Why not just fix document accessibility at the source?

The successful mantra of organizations striving for digital accessibility is: “always direct efforts at the source applications” because unless you address accessibility issues there, it will be impossible to keep up as changes propagate throughout content over time. This works swimmingly for website design where you have relatively few source systems, and proven strategies that can be employed equally well across those systems.

Take, for example, the use of tables. When designing web content, the accessibility best practice is to use tables only for tabular data, not as a design layout scheme. Tables must have table headers for rows and columns so people reading the table can understand the relationship of the cells. This edict works very well and can be replicated easily across an organization’s few web design environments.

Take this same idea of accessible tables, and apply it to documents, and the model quickly breaks down. Organizations usually have handfuls, or worse, sometimes dozens of ways that it creates documents. End users generate content in MS Office, including Word and PowerPoint and in Google Docs, Sheets or Slides. There are also desktop publishing applications such as Quark or Microsoft’s SSRS, Adobe InDesign and many others. Then there are handfuls of corporate systems that generate high volume transactional content or reporting content. All of these systems generate content differently. Regarding tables, some document systems will default to creating tabular data in what screen readers interpret as paragraphs, losing much of the context required to navigate the data. So, applying one overall rule even to handle something as self-contained as tables, quickly turns into a very difficult task, and requires working with many different content system authors.

This is just one reason why many large organizations choose to tackle document accessibility both before and after the content is created. For platforms that have rich accessibility capabilities, such as Microsoft Office, build in accessibility when the content is created. But for platforms that struggle or have limited accessibility flexibility, this is where post-authoring accessibility becomes a life-saver. A post-authoring accessibility system can create templates that predict what will be in your most common document streams, and can either create all of your content in accessible formats, or you can invoke this type of system on-demand, only when a document is being pulled for use. And, as you would hope, a post-authoring system has a wealth of flexibility in setting up important elements such as tables, paragraphs, lists, heading structures, URL links and alternate text for graphical content. Post-authoring systems can even make up for bad decisions made upstream in the authoring process, such as poor heading structures, or lack of alternate text for graphics.

Follow me here for more updates as accessibility for documents expands and improves. Next up will be a discussion about the convergence of artificial intelligence and document accessibility. Oh, and I’ll be at CSUN in Anaheim, March 12-15:

http://www.csun.edu/cod/conference/2019/sessions/index.php/public/website_pages/view/5

Update on AODA for Document Accessibility

We’ve been asked to comment on a whirlwind of activity around AODA or the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.  In our Fall Seminar series, we learned that AODA has very specific timelines in place that mandate specific compliance for organizations with over 20 employees.  One of the early deadlines just passed, January 1, 2014.  By this time, organizations must be WCAG A compliant and have an accessibility plan outlined and documented.  AA compliance accrues to a future date.

This is having some specific impact on organizations which have not put a plan in place, and notably, one of the largest property & casualty insurers in North America recently sent out  a notice to all Ontarian customers informing them that:

“Due to technical limitations, starting December 8^th 2013, most or possibly all documents you view online will no longer be available.  Unfortunately, this is a necessary step as we improve the overall accessibility of our site.”

               In the age of online customer service in which virtually all organizations not only have extensive website service channels, they actually use the website to reduce more expensive call center traffic.  The impact in terms of brand damage and sheer cost we know is huge.      

               This is completely avoidable.  The technology exists to quickly remediate websites, but even beyond that, there is now readily available technology to remediate high volume insurance documents, insurance cards, policies, bills, notices, claim letters, and the like.  Don’t let this happen!  Attend an Actuate webinar or seminar on document accessibility and find out what you can do!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charlotte Document Accessibility Seminar

Momentum continues to build in the document accessibility space.  We recently held the 2^nd installment of our seminar series, this time in Charlotte, NC.  The first session in Toronto was received very well and has led to a lot of discussion on the Ontario accessibility legislation and deadlines, more on that in our next post. 

This second session was almost twice as large in terms of attendees with 9 companies and 22 in attendance.  It’s remarkable that every single registrant actually made it to the session!  Also in attendance was TJ, a handsome German Shepherd service dog.  Note: it was sunny and gorgeous in Charlotte on this particular day!  

