ECM Briefs

This week I'm at the Drug Information Association Annual Meeting in Boston where I've been talking to people about all aspects of enterprise content management in the life sciences space including records management, quality management and Web 2.0.

Pretty much everyone I've talked to at the show is looking to do more with ECM. They're looking to go beyond traditional regulated documents, and want to have more focus on contract management and records management, and basically bring all of their content together under one roof so to speak.

I've also been hearing a lot more Web 2.0 talk this year. Conferences like this one give pharmaceutical professionals an opportunity to connect with peers and prospective drug development partners. As we take advantage of these opportunities here this week, we're reminded that the next generation of social networking will enable those relationships to build throughout the year.

New sites and services are being launched that will help connect those in the life sciences community. I met someone yesterday who was launching a social networking tool for drug development companies and professionals.

I've asked myself many times when Web 2.0 will significantly impact pharmaceutical and biotech companies... As I am approached by someone who has been following Open Text on Twitter, I realize that it may be sooner than I thought.

Walk into any life sciences organization and you might see more than a few people scratching their heads and looking bewildered when asked about eDiscovery and how exactly a record is defined in the industry. Some might tell you that regulated content is the only content that has to have record classifications applied to it, which isn't the case. And because of the litigation aspects associated with these records, legal counsel and the senior executives will tell you their own perspectives.

Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology and Medical Device Manufacturers face an enormous number of regulations - including the FDA Rule: 21 CFR Part 11 for Electronic Records and Electronic Signatures -- which guide their records management practices. Records Management is nothing new to this industry, but the increasing use of technology in the industry, and the increasing use of electronic information management, is forcing organizations to rethink the way they manage their records.

In a podcast posted this week, I discussed these issues with Christine Ardern, Director, Records Management for Entium Technology and Liz Kofsky, Records Management Program Manager for Open Text.

We all stressed the fact that organizations need to recognize that a solid enterprise-wide records management practice is essential to a successful compliance program. Many organizations have implemented departmental strategies to address one or more records management requirements typically under the regulatory or quality management umbrella, but recent changes in eDiscovery legislation as well as general good corporate governance practices require a holistic approach to records management.

The main thing to remember is that keeping everything is not a viable option - the podcast will help you take the first step in determining the best records management options for your organization.

We've talked here before about the benefits of bringing Web 2.0 into the enterprise. There's no question that these new technologies can have a major positive impact in an organization looking to embrace Enterprise 2.0. In March, we announced a comprehensive strategy to deliver more of this technology to customers and also entered into a partnership with the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, to help fund a research and educational institution dedicated to Enterprise 2.0 and digital media technology. You might say we're "putting our money where our mouth is."

So while we're committed to delivering new and innovative 2.0 tools to customers, we also recognize the potential road blocks to broad adoption of these news technologies in large organizations. Some of the biggest among these are compliance and legal risks. For organizations to be successful, Enterprise 2.0 tools must be delivered on an ECM foundation that lets customers manage the inevitable legal and compliance issues that will arise. Today, we released a podcast where we talked about Enterprise 2.0 and how organizations can address risks. We were joined by Dan Keldsen, research director for AIIM, the ECM Association.

In the podcast, we talk about how IT professionals and records managers need to take a proactive approach and look at how the best practices that have become commonplace across enterprises for electronic records can be put in place for new media content.

Among organizations, the Enterprise 2.0 fear factor still looms large: 36 percent of respondents to a recent AIIM report on Enterprise 2.0, co-authored by Keldsen, pointed to potential security violations as a major concern. In the end, Enterprise 2.0 content is no different that any other electronic content when it comes to records management. Both IT and Records Management professionals must look ahead to a future in which blogs or wikis are as much a part of their business processes as email is now. That means they still need to plan for the retention and management of that content, as it's done with other corporate information.

We think organizations can balance the productivity needs of the user with the compliance and risk management issues of the corporation - stay tuned for some announcements we have coming up to show you how.

