eCollaboration and Enterprise Content Management

IS 904

Tero PäivärintaUniversity of Agder

3.9.2010

Agenda

• Possibility to log-in 8.30 for those needing practice in Live Meeting as such

• Groups & Group work topics?• Some ideas lifted up for everyone

• A closer look at & closer comparison of the three main concepts – Discussion-oriented ”go-through”– ECM– eCollaboration– Social Computing / Web 2.0

• Sharing the cases

Groups / Group work topics

• The newcomers in the course – brief introduction round?

• Situation

Basic Concepts

• Enterprise Content Management (ECM)– ”integrated enterprise-wide management of the life

cycles of all forms of recorded information content and their metadata, organized according to corporate taxonomies and supported by appropriate technological and administrative infrastructures” Munkvold et al. 2006

– ”strategies, tools, processes, and skills an organization needs to manage its information assets over their life cycle – including assets such as documents, data, reports and web pages” (Smith and McKeen, 2003)

History – Content management

• Archival/library science -> document management -> content management– Library of Alexandria (200 BC), medieval monasteries -> libraries

• information retrieval– Records management (paper, microfiche etc.-> electronic

records)• metadata, longevity, retention

– Electronic document (file) management (1960-70s)– Relational databases (1960-70s)

• technical separation from ”file management”– Structured documents (1980s)

• e.g. SGML -> XML, granularity of content blurred from ”file”– (Web) content management (mid-1990s)– (Content) portals (2000)

• unified access to all recorded information -> finally logically under the same ”umbrella”

Example: CM ”systems” in Statoil 2003• Effective search and navigation

depends on you knowing where the information is stored, such as

– The internet browser and Eureka

– Start-meny and Active Desktop– Lotus Notes workspaces– Lotus Notes database catalogue– Citrix Program Neighborhood– Docmap and Virtual Library– Common and private disks– Internal Net Sites– 165 different formats in

digital libraries and archives ..

How many ”content managementsystems” exists in this course / UiA?

Is content managed to a satisfactory extent?

(If not, what would be the most ”interesting” areas?)

Does it make sense to phraseECM this widely? Why, why not?

Major issues mentioned in connection to 48 ECM cases (Päivärinta & Munkvold 05)

Content Model

Infrastructure Administration

Change Management

Objectives Impacts

Enterprise Model

Main objectives and desired impacts (of ECM)

• improved internal & external collaboration• value-added / new customer services and products• reliability & quality of information content• modern/professional image of organization• efficiency, effectiveness, flexibility of work• meaningfulness of work• organizational memory• direct cost savings (info operations & facilities)• compliance to external regulations & standards• platforms & capabilities to develop targeted applications

quickly

Basic concepts (2)

• eCollaboration– ”global access to and the management of a

common pool of digital assets used to collaborate, support work processes and share information between the company and their customers, employees and business partners” (Statoil eCollaboration strategy, 2002)

History – collaboration technologies

• 1960s Stanford (Englebart) – first ideas of hypertext, word processing, data conferencing

• ”Office automation” – early 1980s• Computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW)

– 1984– merger of telecommunication & computers

• Since, a large number of technologies under varying labels– knowledge management, digital collaboration,

eCollaboration, c-Commerce…– document-based systems / workflows early included

also in the concept of eCollaboration

”Time-space” matrix of ”traditional” collaboration technology

(Some electronic meetings

which facilitate group-decision-

making)

Electronic ”whiteboards”…

E-mail

Document mgmt

Calendar, scheduling

Workflow mgmt

Electronic bulletin boards

Audioconference

Videoconference

Data conferencing

Instant messaging

Desktop conferencing / application sharing

E-mail

Document mgmt

Web-based team rooms

Calendar, scheduling

Workflow mgmt

Electronic bulletin boards

Diff

eren

t pl

ace

Sam

e pl

ace

Same time Different time

Adapted from DeSanctis & Gallupe -87

Categories of eCollaboration Technologies

• Communication– E-mail, IM, audio/videoconf.

