ø Mentoring colleagues

Ø Pitching a client, building a demo, or scoping work as part of a pursuit team

Ø Learning about and trying out a new piece of ECM-related technology

All of these buckets of work can be summarized as:

Ø Grow Optaros,

Ø Grow the ECM Practice,

Ø Grow the Open Source Community.

Everything I do should fit in one of those three categories.

Could you present your company: Optaros?

Optaros is a global consulting firm focused on assembling Next Generation Internet (NGI) solutions--more on those in a minute--from open source components. We're about 4 years old. We're headquartered in Boston, which is one of four "development centers". The other three are Austin, Geneva, and Bucharest. We have other offices in San Francisco, Dallas, New York City, Zurich, Munich, and London.

We have an impressive list of well-known, happy clients from all industries.

I often read on your documentation the NGI term ? Is it an Optaros term? What's this exactly ?

NGI stands for Next Generation Internet. It's about building web-based solutions with rich interfaces, loosely-coupled, services-oriented architectures, and open source componentry. We want to help clients think beyond just a single web site and think more about their overall web presence. We do that a lot for Media & Publishing and eCommerce companies but really it applies across all verticals.

Why have you started ecmarchitect.com ? What is the goal? Is it possible to know some anecdotes?

I started blogging in 2001 with a tool called Radio UserLand. When I started out it was something I did for myself--a way to take notes on what I was working on and to have a bit of a creative outlet. Those early posts were all over the place--music, general interest, personal stories, travel logs. Then I started dialing it in a bit. I had seen how Michael Trafton and a little outfit in Austin called BlueFish had not only provided a good resource for the community of Documentum Developers but had also become a well-known name in Documentum circles through their site called dmdeveloper.com. I figured I could do the same thing with open source ECM. The worst case was that I'd document what I was learning about open source ECM for myself, my colleagues, and others. The upside was that if it became popular, I'd become more established in that market which would hopefully lead to better projects for my practice and more compelling content for the blog.

So I decided to focus a bit more on it. I moved from UserLand to Wordpress on a hosted server and bought a domain. I had tried to come up with something catchy but I thought, "Why not just call it what I do?" which is how ECM Architect was born. To be honest, I'm not crazy about the name but that ship has sailed.

The blog has not only been a creative outlet and a useful communication tool. I also credit it with hooking me up with Optaros. Seth Gottlieb (contenthere.net) and I met through our blogs. He was working at Optaros at the time. We later met face-to-face at a conference and stayed in touch. When it was time to move into open source full-time, I already had a good feel for the great culture at Optaros and the kind of work they were doing. And Optaros had a good feel for my interests and experience from reading the blog.

The book also came about because of the blog. The publisher, Packt, approached me after reading the Alfresco Developer Series. So that's another great opportunity that's come through ecmarchitect.com. Every once in a while I'll get some credible leads directly from a blog reader, but from a business development perspective, the benefit is mostly indirect.

I'm a young blogger and for me it's difficult to know where is the border between personal and professional view. Do you have any clue to understand what's a good professional blog?

That's a great question. People forget (or don't care) that what you write and post on the web is indelible. It's all out there for colleagues, employers (current and future), and customers (current and future) to see. I've seen some--ahem--interesting stuff when Googling job applicants. If you want your blog to be an asset rather than a liability to your career, you have to keep that in mind. At the same time, your blog needs a voice--your voice--so you don't want to be so formal or correct (politically, grammatically) that that gets lost. I just try to be myself. Or at least my "work self". I don't write anything I wouldn't say over lunch with colleagues or a client. So I self-censor a bit, but not any more than I do when I'm in a business meeting.

I don't write as much personal or off-topic stuff as I used to. Some of my shorter off-topic posts now go through Facebook or Twitter. When I do blog off-topic I don't feel too bad about it. I figure if someone doesn't want to read about my sailing trips or the concert I saw last night they can subscribe to just the stuff tagged as "Content Management" or whatever their interest is. I feel like someone's blog ought to give you a good feel for the author as a person. I do spend a lot of time thinking about and working on ECM-related problems. But if you and I have a beer, that's not all we're going to talk about, so that's not the only thing I blog about.

Nice :o)

Alfresco community knows you for your Alfresco Developer Series and Alfresco Developer Guide, can you tell us more about the origin and if possible to have some statistics (number of download, geographic repartition...) ?