Next week Open Text will be at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston and we hope to see you there. Running from June 9-12, the event is the "largest and most important conference gathering for people ready to reinvent the way work is done." Also, it is an excellent opportunity to meet with the Open Text team and learn how our Enterprise 2.0 strategy is designed to help you transform your organization with powerful social computing tools.

We have a great line-up for next week so be sure to look for us! This is what we're up to on Tuesday:

11:00am - 12:00pm
Demo Pavilion access - be sure to visit Open Text booth #507

1:00pm - 2:00pm
Workshop: Building the Foundation of Enterprise 2.0: Experience the Power of People, Process, and Content in a 2.0 World - presented by Tom Jenkins, Executive Chairman & Chief Strategy Officer, Open Text and Daniel Kraft, President, RedDot, The Open Text Web Solutions Group in the Griffin Room

2:30pm - 3:30pm
Enterprise 2.0 Initiatives and Challenges in the Revere Room

3:30pm - 4:00pm
Ask the Enterprise 2.0 Experts in the Revere Room

4:00pm - 4:30pm
Round Table Discussion in the Revere Room

4:30pm - 6:30pm
Demo Pavilion Open - Cocktail Reception

6:05pm - 6:15pm
Market Leaders Track: Building the Foundation of Enterprise 2.0: Experience the Power of People, Process, and Content in a 2.0 World - presented by Daniel Kraft, President, RedDot, The Open Text Web Solutions Group.

We'll be providing regular updates here @ ECM Briefs including the buzz from the show floor. Or subscribe to Cheryl McKinnon's Twitter Feed for real time updates.

In late 2006, the U.S. subprime mortgage industry witnessed the housing bubble disintegrate due to the sudden rise in the rate of subprime mortgage foreclosures, which consequently caused a number of subprime mortgage lenders to file for bankruptcy. The meltdown saw prices in the $6.5 trillion mortgage bond market collapse, not only threatening broader impacts on the U.S. housing market and economy, but also taking its toll on financial institutions around the world.

This debacle has forced many financial institutions to take a step back to reassess their lending processes so they can get a better understanding of what went wrong and how they can avoid it in the future. But where do they start?

The answer may vary from firm-to-firm, but there is one approach that every firm should consider when evaluating the risk associated with their portfolios: combining a suitable risk assessment strategy with that of a solid technology foundation can help financial institutions make more sound lending and investment decisions. Adding enterprise content management to the mix can up the ante by helping firms rapidly deploy content-centric business solutions that can help increase efficiencies, help improve customer service levels, assist in mitigation of risk, help accelerate product development cycles, help streamline deal-related processes, and therefore may generate competitive advantage.

We've put together a few key fundamentals to help firms mitigate risk associated with lending:

• Technology, automation and information management, access and control all are necessary components of a comprehensive solution to this issue, but that it is only one element of the equation. Clearly, there will be further oversight put into place by the regulatory and watchdog agencies. While the secondary markets may impose a combination of government overview and perhaps quasi, self-regulatory controls to mitigate this in the future, the mortgage originators, brokers and banks will also be monitored more closely going forward. These regulatory and compliance issues will create the need for further internal controls and tracking on the lending processes and documentation associated with them.
• Increasing the quality, and quantity, of risk-related and risk-adjusted metrics in relation to real estate investments is critical. Analytical technology can provide the ability to alert, detail and summarize risk in a type of executive dashboard that can help financial institutions look at the trends and critical points in their investment alternatives, and directions they should be concerned with. Investment appetites and pain points tend to be defined in terms of numbers, thereby alerting investors to over-indulging, hopefully before a negative outcome becomes a reality.
• Fully-digitizing and automating lending processes allows organizations to create rules and alerts when risk-adjusted thresholds of subprime investments are reached; while keeping track of all the documents (paper and non-paper) that go into the lending process.
• With the proper technology in place, lending folders can be packaged up and more precisely analyzed by secondary market purchasers so they can get a 360o view of all the information they need from the primary lenders that is pertinent to their subprime purchases and packaged loans to make informed investment decisions.