The presentations were on the mark with Tom Logan again providing the regulatory and litigation landscape, Shannon Kelly, working with Lou Fioritto at BrailleWorks, International demonstrated how a visually impaired person actually works with correctly tagged PDF’s.  Lou remarked that it’s important to keep in mind that for a visually impaired person, this type of technology opens the door to independence.   “Imgaine”, Lou said, “if you had to invite a stranger over to your house to read you your financial statements to you!” 

               Jeff Williams discussed the actual technology being used to create accessible PDF files for high volume transaction applications along with updates on PDF/UA, and Will Davis provided a demonstration of both creating applications that generate accessible PDF files, and remediating already created files in accessible format. 

               The Q&A session again proved to be one of the most interesting sessions.  There were questions on what happens if the tagging is somehow applied incorrectly or the alternate text, for example is out of sync with the image it is meant to represent.  The answer is that if you deploy this technology correctly, you are in fact storing a document which is the legally admissible document of record.  It would be highly unlikely to apply incorrect tags, but if it were to happen, it is easily corrected and according to Matt Aranas at SSBBart, one would have a very low probability of discrimination on that specific document. 

               Additional feedback came from an enterprise architect of a large credit card services company already using the Actuate document accessibility solution, who commented that the group that sets up the templates to manage high volume remediation does not also control the content being created.  Therefore, there is the possibility that somebody else along the way, either in a marketing or elsewhere could add new content that is not tagged.  It would be good to catch “un-tagged” elements as part of the process and send an SMS or email alert message to get those new document elements tagged and accessible immediately. 

               It was an excellent session and there were already next steps with a majority of the attendees either in terms of questions to be answered or more in-depth discussions and technology briefings.  The next Seminar event is scheduled for New York City in mid-April, followed by Washington D.C. in the summer!

 

Questions from Presentation: Using Analytics to Improve Customer Communication

      

 

The best part of our presentation to the ABA on 10/22 was not the presentation itself but the really good questions that followed:

 

 

Can you elaborate on what impact privacy laws might have on using publicly available social media and other content as your source for customer messaging?  My only answer to that was that we are not the compliance or bank law experts.  In talking with a compliance vendor later, he saw no issue with this because as individuals we opt in to disclosing all manner of personal information to Google, Facebook, etc.  Bottom line: if the banks decide not to take advantage of this publicly available information, somebody else may do so instead.

 

Any ideas on how to know identify of clicks to specific ads you would embed?  That’s a darn good question, and I wonder if there is any way the e-Ad could somehow capture session information.  The question was posed by an SVP of Marketing of a 20 branch bank who is doing very well with embedding ads in their real estate channel that should drive sales to their lending channel and they are getting a lot of good clicks but how could they ever tell who it is that they need to follow up with.   More to follow as we could not come up with a complete answer to this very good question

Is it possible to do Communication Management completely independent of Analytics?  We answered that yes, one could definitely find low hanging fruit in the customer communication area especially in correspondence, without having to tie in analytics.  We explained that many banks in particular are getting a better handle on the way they manage the correspondence with their clients to ensure that they leverage their brand, manage message consistency and even compliance.  We mentioned the example of the bank we met at the Customer Experience Exchange who found countless examples of letters to customers stating that they "did not meet their standards."  (cue the fingernails on chalkboard).  We do believe that analytics helps you embed much more personalization and power into your messaging however and that most banks will at some point couple analytics to their communication hubs. 

Link to presentation: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=23220005&trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile
 

 

 

ABA 2013: Banks Bounce Back

The ABA 2013 conference in New Orleans has just drawn to a close.  Banks are bouncing back!

 

Most of the attendees were C-Level execs from small, community banks with assets of <$1B and they were mostly from the Southeast given that the venue was New Orleans this year.

 

Dodd-Frank is in the midst of being fully implemented with tighter lending guidelines for QM or Qualified Mortgages hitting in Jan 2014, however, the head of the CFPB stated that there would be a gradual easing in of the guidelines with little to no litigation in the first few months.  The bottom line for the small banks was that if they have a traditionally good track record making loans in their markets with acceptable loss rates, this new legislation should have little or no impact.  The reaction of the CEO's ranged however from from activist "we should show up with thousands to march on Washington" to more resigned "let's not dwell on the regulation but focus on our business." 

