ECM Report

In the never-ending battle for all that is good in pure in the world, I lost. Again. I am speaking of course, of the fight against the cumulative marketing mind power behind the relatively new, ever broadening and completely nondescript acronym that is “ECM”. It’s been around for a couple of years, but I was sure hoping it was just another fad soon to go the way of parachute pants. I am not sure where it came from exactly, nor does is really matter at this point. What matters is that there is an entire industry of consumers wanting to buy this stuff, and yet, they have no idea what it is. I feel their pain. In the constant struggle to develop brand recognition and product differentiation, industry marketers have managed to completely disenfranchise their entire constituency!

OK. Maybe that’s just a wee bit overstated… but let’s take a close look at who this really affects… it affects me. That’s right. Lil’ ol’ me. I’ve had to cave in to the what the so-called “industry” wants to call itself, and, yet again, against every ounce of my moral fortitude, I’ve had to begrudgingly… change the name of this web site! Don’t they have feelings at all? Don’t they realize the mass hysteria that is caused by the tidal forces of attempted acronym redefinition? I mean, what happens when all of the letters and combinations are gone? Will we create a 27th letter? Will all innovation completely cease? Or will we simply rip the very fabric of the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe? Hmmmm? Eh, probably not. But in the very least, don’t they know when they come up with this stuff that there is an entire community of people that gasp, sink lower in their chairs, and are forced to begin a massive search and replace process? Ahhh, what one must feel like to have that kind of power? I can only dream.

I have spent the last dozen or so years attempting to educate organizations about the benefits of ECM by reducing and simplifying its complexities to a set of practical and commonsense value propositions. Boy have I had it all wrong. Just the other day, over a carbohydrate-laden meal consisting of a Red Bull, Ben and Jerry’s, and a stack of Peeps, I had an epiphany. OK, maybe it was a sugar-induced coma - nevertheless, it occurred to me that I had been on the wrong side of the movement. I had been resisting when I should have been acquiescing. Well, I pledged then and there that I would resist no longer! I completely and firmly entrenched myself in the “ECM” camp. I decided I needed to do less to educate and more to “enhance the brand.” So, once I came to that conclusion, I decided it was time to figure out what it actually was.

I set about my task by reading some books, talking to some philosophers, and sitting under an apple tree with my focus completely turned inward for intense reflection. OK, fine, I did some Googling, you happy? In any event, I was very disappointed with what I found. I determined that Everything’s Completely Misunderstood. There was no shortage of Exponentially Complex Meanings in the mass of Extensively Confusing Mumbo-jumbo. Most of the information could be classified as an Endlessly Complicated Mess of Extremely, Completely, Meaningless phrases that people use to define ECM. I can only conclude that whoever came up with it was an Exceptionally Competent Mismarketer.

I also found that in the past, various sub segments of the industry have been known by strikingly similar things. Content Management, Web Content Management, Document Management, Integrated Document Management, Collaborative Document Management, Collaborative Content Management, on and on. Though noticeably similar, most of these titles describe different product sets in different stages of their respective evolutions. It’s no wonder that people are bit confused as to what “ECM” actually means.

If you are a consumer trying to make some sense of the ECM market, relax a little and just focus on the task at hand. Make the process less about the acronym and more about the business problem you are trying to solve. Think less about the competitive landscape of the market because now more than ever, you are likely to be comparing apples to oranges. Remain diligent and focused on how a particular solution is going to help you and your organization in a very specific, tightly defined use case. If you keep it simple, the state of the market and what the vendors are doing is somewhat irrelevant. Their solutions will either work for you or they won’t. Don’t look too much to the future, keep your decision making here in the present. Let the stockholders do the speculation.

If you are a vendor, remember that your prospects care about how you are going to solve their problem, now. Not a year from now or further down the road when the results of an acquisition are finally playing out. You can add value to your solution through futures but be careful not to try to define your value propositions on things that are not yet material. It’s a fine line to walk to be sure, but one that leads to a slippery slope if crossed. It’s an art form that is not possible to perfect, but one worthy of pursuit.

Oh, by the way, ECM in this context actually means “Enterprise Content Management”. What the….? Huh? I know. I’m with you.