What's New in Enterprise Content Management for SharePoint 2013 #spc12

The topic of enterprise content management (ECM) on SharePoint is always a hot one, and the hype is ever-growing with the 2013 release. 

After all Microsoft is a Gartner MQ ECM Leader, so it must continue to innovate in this space to keep up with the other ECM leaders. At #spc12, I attended a session covering Microsoft’s efforts to increase their clout in ECM with SharePoint 2013. The presenters were Tejas Mehta, Microsoft Senior Product Marketing Manager, and Jim Masson, Group Product Manager — Enterprise Content Management.

ECM in SharePoint 2010 vs SharePoint 2013

The session began with a quick recap of what Microsoft’s message was with the 2010 release and how that contrasts to the current message with 2013. In 2010, Microsoft really drove home the concept of combining traditional ECM capabilities with newer social capabilities on one platform. The impact of enterprise social was a major shift for Microsoft, and they drove that notion with much of the features in the 2010 Office/SharePoint products.

But we’re 3 years removed from that change, and most organizations are at the very least aware of enterprise social and looking at ways to invest in it. In 2013, the message with ECM is one of convergence and usability. This is in line with the greater Microsoft message about cleaner interfaces and better usability across all of their flagship products, which recently had brand new releases this year.

ECM in SharePoint: Create, Control, Protect

More specifically, the marketing team is selling the theme by highlighting 3 specific pillars, Create, Control and Protect.

Create: Content Creation & Access

The Create pillar is all about content creation and access. Microsoft is making it easier to find documents and e-mail together in SharePoint with unified views on team sites. For social, the newsfeeds are much more impactful for understanding how your colleagues are working with content that you’re interested in. The enterprise social features are much easier to use and they resemble the big social networks, as you can follow just about anything in SharePoint and even use mentions and hashtags, a la Twitter.

Control: Governance & Search Driven Experiences

The second pillar, Control, has a focus on a mixture of governance along with search driven user experiences. And although the oft-overused term of governance has been fairly played out, there were five specific things in the demo that showed how the product team is increasing value in this pillar.

First we saw a demo of dragging and dropping a document from Windows Explorer right into SharePoint without having to load any windows or apply metadata. This was also shown during the keynote, and for obvious reasons garnered several applauses. Right after that we were shown how you can edit more than one document at the same time from within SharePoint and apply different types of metadata than you could with 2010.

Specifically you can apply managed metadata terms en masse to all the documents in the library without much trouble. Again, applause from the attendees. The next is the ease of dragging and dropping e-mails from your inbox to Exchange site mailboxes, which can be unified with SharePoint documents on a team site. The great thing here is that any relevant retention policies will apply to both the documents in SharePoint and the Exchange site mailbox. The next was a really nice showing of the new metadata-based navigation with the content query web part in SharePoint. The idea is that you use a managed metadata term set to create a visually appealing navigation based on content already stored in SharePoint matching those terms. And last but not least, we were shown the support that SharePoint 2013 has for HTML 5 video content as well as its ability to automatically recognize video-based content when posting a link on the feed.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Customer Experience Meets Classical System Development

In today’s IT alphabet soup, why would something as ordinary sounding as “customer experience” become a hot topic? Haven’t “customers” always experienced using computer systems? So what’s different?

The answer lies partly in the Internet’s evolution from information resource to transaction platform, and partly in its transformation from “system-centered” to “user-centered.”

Growth of the Transaction Internet

Historically, the Internet was like a virtual library. If you found what you wanted, fine; if you didn’t, you kept looking or gave up. User experience was a “soft variable” and if users didn’t succeed, they seldom complained.

Then, in the 90s, the Web evolved from information/research tool to transaction platform including functions previously available only via mail, phone or at the “next window please.”

Beginning with simple e-Commerce, the Internet expanded to new accounts, licenses, contributions, payments, permits and all manner of transactions. Unlike research, when transactions fail, there are tangible impacts, some quite serious.

Rise of the User-Driven Web

Beginning with Web 2.0 in 1999, the Web refocused Internet based systems from designers and managers to users and consumers. Users began to demand systems that function as they wanted, and were willing to retaliate when things didn’t go as they expected. This changed the way system developers had to approach their design and development efforts.

Needed: A New Development Model

Web development, from it outset, had been a “soft system” activity largely lacking design or development rigor.