 

The attitudes of the CEO's matched almost exactly the geographies from which they hail.  The West Coast CEO focusing on a vibrant, young work force, the East Coast bank implementing new technology but only to the extent that it would pay off with its specific customer profile.  The CEO from a deep south bank explained how his bank's branches had been "slabbed" during Katrina, a verb meaning completely demolished save the cement slab upon which the building used to sit.  But the employees were at work the next day at fold-out tables doing business, ultimately handing out up to $100M total in cash to bank customers needing money to evacuate immediately.  I'm not sure what was more moving - the image of employees at those tables in front of their erstwhile branches, or the news that the bank experienced less than 1% loss from this cash handout despite the complete lack of ID validation.  "How can you force someone to produce ID, when you can plainly see that they 'swam' out of their house this morning."  This, said the CEO, is proof positive that we are still a nation of trustworthy individuals.  This particular bank has expanded rapidly since Katrina, capturing a double digit increase in market share right after the storm.  How's that for a positive customer experience?

 

 

Migrating-in-Place for ECM Consolidation

Migrating-in-Place for ECM Consolidation

We recently covered why organizations are moving swiftly to Next Gen Repositories.  No longer are modern organizations satisfied with the old “system of record” with all of its upkeep, overhead, and user charges.  They want something from which relevant, actionable data can be derived and pulled out by Gen X & Y users as they demand it.  A perfect example of this new, “system of engagement” is being delivered as part of the actual migration from the old repository to the new.  Let me explain.

Instead of simply mass-migrating the existing data to the new target system, many are choosing to “Migrate in Place.”  In other words, they leave the existing archive in place and allow users to continue to pull and view content.  What results is a process by which users dictate the content that is actually required in the new system.  Behind the scenes, the data being actively selected gets migrated dynamically to the new environment.  If you are from the document scanning world, this is similar to “scan on demand” which left paper archives in place until retrieved and scanned.  Once retrieved, they live again as a digital asset, and are ingested into workflow and repository systems with specific retention periods.   

One big assumption here is that the organization has decided that keeping the legacy system in place for some period is desirable.  This may be due to factors such as:

·        Legacy system can be accessed, with or without API’s

·        Legacy system maintenance is no longer required to maintain system access

·        Knowledgeable staff is no longer around to properly administer the legacy system (“How can we shut down what we don’t even understand?”)

What happens to data that never gets selected?  It simply ages off, or is migrated based upon specific configurable requirements.  For example, a life insurance company may have policies in force for life of the insured (100 years?) + seven years, so those policy documents would obviously be chosen to move to the new system even if not chosen by user retrievals.  This type of “Migrate Based on Retention” process can be configured and automated.

One other important note is that it’s not necessary to own API’s to the legacy system because of the advent of new access methods such as the CMIS Interface, (LINK TO INFO ON CMIS) an open access protocol to many ECM systems, and due to repository adapters which can be easily built by savvy integrators, with or without a CMIS interface.

One of the dangers of any mass data migration is what happens when you find entire libraries of data that don’t appear to have any disposition requirements.  “What is this data and to whom does it belong?”  Worse than that: “Who do we even ask to find out who owns the data?”  Vital to any successful migration is maintaining a regular communication channel with key user communities which access this data.  Think about setting up a spreadsheet or table with content type, user group and “go-to” individuals’ contact details so that you can make these important disposition decisions expeditiously.  The cost of this process is not in running the process but in deciding what to do with “orphan” data and how to bring the business and IT together long enough to decide.    At the end of the day, you have many fewer orphan decisions to make when you migrate-in-place. 

               “Isn’t setting all this up really expensive?” is one obvious question.  The answer is: “not really.”  The key is deploying a relatively light weight repository with excellent process flow and decision capabilities.  If done right, you can easily access both the legacy and new systems with zero coding.