• Shared information space– Document mgmt, team/project rooms, data conferencing,

application sharing, electronic bulletin boards

• Meeting support– Electronic meeting systems

• Coordination– Workflow mgmt, calendar & scheduling

• Integrated products– Collaboration product suites, integrated team support packages,

e-learning systems

Basic Concepts (3)

• Social computing (a.k.a. Web 2.0, online communities)-”A large number of new [Web] applications and

services that facilitate collective action and social interaction online with rich exchange of multimedia information and evolution of aggregate knowledge… Examples include blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, peer-to-peer networks, open source communities, photo and video sharing communities, and online business networks.” (Parameswaran & Whinston 07)

History of ”social computing”

• Early on-line multi-player games 1970s, Zork (MIT, 1977) MUD (Multi-user dungeon, Essex UK, 1978)

• WWW – CERN 1980s, early 1990s– ”Web 1.0 was all about connecting people. It was an interactive

space, and I think Web 2.0 is of course a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means. If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along.” (Tim Berners-Lee)

• Napster (1999-2001) – peer-to-peer MP3 sharing• The rest… applications on the WWW

– ”collaboration”, social interaction, blurring fun & serious networking, outside the corporate boundaries

• Enterprises started to interest in possibilities to utilize these technologies/ideas since the early 2000s

Basic Concepts

Enterprise Content Management

eCollaborationSocial Computing

Blog

Records management, archiving

IM

2nd life

YouTube

Corporate Wiki

Wikipedia

TeamSite

Telephoneconferencing

Document-basedworkflow

E-mail

Calendar

Facebook

Difficult to categorize? Examples.

Data/Documentstorage

Corporate

portal

CorporateWWW-siteExtra

net

Del.ici

.ous

WWW-gamesLinkedIn

MSN

FolksonomyCorporate taxonomy,metadata

Enterprise search

Flickr

Framework for further discussion

Content Model

Infrastructure Administration

Change Management

Objectives Impacts

Enterprise ModelPeople / Culture

Communication /

Argument:In addition to ECM, alsoe-Collaboration and socialcomputing applications in enterprisesrequire a holistic understanding of these issues (the elements of people, culture &communication model added to the picture, if compared to Päivärinta & Munkvold 05)

Why these altogether?

• line of argumentation:– ECM – basis for any serious information processing in the

enterprise– …but ECM is providing limited value alone, unless adopted to

support information utilization by groups (or even crowds)• organizational uses needs to be discussed together with

eCollaboration in general

– …while social computing innovations provide new opportunities for enterprises to utilize collaboration

• …where information content often still needs to be managed, both content used as a basis & content resulting from this social computing.

– I.e. The trend is that organizations need to utilize integrated information systems with elements of all of these.

• numerous challenges

An important remark

• This course is interested in the enterprise view on these ideas and technologies.– e.g. all of the ideas related to particular

concepts or technologies need to have some significance or use for an enterprise

– (e.g. Facebook’s importance for maintaining personal social connections is not per se in our interests, whereas it will be, if we can utilize it for a business purpose)

ECM

eCollaboration

Social computing

Summary (2)

t

Framework

Content Model

Infrastructure Administration

Change Management

Objectives Impacts

Enterprise ModelPeople / Culture

Communication /

ECM: Objectives & impacts

• Thinking exercise & discussion: go through each objective for 1-2 minutes (alone or groups):– What would the following things be concretely in university

courses (1 example per each)?– …and how to measure them?

• ECM objectives / desired impacts (Päivärinta & Munkvold 05):– Improving internal / external collaboration– Value-added / new customer services and products– Reliability and quality of content, less errors in products and

practices– Modern & professional image

• (to be continued on the next slide)

ECM: Objectives & impacts (cont.)

– Efficiency, effectiveness, flexibility of knowledge work / business processes

– Meaningful knowledge work / less tedious routines– Organizational memory– Direct cost savings (e.g. of information processing,

etc.)– Satisfying external regulations / standards– Platforms / capabilities to develop / maintain targeted

(and emerging) content management applications

• Do you find any other categories? (let us know…)

A Wider View: ECM vs. eCollaboration vs. Social computing: Objectives

• eCollaboration objectives– Collaboration effectiveness of

teams & groups highlighted• Often also informal teams -> less

organization-unit-focused thinking than in ECM

• Knowledge ”mobilization” here and now

• Customer contact– Quality of decisions (i.e. group-

decisions are better?)– (direct (travel) cost savings +

cutting non-meaningful travels)– Image?– ”Platforms”– Highlights the team/group view

and often task-oriented focus on ”now”

• To exaggerate: (ECM mostly ”organization / enterprise –oriented” ?)