But with user demands escalating and organizations adding more transactions to their Internet presence, increased rigor in the Web development process became mandatory. With little available on the Web-centric side, it was only natural to look to the business system community and it’s stable of rigorous, proven development methodologies.

The Web system community began applying various system development tools to their tasks … with end-to-end results often less than they had hoped for. What could be wrong?

The answer has only lately become clearer: the methodologies work as they should, but the challenges they face often fail to meet the core assumptions on which the methods are based.

Finding Rigor in a Messy Content Life Cycle

Unfortunately, the content life cycle with which Web-based systems must deal doesn’t come close to the level of predictability or symmetry possible, or expected, in business systems, including the following:

• Business system design is normally controlled by the designer, but Web-based systems are often controlled by their intended users and, to a lesser degree, by the providers of the information involved.
• Business systems, supply chain management, A/R-A/P, payroll, etc., are normally internal to their organizations; every involved group is expected to help make the system successful, but Web-based systems must often deal with outside users and providers, with their own goals, preferences and prejudices; and with a range of computer savvy and resources from high to virtually none.
• Business systems are often — and previously always — designed with an implicit assumption that a support group will be available to help users cope with system problems, but Web-based systems increasingly cannot assume that level of support, requiring that whatever support the user gets is built into the system.

Getting the Context Correct

Facing the two-headed monster of uncontrollable providers and users on one side, and the need for rigor in system design on the other, the Web world has struggled, often ignoring whichever side the particular designers are least familiar with.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Why is Video Different? 3 Tips to Help Plan for and Manage Video in an Enterprise DAM

The video explosion is upon us. In fact, it actually detonated quite a while ago. I work with many clients, with predominantly larger enterprise DAM implementations, and a frequent topic of discussion among these organizations is, “how do I handle video within my company?” 

Coming from a film studio background, managing video was a given, though we made great efforts to corral what types of video made it into the DAM system in order to control the usage and infrastructure impacts. Most companies will not face the same heavyweight requirements as a movie or a television studio; however, that may not make your job any easier.

Here are some tips to help plan for and manage video in an enterprise DAM environment.

1. Define the Categories of Video That You Will Manage

Understanding the business usage of your assets is important to drive governance, management and service; video assets or stills are no different in this regard. The maturity of video usage in your organization may determine how detailed and well understood these categories will be in your model.

If video creation and distribution is a norm, the categories will more likely be defined and understood. If video is a newcomer to your organization, you may need to define the categories as part of the preparation for managing video within your organization.

I suggest that these categories be organized by usage and include context in your specification or glossary documents. For example, "Product Overview" and "Used by Marketing to Create Online Campaigns." Importantly, the categories should tie back to or drive concepts that are present in your DAM metadata structure. For example, the above might have metadata applied to asset records as Video > Product Overview. This is a simplified example of two metadata fields, but it would allow the assets to be found via a search tool, while also limiting the visibility of the asset in a DAM system, if so desired.

2. Define the Technical Details of Video That You Will Manage

DAM systems are great at storing and delivering digital assets, such as digital photos and video. Similar to a digital photo, a video file may be saved in multiple formats, but video files add complexity. There are video file wrappers (e.g., MOV, Flash, MXF) and video compression formats (e.g., MPEG, h.264, ProRes) and it is common to have a combination, such as MOV wrapped h.264. The intention here is not to detail these formats, but to make the statement that understanding the details will help ensure support for your use cases.

For example, if there is a need to review and approve video within the DAM system but the video will not playback, the business requirements will not be met.

3. Define the Use Cases

This step starts with categorizing and is an additional level of detail that can fit into any methodology for implementation and management. Documenting and cataloging your use cases pays many dividends, especially ensuring that the functionality delivered meets the requirements gathered.

Following along the category from above “Used by Marketing to Create Online Campaigns,” the use case description might be “playback video to determine if appropriate for campaign.” This is a simple case that highlights how using clear classification and definition within use cases can benefit all those using the video file, especially during the upstream process within the marketing department.

Video brings complexities that may have an impact on the success of your DAM and the service provided to users. The steps outlined here can be thought of as a continuum or a loop, because users will iterate as they learn more and take on additional requirements. The steps are not unique to DAM, but the interdependencies of the steps are vital to DAM due to how closely the assets are tied to functionality.

Categorization, storage and delivery of data are the fundamental elements of managing rich media. While your company may not be producing full length features, governance of process and specifications will still yield benefits, no matter the scope of your efforts.