               Here are the Do’s and Don’ts for Migrating-in-Place:

·        Implement a light-weight repository with excellent process flow capabilities so that decision making can be automated

·        Don’t worry about using or buying API’s to the legacy system as there are other ways to access the content

·        Avoid orphan document situations by establishing regular touch points with business users

·        Set up simultaneous access to both systems making it transparent to users

 

Gartner, Forrester and Doculabs have all been following the Integrated Document Archive and Retrieval System (IDARS) marketplace since all the way back in the early 90’s.  The concept is not new: store high volumes of internally generated content in a highly efficient system with a database for metadata, and separate storage for documents themselves.  With security, allow internal users and external customers access to the database, and the documents that the database points to. 

The concept has been a smashing success.  Virtually all mid-to large sized enterprises have deployed some version of IDARs to reduce printing costs, make content available to CSR’s so that they can answer customers’ questions on their statements or bills in real-time, and vendors have built solutions that have scaled, integrated them into total content management infrastructures with federated search across IDARs, and other content repositories. And we’ve all made or saved a few bucks in the process.

So, after 30 years of solid but rudimentary success, you’d think there would be nothing further to do here.  These systems are now embedded within the enterprise, the vendors have built mini-empires based upon the results they’ve delivered, and it’s a pretty static landscape in terms of new developments.  So, it’s surprising that a division of Actuate, squarely in the business analytics space, has decided after all this time to throw their hat in the Repository ring as well:

http://www.actuate.com/company/news/press-release/?articleid=24054

There are two compelling reasons why customers want more than the traditional IDARs: User Interactivity and Cost Allocation.  Let’s first discuss why users are bored with their current IDARS:

 Internally generated content like reports, customer statements, insurance claims documents and complex financial reports are not an island unto themselves.  This content fits into a framework of information that organizations are increasingly mining to make decisions, predict behaviors, and satisfy broad regulatory requirements.  I recently visited a top five P&C insurer, and the news is that first tier organizations are no longer content with content as usual.  They are thinking about the requirement to store underwriting documents, and all the process-related decisions that generated the documents, for example.  They need to generate a view into the rules that generated the decision to underwrite a policy with a specific risk calculation, so they can evaluate that decision against actual claims data mined from data warehouses and claims reports.  This is not your granfather’s IDARS or ECM system anymore.  We are talking about merging, linking structured and unstructured content and being able to present not only views of documents, but more interactive views of rules engines, documents and compare predictions with data actuals.

Cost Allocation: Traditional IDARS systems are pretty vanilla when it comes to how they report on who uses the system, what percentage of the content is being retrieved from, say, the Variable Annuities LOB, vs. the Protection LOB.   You get a pretty standard set of admin screens and you basically have to build your own reporting based on system logs.  Because ECM is truly an enterprise application these days, set up centrally to manage content from all business units, the need to do this reporting is key from a “who pays, and how much” standpoint.  What if you could generate dynamic reports that allow you to generate dynamic reports that show usage be department in terms of total bytes stored, total numbers of retrievals, which departments added the most new reports, and do all of this with a simple, no-programming interface?  The answer is that you’d be able to better allocate costs, but you’d be able to better predict what your costs will be for new applications, because you can easily view what’s happened in the past.  And, there is more going on here than simply the ability to generate beautiful, 3D graphs, and interact with the reports, we are also talking about being able to make associations between the granular data you store, how it is indexed, and how it ties into records retention.  It is not good enough to store and records manage “corporate financial reports.” These reports relate specifically to individual corporate entities, and people, and if you have a system that can see those associations, and allow you to manage at that level, you get a much more elegant content delivery platform, and you will attract user communities that know they will get value based upon actual usage.

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1: dynamically generated reporting about what’s in the repository

 

And this brings us to why an analytics company announced a new IDARS system.  Today’s ECM systems are primarily focused on systems of record.  Store unstructured content, and serve it up to users who request it.  But, as the insurance company told us, those are yesterday’s requirements.  What’s needed now, is a system of engagement that can store, link and dynamically present information derived from a variety of structured and unstructured content, and to do so over web, mobile and touch-tablet device channels.  The Next Gen Repository discreetly manages content by the audience that views it, not just by the name of the content.  Please stay tuned as we uncover more trends on this topic.  One thing’s for sure: yesterday’s methods will only produce yesterday’s results!         