Additional Resources:

• An information page outlining key services to help financial firms get the most value for their money


• Solutions for Financial Services: Best Practices

News last year about an audit of Atlanta's Piedmont Hospital, the first of its kind since HIPAA security rules went into effect, had many in the healthcare industry anticipating more enforcement. More aggressive audits to verify compliance with HIPAA security requirements are expected this year, making it critical for healthcare security decision-makers to re-evaluate the way they manage, distribute, and provide access to identifiable health information.

And while they face tougher regulatory standards for information, healthcare organizations are also trying to improve the way information is used in the organization to help staff communicate and collaborate more effectively. Balancing the need for collaboration with compliance and risk mitigation may seem like a tough balancing act, but Jefferson Memorial Hospital, in Jefferson County, Missouri, offers an interesting case study in how to accomplish both aims. Jefferson Memorial has been able to enhance communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing by connecting all stakeholders across the organization's core communities within a secure online environment that is cost effective, flexible and easy to manage and administer.

In a recently released podcast, Josh Bauman, Systems Analyst at Jefferson Memorial Hospital, discusses the hospital's solution, based on software from Open Text's Communications Solutions Group FirstClass. The solution helps the hospital's physicians, nurses and administrators communicate, collaborate and adhere to patient-privacy regulations. The podcast also highlights challenges Jefferson Memorial faced with regards to legal and policy-based compliance requirements and its old email system. In addition, it also talks about a range of FirstClass features including its archiving capabilities that have afforded significant savings for the hospital.

You can read more about Jefferson Memorial in a recently published success story.

With our LiveLinkUp Europe customer events this week, we’re releasing an interesting podcast featuring John Hunter, Head of IT Division for the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), who discusses how the organization’s Web-based knowledge management system is helping ECHR keep pace with a staggering volume of applications.

ECHR deals with allegations of human rights violations against the Council of Europe’s forty-seven member states. It is legally obligated to publish its judgments and make information concerning its activities available to the public. Making human rights violations public is an important part of the Court’s work because the deterrent effects of the publicity helps to promote more effective human rights protection at a national level.

Faced with a massive increase in the volume of applications (500 percent over seven years) and a limited budget, the Court’s primary objective was to speed up the processing of cases and optimize the human resources available to it by introducing more efficient, labor-saving procedures.

The ECHR has been implementing an integrated document and knowledge management system from Open Text for a decade now and it has become an indispensable tool for the accomplishment of the Court’s mission. The IT system not only streamlines the business processes of the Court to enable it to deal with the ever increasing number of applications, it also provides a public service via its Internet sites to citizens across Europe and indeed the world. Since its roll-out, the system has acquired an international reputation as ground-breaking technology and best practice in the relevant domain.

You can also read more about ECHR in a recently published success story and in an interview we posted with John early last year.

This week, we’re hosting our annual LiveLinkUp Europe event in Düsseldorf on April 22nd at the InterContinental Hotel Düsseldorf; and in London on April 24th at the Chelsea Football Club. The theme this year is Architecting Value, which reflects the shift in the ECM market from leveraging technology to control and manage content to building business solutions that overcome challenges associated with critical issues of the day - achieving regulatory compliance, mitigating business risk, increasing productivity, and reducing costs.

To coincide with the events, we’ve made a few announcements this week that continue with the conference theme and that will help to make the lives of our customers a little easier when dealing with loads of content.

Transactional Content Processing Solution Launched
Business processes that get initiated by incoming content and externally via e-mail or online forms are becoming increasingly important in industries with large numbers of customers, partners or suppliers. As a result, we announced the launch of a fully integrated Transactional Content Processing Solution that makes it easier to streamline and optimize massive and complex transaction-oriented processes.

Organizations Seek Software Providing Repository of Record
A recent IDC white paper we sponsored reveals how the ever-growing adoption of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for creating, managing and sharing documents is fueling increased demand for software that provides a repository of record for companies’ vast amounts of content and data. Companies that make technology investments understandably want their employees—regardless of their skills-sets or ways of using the technology—to get the maximum benefits. This is driving the demand for “invisible content management” that makes content management systems a seamless part of users’ systems.