• Social comp. Objectives– ”Individually-originated objectives

turn to loose community-feelings”– Keeping oneself upgraded on

”what’s fancy”– Expressing oneself– Connecting people who like to be

connected• Knowledge exchange as a happy

”side product”?– Building voluntary competence

networks– Image?– Meaningfulness of the social

milieu – the work should also be socially and intellectually rewarding (even fun)

– Person-oriented focus on satisfaction at work (and social-human relations)

• Assumption: knowledge sharing and other benefits follow this…

Framework

ContentInfrastructure Administration

Change Management

Objectives Impacts

Enterprise ModelPeople / Culture

Communication /

ECM: Content model(s)

• Discussion: What would the following elements be in UiA’s course content ”model(s)”? Examples?– Content presentations, structures, views?– Content life-cycle– Metadata– (Corporate) taxonomies (vs.? ”folksonomies”)

• Discussion 2: What needs to be ”modelled”?• Discussion 3: Who ”meets” the content model(s) in

practice and how?– i.e. who needs to be knowledgeable of ”content modelling”,

concerning the particular areas of it?• Discussion 4: Is / Can / Should there be ”enterprise-

wide” content modelling?

ECM vs. eCollaboration vs. Social computing: Content/Communication model

• eCollaboration– Ad hoc group communication

an important part• Meetings, e-mails, instant

messages etc. ”abstract” categories of communication

• Combined to more formal ”genres”

– Need to manage content in relation to most usual group communications tasks

• Social computing– Communications about

oneself (profiles, interests, humour, expertise)

– Structures to network under common interests

– Rich communication means, free sharing

• Video, pictures, comparisons…

– Quick and flexible linking of information

– ”Folksonomies” (vs. ”taxonomies” to organize content of interest

– Platform for ”citizen” movements… opinion-expressing

Framework

Content Model

Infrastructure Administration

Change Management

Objectives ImpactsEnterprise

People / Culture

Communication /

ECM: Enterprise model(s)• ”… a shared idea about what needs to be done in the enterprise,

who does what, who is in charge of what.”?• A number of different ”conceptualizations” and their mixtures

– Business / support processes, tasks– Resources, roles, teams, organization units (budgeting entities)– Projects– Geographical sites– even persons… etc.

• How to organize content ownership / responsibilities? • Discussion: What ”enterprise models” are in active use in UiA /

courses?– Who decides? – or… is there many competing ones?– Do the ”enterprise-models-in-use” match to the models indicated by

information systems applications?• Discussion: How do particular kinds of objectives relate to particular

kinds of ideas of the enterprise? (i.e. what is the unit for analysis for expected benefit from developing ECM according to a particular goal?)

ECM vs. eCollaboration vs. Social computing: Enterprise model

• eCollaboration– Generic ideas about the group

/ team collaboration scenarios• Tasks and task sequences,

generic / technical types of user roles

– Meeting host, participants

– Specialized applications may build more focused and formalized role structures

– Often crosses e.g. budget unit boundaries

– ”Formalizes” cross-unit task groups?

• Social computing– Networks of people with

common interests• Relationships build around

common interests or previous social relations

– Makes ”the informal organization” visible?

• Could that be used for enterprise purposes?

– ”Visible individuals” and ”responders”

• E.g. blogging typically not practiced by many, but commenting can then be

Framework

Content Model

Infrastructure

Change Management

Objectives Impacts

Enterprise ModelPeople / Culture

Communication /

Administration

ECM: IT infrastructure• All the hardware & software & IT services needed to make ECM

work– Analysis alternatives – which relate to which content / part of

enterprise / type of people…?• Infrastructure challenges in ECM:

– Integrating applications & tools throughout content life-cycle– Seamless user experience of content retrieval and production– Update management of hardware, software, and even operating

systems (still)– Technology updates to make content sharing among applications &

devices possible (towards ”application-independent” content formats ?)– Information security issues– Lately: competing infrastructures between different parts of enterprises

• Mergers, or otherwise.