Scaling From Humble Beginnings

New York City is the apex of max scaling, but my meetings this week remind that scaling sometimes means staring small and growing rapidly.

There is an opportunity for providers of technology to offer models that get started at modest price points but expand with customers' success. Seems like such a simple concept and yet I hear that leaders in composition, ECM, and business intelligence have made their offerings so fully featured and complex, that adding modest, new projects can hardly ever be justified. And I am not talking about licensing or vendor implementation costs only. No, this is really about how complex these systems are compared to the point value they provide.

Successful innovators will find new ways to make offerings scalable downwards in ways that will make offerings cost justifiable for projects that are not $ millions every time. And for that to work, here are some specifics that will need to change:

- Better communication with customers on how to easily add new projects
- Flawless communication on licensing and services options that are supportive
- Communities of like minded customers who are self-supporting on best practices

Providers would do well to establish social media with the above as goals, and the social media as purely a conduit toward these ends.

It'll be a very exciting time if we can make it easier to put more technology to work solving problems. There's never been a better appetite to improve business process and remain competitive than right now. Let's figure it out!

Scaling Is In The Air

Jim Collins, Author of From Good To Great was on Charlie Rose a few weeks ago and he made a comment about innovation and the US I found fascinating. Our unique ability as a society to innovate is not due to an innovation gene alone. Rather, it's our ability to introduce scale to innovation that multiplies the impact. Think Henry Ford with mass-produced cars, IBM with massively scalable computer systems.

While in New York recently, the innovation plus scale model was on display everywhere. Whether its the new World Trade Center rising up from Ground Zero or the remodeled Grand Central Station, NYC clearly is the epicenter of American cultural and business super sizing. Lately, we've been reminded only of the downside of that quirk in our character.   Remember Credit Default Swaps?  But, here, in New York, the new shoots are pushing through everywhere. Do you believe the new growth and scaling models will literally take our breath away just like the automobile, Times Square and the motion picture? I submit that all the same ingredients are here - still. Bring on the new wave.

From System of Record to System of Engagement

OK, we've established that organizations are quickly moving away from simply informing customers and users, to engaging them.  This has an immediate impact on the way we do ECM.

Well, futurist and author Geoffrey Moore is also onto this trend.  He's doing a webinar sponsored by AIIM on Tuesday, December 14th at 3PM Eastern.  Title: A Future History of Content Management.  Moore is author of Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado and Living on the Fault Line.  You don't want to miss this one.   Here is the link:

http://www.aiim.org/Events/Webinars/20101214-webinar

How about some Pulp with that ePaper?

Nooooo! Don't Do It!

Dunder Mifflin's stock continues to rise despite an all-out assault by the entire ECM industry.  Are we going to continue to furnish paper executives' offices with rich, burled walnut, or will we finally wake up?  

AIIM says it doesn't look too promising: www.slideshare.net/mobile/jmancini77/world-5533332#61


- We now print 1 trillion pages annually
- 115 Billion of those pages are printed from personal computers
- Printing of web content is expected to triple
- Fastest growing devices initiating print: mobile devices - huh?


What in the world is going on here?  Are the Dunder Mifflins out there out-marketing everybody else?  Are paper printing and postage costs unexpectedly dropping?


Doubtful.  Our perspective on this is that it's generational.  Are Boomers to blame?  We Boomers built solid eDelivery frameworks, but the end result is merely an electronic copy of paper.  We call it ePaper.  Turn all your paper into a searchable, hyperlinked PDF, and guess what users do with it?  Print it.  We were in Best Buy last night, and some of us thought the coolest product was an iPhone printer which can wirelessly print photos.  Stop and think about this!  After spending small fortunes to develop 960x640 color displays on mobile devices, all we want to do is print photos at half the resolution!   


In order to break the Dunder Mifflin stranglehold, AIIM has some tips like "focus not on 'paperless' but instead on less paper.  "Focus on the the business process".  We agree, but there will have to be some paradigm-busters the break the hold, and we think we smell some on the horizon.