Editor's Note: Interested in reading more DAM tips? Try Should I Auto-tag or Crowdsource my Metadata? by @hgg101
 

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

This Week: The SharePoint Upgrade Headache

SharePoint 2013: Topic Du Jour
We might be at least a year away from seeing the first real implementations of SharePoint 2013, but that doesn't mean people aren't interested in how it has improved (or not).

Whether we are pleasantly surprised at SharePoint 2013, wondering about SharePoint customization, or thinking about the headache that a SharePoint 2013 upgrade will create, there's no shortage of opinions to go around.

Deep Dive into Web Experience
Web Experience (WEM) was also a prime subject this week: Acquia acquired Mollem for social content moderation, Bridgeline Digital released WEM for franchises, and Sitecore invested in Komfo, adding social media marketing tools to its platform.

Reminder: SharePoint Tweet Jam
August 22nd at 1pm EDT, 10am PDT is the date for our SharePoint Tweet Jam. The panel keeps getting bigger and the questions will incite a great discussion. Get the details here.

Featured Report: 241 Pages of In-depth SharePoint Analysis
Learn best practices & pitfalls to avoid, along with detailed advice on costs, benefits and technical choices
> Download a Free Sample Report Here

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Sales Enablement - Unleash the Potential of Your Sales Team

Sales enablement is a hot topic lately, with an increasing number of CRM and sales/marketing automation vendors providing sales enablement solutions. However, according to Dan Schleifer, EVP of sales enablement for enterprise sales collaboration software provider SAVO Group, the full potential of sales enablement lies in revealing what happens in the middle of the sales process.

Sales Enablement in the Middle

“CRM is the accounting system of record for sales at the tail end of the process,” Schleifer said during an exclusive interview with CMSWire. “Email and social tools are at the top. But in the middle of the process, assuming sales reps don’t do decent jobs entering sales contacts into the CRM system, and they invariably don’t; you don’t get visibility into what is happening in the field when the sales rep’s lips are flapping.”

Thus, Schleifer said there is no single tool that provides sales visibility all the way down the sales pipeline, from initial prospecting to closing (or not closing) a deal. He continued,

Marketing automation is important but doesn’t close the deal. CRM backs in from the closed deal further into the selling process. But nobody is collecting data such as what PowerPoint slide the sales rep used at what stage of the sales presentation. We don’t know what objections were handled or what team members were pulled in.”

For example, Schleifer said that a project manager may have been called in to all the successful sales presentations for a specific service or product, but this data is not captured in the traditional marketing automation/CRM information-gathering process. “It’s the essence of what makes B2B sales tick,” he said.

From the Field to the Home Office

Therefore, Schleifer said the full potential of sales enablement technology lies in its ability to uncover what is really happening in the field, identify success factors, and then communicate those factors throughout the enterprise. In addition, he said properly applied sales enablement tools can provide “short cycle feedback” allowing adjustments to sales strategies as they are being enacted.

“As a sales executive I don’t want to wait for the CRM system to tell me that a new product release is not resulting in closed sales,” he stated. “The clinical moment of truth in any sales process is when the rep is sitting with the customer. Sales enablement allows you to understand that moment of truth.”

By automatically collecting data in real time while a sales rep is making a presentation or pitch, via mobile device, sales enablement tools can eliminate organizational silos and fill the gaps in B2B sales data quickly enough for sales strategies to be altered as soon as problems can be identified. They also allow senior management to quickly understand what makes top performers stand out compared to their peers.

“Any VP of sales can tell you who their top performers are,” said Schleifer. “But they can’t tell you why. Sales enablement technology allows them to collect and process data on their top performers and determine patterns of success that then be pushed to all sales reps through the right coaching. It changes the sales process.”

Ultimately, Schleifer said a sales enablement tool should work the way an assistant aiding a surgeon works. “The assistant hands the surgeon every tool they need,” he said. “That person knows everything — the surgeon doesn’t have to write it down.”

In the next few years, Schleifer sees sales enablement technology developing to the point it can provide senior management with real-time actionable feedback from the field, rather than short-cycle feedback. “Executives will get a real-time field view and be able to take immediate action,” he predicted. "It’s really just Big Data and analytics wrapped around the right data. Within days or even hours of a new product release, you’ll know if it’s working.”

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com