ECM vs. eCollaboration vs. Social computing:IT infrastructure

• eCollaboration– In addition to ECM– Mostly a (more or less

standardized) set of available person-to-person and team communication tools, sponsored by the enterprise

– Technical challenge: accessibility and stability of use

• Social computing– So far: web-based

applications (more or less) ”allowed” to be used by companies

– Technical challenge: information security?

– To become: ever more integrated as a part of content mgmt & e-collaboration ”offices”

• Problem – does it then work only inside a firm?

Framework

Content Model

Infrastructure Administration

Change Management

Objectives Impacts

Enterprise ModelPeople / Culture

Communication /

ECM: Administration issues

• Regulations, standards, policies, routines, administrative procedures

• Awareness• Organizational support for new roles?

– From local archivists to support persons for global production / retrieval of content

– Cf. J. D. Edwards – five new organizational roles to support new content mgmt applications

• Technical support• Discussion: Which administration issues are the

most challenging ones?

ECM vs. eCollaboration vs. Social computing: Administration

• eCollaboration– Awareness– Motivation to adopt– Support for learning

• Ability to adopt

– Cultivating the practices

• E.g. ”good e-meeting practice” beside mastering the tools as such

• Social computing– ”What counts as real

work”?• Policy, shared culture• (less individual

adoption problems among younger employees?)

– Information security practice

• E.g. anonymity not allowed

Framework

Content Model

Infrastructure Administration

Change Management

Objectives Impacts

Enterprise ModelPeople / Culture

Communication /

Change management• Justification of ECM initiatives

– How to make a business case to get corporate sponsoring?– From justification to ”benefits management”

• Maintaining mgmt support & development resources– ECM is seldomly a ”project”, but a process

• Competence acquisition & upkeep– AIIM Feb 2008 – Lack of ECM competence does not cease in the

foreseeable future• Organizational / user resistance for change /

standardization– Again: ”Benefits management” -> Benefits realization– How to involve users?

• Often ”benefit disparity”

• Discussion: How well is change management taken into account in previous content mgmt / collaboration initiatives at UiA?

ECM vs. eCollaboration vs. Social computing: Change mgmt

• eCollaboration– Key issue: how to introduce

new tools so that they reach a ”critical mass” of users within a relatively short time-frame

– Illustrative business cases to motivate /justify

• Individual users• Organizational sponsors• ”What is the value of our

e-mail application?”– (We’ll come back to

implementation issues in organizations later)

• Social computing– Key issue: how to make

potential value of social computing clear for management?

• Obstructive: how to ”fight” against employee use of soc. comp.?

• Supportive: how to foster a sensible ”corporate attitude” and to make it clear to all employees?

• ”Why should our employees mingle during the office hours?”

– Who should pay for implementing these in the corporation?

Summary

• ECM, eCollaboration & Social computing highlight slightly different issues– Objectives / impacts, enterprise,

communication/content models, infrastructure issues, administration & change management challenges

• In addition to ECM, eCollaboration & social computing perhaps highlight more– People-oriented issues– ”Cultivation” of corporate culture– ”ECM” is more driven and cultivated by content

management professionals, should be almost ”invisible” background service for users

• Vs. eCollaboration & social computing!

Framework

Content Model

Infrastructure Administration

Change Management

Objectives Impacts

Enterprise ModelPeople / Culture

Communication /

Culture

• Foci – Cultural ”main differences”– ECM – robust management of ”enterprise

information”– eCollaboration – effective groups / teams on

more or less pre-known tasks– Social computing – individual motivations to

self-expression, social networking, fun -> ”happy accidents” of knowledge mobilization?

”People”

• Discussion– What kind of people-related issues can /

need to be managed / recognized?• ECM• eCollaboration• social computing

The Cases

• Go-through Tero’s list of suggestions in the SharePoint Team site

• Any comments?