How about children hosting a history blog

A shake-up of the primary curriculum to reflect the modern times is a refreshing move writes Archana Venkatraman. But should we make information technology a material of education than a medium of education?
According to The Guardian (that has seen the "draft plans for the detailed content of learning areas" Sir Jim Rose, former director of inspection at Ofsted, is proposing for pupils), children may well have to learn blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter and spreadsheets.
Rose, in an interim report published in December last year, called for a greater inclusion of information technology in primary education.
The proposal of adding the digital media by making a host of compelling subjects within history optional is baffling.
Technology is just an enabler, it is a medium of learning and teaching rather than being an object of education itself. A detailed study of technological communications is a discipline that students opt for at a higher degree of education after comprehending their interests and preferences.
If the aim is to introduce children to the emerging technologies, then it could be done by employing technology for teaching and by encouraging its use as a tool to search, communicate, share, write and present. It is understandable that launching technology in the curriculum is long overdue but it is no more important than other aspects of education.
Children love the dynamic new media. They are technologically agile by themselves without much effort because Twitter, Google and Wikipedia invariably form a part of their day-to-day activities even more than their parents'. Wasn't there a recent report about parents being unaware of their children's browsing habits?
Information technology must be carefully introduced and woven into the curriculum without burdening the children instead of knocking another important subject off the syllabus.
Children need to know the implications of the Second World War just as much as they need the skill to blog. And let's not underestimate that they cannot hold a web-based discussion on Victorian history.

Facebook works hard to avoid losing face

Information professionals with an interest in privacy issues will be following the data trials and tribulations of social networking phenomena with some interest. The story so far goes something like this. A couple of weeks ago the company released an updated terms of service but then on February 18 decided to revert to the previous version. Why? Because Facebook has apparently received complaints from some users that revised terms appeared to imply that the company would keep personal data even if the account had been deleted. So the old terms were out back while a redrafting process took place.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg used his blog to explain what was going on. This issue has clearly caused some soul searching. Now Facebook says it is "reaching out to respected organizations to get their input" and Zuckerberg reckons that much of the language is "overly formal and protective so we don't plan to leave it there for long".
With Facebook such a dominant force in the social networking space the outcome of this episode is bound to leave its mark.
Zuckerberg wrote: "Our terms aren't just a document that protects our rights; it's the governing document for how the service is used by everyone across the world. Given its importance, we need to make sure the terms reflect the principles and values of the people using the service."
It would be interesting to know where information professionals on Facebook agree with Zuckerberg. Would privacy issues cause them to stop using Facebook or use it in a different way? Or is this just part of the price you are prepared to pay for using the tool?

Autonomy and Interwoven - a sign of things to come?

So it finally happened. Speculaors have been predicting the acquisition of Interwoven and Vignette in the ECM space for years now, and last week, UK success story and erstwhile enterprise search firm Autonomy announced it was to snap up the former in a $775 million deal. So is it a good move for the firm, and what does it say about the industry in general?
Well, it certainly makes sense for Autonomy to have plumped for Interwoven as opposed to Vignette. Interwoven's newly released fourth quarter earnings were very impressive; $69.8, or an increase of 11 per cent from total revenues of $62.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2007. And for the year ended December 31, 2008, the firm's total revenues were $260.3 million, up 15 per cent from 2007.
So financially Autonomy chose the stronger company, and if you believe chief exec Mike Lynch, the two firms' product sets and management teams are well known to each other, the vendors having shared both "customers and partnerships over the years".
So how does it fit with Autonomy's strategic vision? Pretty well, actually. The firm has been moving gradually beyond its core competence in enterprise search to become an infrastructure software provider for some time now. Its portfolio now includes video and audio analysis tools, call centre monitoring and analytics software, business process management, the hugely profitable e-discovery and archiving area, and records management. According to Ben Richmond, founder of ECM consultancy The Content Group, this latest in a long line of acquisitions is all about Autonomy becoming a mainstream ECM vendor, and with records management and BPM already under its belt, it's easy to see why.
Search and content management have always had a pretty close relationship; organisations ultimately need to be able to find the content that they have created, stored and managed, so search tools are essential to a holistic ECM platform. Now Autonomy is bringing them under one roof. It will be interesting if we see more big names getting serious about providing the other parts of the ECM stack that they have so far neglected.
But a final word of warning from Richmond: end users must "look beyond the badge" when investing in new ECM products, because if vendor 'A' buys vendor 'B', it could be years before it is able to offer truly integrated products. Microsoft and Fast, Open Text and RedDot - these are just two examples to be mindful of. Happy shopping.

ECM for greener IT?