The Alfresco Developer Series is a set of tutorials I wrote over an extended period of time--it was about a year. I had been doing some work with custom actions and had found the documentation to be a little lacking. I figured I could write a tutorial on it that a lot of people would find useful. I got a lot of good feedback on it so I made a list of the fundamentals I'd go over with someone if they wanted to get ramped up on Alfresco in roughly the order that would make sense. I worked on the Custom Content Types tutorial in my spare time and posted it in June of 2007, six months after the first one. It immediately drew the most traffic I had seen and continues to draw a decent amount. I realized there was pent up demand for Alfresco how-to content. I also realized that one tutorial every six months wasn't going to cut it so I stepped up my focus and posted three more--Behaviors, Web Scripts, and Workflows--in September, October, and November. That work along with some other stuff I was doing in the community got me recognized as Alfresco's Community Contributor of the Year in 2007 which I thought was pretty cool, especially in light of all of the other very active members of that community.

By the time the Alfresco Developer Series was out I still had topics left to cover and began toying with the idea of writing a book. Based on the popularity of the tutorials, I knew people were really looking for that kind of content--the only question was should I do it as additional tutorials as I was able or do something a little more cohesive. That's when Packt reached out to me. I also got a lot of support and encouragement from my boss, Mavis Chin, as well as several others at Optaros and from my family who knew that if I didn't do it, I'd regret it.

I used the tutorials as a starting point for the book and filled in the missing topics. I was originally hoping reusing those would save me a lot of time but I ended up revising and rewriting them fairly heavily to be consistent with the new material. I was also able to leverage some work I had done on an internal Alfresco training curriculum so I didn't have to write all of the example code from scratch.

How and when did you met Alfresco ?

I started playing with Alfresco in late 2005. Having spent roughly three years leading up to that in the Documentum world, their story intrigued me. I had also been doing some work with Zope, Plone, Apache Cocoon, and a few other open source content management technologies so I was pretty much an open source convert by that point. What was obvious even then was that Alfresco had serious momentum in terms of both marketing hype and actually delivering working code. Zope, Plone, and the others were/are great products but at the time they weren't realistic alternatives to legacy solutions for most big enterprises. Alfresco, on the other hand, was a direct shot across the bow--if it wasn't making the short list for clients at that time I knew it wouldn't be long before they were based on their trajectory.

Can you tell us what are the strengths and weaknesses of this solution from your point of view?

Alfresco's main strength is that of being a solid repository with lots of ways to get content into and out of the system. If you want to use JCR, go for it. If you want to use RESTful or SOAP web services, they are there for you. The other thing is that the presentation is completely de-coupled from the repository which means you've got all sorts of choices for implementing the front-end. You can use Alfresco's Surf framework or their out-of-the-box clients or you can do your own thing.

In terms of weaknesses, I'd say horizontal scalability has been a challenge, although we're starting to see live examples of people who have multi-node Alfresco clusters working. The fact that the DM and AVM repository implementations haven't been merged (or at least made functionally equivalent) is irritating. I'm not sure it is a weakness per se, but I wish Alfresco was more purely open source. I'd like to see committers that aren't Alfresco employees, for example.

What do you think about the recent announcement of the CMIS specification (Content Management Interoperability Services)? Is it a real advance?

Yes, this is an important standard. We're already seeing ways we can leverage it by providing solutions to our clients that could conceivably work for any CMIS compliant repository, not just one in particular. Adding to the REST API and providing a SQL-like query language is something Alfresco needed to do anyway so it's pretty serindipidous that the draft came out when it did.

All of the right players are behind it. It'll be interesting to see how fast the legacy vendors can add CMIS implementations of their own. Once that starts to happen, I think you're going to see an explosion of "ECM add-on" tools because it suddenly becomes worth someone's while if they can build a tool once that will work with multiple repositories. Plus there are things you'll be able to do (like moving objects between repositories) that become a lot easier.

To conclude, I'm a junior consultant (as many other) and I'm just starting to walk on the ECM Road, Have you an advice for me ?

If ECM is something you are interested in, try to get repetition within ECM but mix it up with different aspects of ECM, if that makes any sense. For example, don't just dive deep into Alfresco. Learn about other open source ECM and WCM offerings. That's one of the great things about open source--it doesn't cost anything to learn. Just jump in. And don't necessarily limit yourself to content repositories. Learn about XML, XML Schema, and XSLT. Learn about Lucene, Solr, and Nutch. Read standards/specs like ATOM/ATOM Pub and CMIS. Explore portal and presentation frameworks. Find out how workflow engines work. Basically, if you are in to ECM you need to immerse yourself in all things unstructured and process-oriented. There are so many related technologies. ECM solutions are rarely just about the repository.

And as you learn and explore, by all means, share what you're finding out--it helps solidify your understanding when you have to explain it to someone else, and we're all interested in what you have to say.

Finally, can you recommend us weblinks or blogs about ECM or IT in general ?

Here's a subset of what's in my Google Reader:

Ø John Newton's blog

Ø Matt Asay's blog

Ø Big Men On Content

Ø CMS Report

Ø CMS Wire

Ø CMSWatch

Ø Column Two

Ø Drupal.org

Ø Enter Content Here

Ø Gilbane Report News