Review of AIIM 2010

I first attended AIIM back in 1997. Over the last few years, the AIIM conference managed to keep its momentum despite the consolidation of ECM vendors and tight travel budgets. This year’s AIIM conference seemed to be very busy as the expo hall was constantly crowded and some of the sessions were packed.  Here is my summary of AIIM 2010 – or should I say the unofficial SharePoint user conference.

SharePoint is Everywhere

Microsoft didn’t have a booth at AIIM in 1997. They only recently started to get involved with AIIM with the development and adoption of SharePoint 2007. In 2008, Microsoft claimed over a billion dollars in SharePoint sales. According to a recent Gartner survey, 50% of all organizations (large and small) have piloted or deployed SharePoint as a key element of their overall information infrastructures. During AIIM, I had the opportunity to see SharePoint 2010. Kudos to Microsoft. They enhanced the (much needed) search facilities, revamped the user interface, delivered basic records management capabilities, and with promised better scalability. I am now telling everyone “SharePoint 2010 was MY idea.” I counted over 20 different vendors offering a huge variety of services and products around SharePoint. There was even a dedicated SharePoint pavilion for partners, integrators and complementary technologies. I saw great demos from KnowledgeLake and NteliPath on imaging services for SharePoint. NextPage seems to have a unique information governance solution for SharePoint.

eDiscovery Pavilion

The concept of eDiscovery really didn’t exist at AIIM 1997. However, with the introduction of FRCP and the high costs associated with litigation, eDiscovery is becoming a hot topic within corporation. With AIIM being an “information management” association, it absolutely makes sense to discuss eDiscovery. However the current challenge for corporations with eDiscovery is getting alignment between IT, business, and legal. Furthermore, most of the discussions around eDiscovery have been limited to email archiving, reactive products (i.e. let’s search our 500 servers), and the consulting services to assist with eDiscovery. I didn’t hear many people at AIIM really talk about being proactive and what it takes to be litigation ready. There is a very well known case study by DuPont detailing the costs when companies do not have an information governance solution for eDiscovery readiness. The case study concluded over 39 million documents were reviewed during litigation that were past their retention period which cost in $12 million. Most of the ECM vendors at AIIM already have some type of message around eDiscovery (but did not really promote it) or will make one up before next year’s AIIM. For AIIM 2011, I predict there will be many more vendors in the eDiscovery pavilion.

Records, Records wherefore art thou Records?

At AIIM 1997, everyone (including me) was talking about efficient ways of keeping all the content in your business just in case someone may need it in the future. I agree with Barclay Blair that for most organizations keeping everything forever is not a viable option. I have said this before and know it’s not that simple to implement. When talking with customers, the biggest obstacle is to have agreement between all the stakeholders on exactly what needs to be kept and for how long. This conversation is not an hour long discussion and it’s no longer an IT or business decision. It involves legal, compliance, data security and finance. It also includes a proactive program which incorporates all the components of the lifecycle of the content – not just retention and disposal (data privacy, regulations, storage platforms, metadata). I discussed the difference between information governance and records management before and Greg Clark also wrote a good article on this topic.

Summary

AIIM 2010 was an excellent event for me. I was able to connect with customers, chat with partners, bump into old colleagues, and meet new people in this fascinating industry. At the end of the day, the main principal of AIIM hasn’t really changed since 1997. It’s all about companies using technology to efficiently better manage their number one asset – information. See you next year in Washington, DC.

Comments

[Coach outlet]

Thank you very much for your very thoughtful and considered comment. I approach the journey in very much the same way as you've described yours.

[freelance writer]

this was great blog!