For more information on LiveLinkUp Europe, visit: http://www.opentext.com/livelinkup/

Open Text is a proud Silver Sponsor of what has emerged as one of the must-attend conferences in the Enterprise Content Management space: Gartner’s PCC. Since the kick off show in 2006, this conference has become a showcase for thought leadership in the content management arena – watching tomorrow’s trends yet balanced by solid real-world implementation advice for best practices hungry attendees.

The session tracks: Portals and User Experience; Content Management and Compliance; ROI, Governance and Justification; Collaboration and Innovation deliver a solid stack of recommendations and often push attendees to think beyond the bits and bytes into how software choices can affect the business they support.

What has struck us as interesting so far? (Besides the dreamy red velvet cupcakes at afternoon break….) That more than one analyst has called for technology creators and deliverers to think about the implications of their software and content management decisions. Paying attention to end-user participation rates as a measure of success, of realizing how the move into online business practices have changed the game of brand and reputation management, how governance is emerging as corporate objective that needs to be abstracted from the individual software tools people adopt and discard as their content creation needs change, how policy must shadow innovation and balance the productivity needs of content creators with best practices needed to serve corporate requirements.

It was gratifying to hear many of the Gartner presenters articulate that their session content was directly driven by the questions, concerns and anxieties voiced by their customer inquiries over the year – content is timely, current and developed to answer real-world content management issues. Also gratifying to hear Open Text positioned as a leader in the collaborative content management space – as the leading pureplay ECM vendor delivering proven and tested Content-Enabled Vertical Applications to organizations who need more than basic content services to support the needs of their global enterprise.

If you’re reading this and are at the show this week, come see us in Booth T http://agendabuilder.gartner.com/pcc4/webpages/VendorDetail.aspx?vendor=23. We’d love to have a conversation and understand your content management challenges. Tell us how you’re getting ready for Enterprise 2.0.

Over the last few weeks, we have been attending a series of events where we’ve touted new things we are doing with Microsoft. At LegalTech New York, we announced a new solution for law firms called Legal Information Management, SharePoint Edition and at Microsoft’s Office Developer Conference, we introduced a solution that lets developers create case management applications for SharePoint, called Case Management Framework, SharePoint Edition. There’s more on the way in the weeks ahead.

If you’re wondering why Open Text is working on all these things for SharePoint, take a look at a recent article from Computerworld Canada which, in a report on our Case Management Framework, provided a good perspective. In the article, one analyst points out that many organizations are looking at SharePoint as a centralized user interface or collaborative infrastructure they want to build on. If customers want to use SharePoint as the principal place where people work online, we are leading the market in delivering solutions that help customers extend the power of SharePoint in that role. We’re doing this at two levels: Providing business process and/or vertical-market specific ECM applications that work on top of SharePoint; and providing enterprise-scale records management and archiving capabilities that can support a company’s SharePoint sites. Recently, Evan Richman of Microsoft and I recorded a podcast where we discussed how the two companies work together to deliver combined solutions that are paying off for customers.

Our success with Microsoft validates Open Text’s position in the market as an ECM-focused company that can offer customers content management expertise gained over many years to extend the infrastructure of their choice.

Open Text often is asked whether our SharePoint related product portfolio is competitive with our traditional Livelink ECM content management offering, and increasingly we realize that it is not. Customers today are interested in richer end-to-end content lifecycle management: not mere check-in/check-out basic library services. By incorporating SharePoint authored content into our broader ECM strategy, we give our customers choice. Customers choose the content infrastructure that best fits their broader IT strategy – any combination of SAP, Oracle, IBM or Microsoft – and Open Text will help them solve their content management challenges leveraging this infrastructure. In this context, as Office 2007 gains traction, it only makes sense to take advantage of all of its new capabilities and provide easy solutions to bring this content into our broader ECM portfolio.

Organizations currently managing key information within Office SharePoint Server 2007 may also want to offer an experience driven Web environment that can increase the value of content within their document library. We made this a possibility today with our announcement of the release of RedDot’s Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Document Management Integration. Read more here.

The bottom line: Customers need flexibility to create an ECM strategy that fits the needs of their users. We are working to give them that flexibility.