Guess what? An effective, enterprise-wide content management strategy can make your organisation more agile, efficient and save you significant energy costs. Yes, you might already be aware of this fact, as it's fairly obvious that ditching paper, printers and copiers in favour of digital content is going to generate significant benefits for the company. But a new Gartner report seeks to shed a little more light on the specific processes you'll need to identify, which can then be improved to increase efficiency and reduce greenhouse emissions.
Now the green debate has been rumbling along for some time now, and it's probably not exactly at the top of your agenda, in fact it's unlikely it'll ever move out of the 'nice-to-have' category. But it will have to be taken seriously eventually, especially if various stakeholders start to demand to see your green credentials.
That said though, especially in these trying economic times, the biggest benefits of reviewing your content management strategy and going fully digital are the economic and efficiency gains. So what does Enterprise Content Management Strategies for Green IT actually recommend? Well, put simply it is to examine all areas of the business that currently require paper, ranging from the hardware such as printers and copiers, and the business processes which are paper-intensive.
What you should do next, according to report author Mark Gilbert, is look at how paper could be reduced in these areas, rank each project in order of how much impact they're likely to have on the business, then prioritise the most achievable and set a timeline. Simple.
Well, probably not very simple actually, but by looking for example at electronic storage of documents, this could save on the energy associated with paper manufacture and distribution, and that required to air condition large paper-storage environments. Then there are the efficiency gains to be had by, for example, switching to e-forms for the capture of electronic data.
I guess firms should be thinking of these projects not just as moving from one format to another - paper to digital - but of transitioning their processes. As Gilbert tod me, data has little value unless it's part of a process, and I would add that when this data is managed electronically it can be much more versatile, it can be used in a much nimbler way than if residing on a piece of paper. As he said: "We want to keep the people on the [digital] highway; not accomodating off-ramps to other mediums."

Financial firms must try harder

After the publicity avalanche of data breaches in 2008, you could be forgiven for thinking that public and private sector organisations have already begun to take data protection more seriously. Unfortunately, new research seems to suggest the opposite.
Now, with research-based stories, the canny journalist should always be a little sceptical. Does the surveying organisation in question have an agenda? How representative is the sample size? And what questions were they asked? These are just some of factors that could affect the degree to which we can learn from various studies. But when the source is PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the survey is of over 660 global financial institutions, it's probably worth taking notice of.
The figures, part of PwC's sixth annual Global State of Information Security study, point to a disturbingly lax approach to data security among firms which should know better. Over half said they had "no accurate inventory of where personal data for employees and customers is collected, transmitted or stored".
Given the importance of encryption to a holistic data protection strategy, it was also disappointing to see the figures from this part of the survey. Forty-one per cent said they do not encrypt data stored in databases, 52 percent do not encrypt file shares, 43 percent do not encrypt backup tapes, and 33 percent do not deploy laptop encryption. The latter is especially worrying given the growing likelihood of laptops and other digital devices to go missing from time to time, and the increasingly mobile nature of today's workforce.
But it was the attitude to third party service providers that was probably most disturbing. Fifty-one per cent of respondents said they don't require third party providers to abide by their own privacy policies, while only 45 per cent said they perform due diligence on third party companies which handle the personal data of customers and employees.
Now the risk of data going missing because of mishandling or poor controls by partners and third party suppliers is well-known now; there have been enough high profile incidents to make that clear. What is most worrying is that financial services firms are usually some of the most advanced in terms of their data security policies. Let's hope this picture isn't repeated across the board.

Notice: January Issue

Any subscribers wondering where their first issue of '09 is will have to wait a bit longer I'm afraid. The decision has been made to combine the January and February issues (similar to what we usually do with the July/August edition).
Thanks for your patience with this matter
If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact me at daniel.griffin@incisivemedia.com

More thoughts on 2009

So in my last post I might have mentioned that I'd had my fill of year prediction and round-up stories. And you might also, having probably read nothing but over the last week and a half orgy of chocolate, wine and New Year sales. But I'm afraid there's very little else in the news to talk about at this time of year, as a cursory look at the headlines in the Nationals over the last fortnight will probably attest to. So here goes another attempt to look into the future and discern a few future trends in the content management space.
Firstly, e-discovery. It's already massive in the States, thanks to the ammendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) which broadened the type of documents subject to legal discovery to include all electronically-stored information (ESI). UK companies operating in the States are also beholden to these new rules, which stipulate that word processing documents, e-mails, voice mail and instant messages, blogs, backup tapes and database files are now all subject to legal discovery laws.
Vendors like Autonomy are certainly cashing-in on the projected increase in demand for tools that help to archive and retrieve electronically-stored information. The search giant bought archiving vendor Zantaz and data capture and records management firm Meridio to make it one of the best placed to offer its customers holistic e-discovery solutions. Proactive information risk management will become increasingly front-of-mind for chief executives, especially after a few high profile court cases.
Another one to watch over the coming year is the use of social computing in an enterprise context. Now there is a train of thought that says in an economic downturn CIOs are likely to eschew those riskier projects which involve high up-front costs on as yet largely unproven technologies, and instead concentrate on keeping the lights on, and their jobs. I have probably trailed this one the most over the last few months, however, and I think there are still enough firms out there willing to invest in innovative technologies to propel this model in the corporate sphere. After all, using tools which map the key skills of each member of staff and their relationships with others in an organisation can help drive efficiency and productivity, making the firm more agile and able to respond to business change.
And one final piece of food for thought. Can 2009 be the year of mobile ECM? Well, it would definitely be the next logical step and the opportunities for boosting the efficiency of mobile workers are huge. Phones are certainly becoming powerful enough to handle such tasks, but as yet the vendor community has been rather slow to jump on board. Perhaps the problem, as with all things mobile, lies with a lack of standardisation. The proliferation of mobile devices, operating systems, browsers etc in the mobile sphere is such that ECM applications will struggle to make it in this space until someone takes a lead.