1. Proliferation of tablet computers.  When asked why users print ePaper, many responded that they could not easily view the information on their mobile phone and using even a laptop is too cumbersome.  Enter the Apple iPad, Amazon Kindle, and a raft of new entrants and we suddenly have ubiquitous instant-on delivery platforms for compelling information.


2. Interactivity.  ePaper will literally melt away if users are presented with a more interactive experience that THEY customize to their preferences.  The folks in finance don't want the boring AR Aging Report, they want the color chart that shows who is delinquent, past due and on-time with payments. 


3. Loss of opposable thumbs.  OK, not likely to happen but it would seriously reduce our need to get the paper in our hot little paws.


For more on this topic, please check out our upcoming webinar Wednesday, November 17th at 11:30AM.
  
http://www.xenos.com/company/xenos-connex/events/power-of-5-webinar-series/







        

The Secret to Dunder Mifflin's Success



We hope you’ve all been enjoying the latest posts on the convergence of ECM and Business Intelligence, but we have a unique opportunity this week.  We had the great fortune to run into Mr. Michael Scott of Dunder Mifflin, and Michael agreed to an exclusive interview, just for ECM Trends From the Field.  Michael is one of the most successful regional managers in the paper business with an impressive resume delivering results, and building a talented field organization.

First some background.  You probably know of Dunder Mifflin from the wildly successful reality TV show on NBC which follows the daily, sometimes embarrassing interactions of the Scranton branch of one of the fastest growing paper products companies in the U.S.

Despite compelling newer technologies, Dunder, founded in 1949, continues to thrive by selling more and more paper to corporate America.  In 2009, even though Michael had several near-mutinies, he was able to grow sales by over 30% with smaller headcount than in 2008.

ECM: So Michael, thanks very much for agreeing to this interview.  We are hearing about your company’s success because our industry, ECM, claims to be reducing paper usage, and yet there you are growing sales by 30%.  What do you attribute this success to?

Michael: Well, let me first say that my office is much more spacious and luxurious than this dump.  I’m even thinking about some walnut paneling, just because, you know, I’m kind of a big deal.

ECM:  Er, well of course, but our readers are very keen to know why so many of your customers continue to pay for vast quantities of paper while they are at the same time investing significantly to drive content to the web?

Michael: Maybe they’ve realized that by using paper they perpetuate the whole circle of life thing.  Check out our website, buddy.  For each and every metric ton of paper we ship, we plant a little tree: http://www.dundermifflin.com/think_green/.

ECM: Yeah, and we love the tagline: Dunder Mifflin, Green as We Have To Be. 

Michael: You bet, that was my touch.   

ECM: So, can you also tell us a little about any competitive pressures you are feeling either from other paper companies, or from disruptive technologies like online reporting or eStatement delivery?

Michael: Doug, it is our expert opinion that paper is a treasure handed down from the Greeks, and that sure, you can present the information online, but there will always be customers that demand to have the good old papyrus, just because, you know, it’s in their DNA.

ECM:  I think we’ll leave that one alone, but we do agree that even though online information delivery is exploding, financial institutions in particular are loathe to take anything away from a profitable customer, even charging $2 per month for paper is not worth it to some banks – they are afraid of a backlash.

Michael: Speaking of backlash, I’m still waiting for the question, Doug.  My limo downstairs is burning high octane…

ECM: Of course, well, just one more question then.  As Gen Y starts to earn the big bucks, don’t you think paper will go the way of the transistor or microfiche?  I mean, what’s your exit plan?

Michael:  Well, I don’t want to give away any secrets here, but first, the show has made us all stars.  Did you know that the paparaz have started showing up at the branch lately?  And, as for the paper biz, I think if I were you, I’d buy more stock, symbol MIFF.  We are a micro cap and we are kicking butt.

ECM: Thanks very much Michael, it has been a pleasure interviewing you and learning some of your thoughts, but just one more question, just for fun? 

Michael: Always here for the fans – what do you got?




Paper Tiger - Michael Scott

 

ECM: You are the epitome of THE boss in contemporary business. And yet, nobody is perfect.  Could you share some of your faults?

Michael:  Faults?  Sure, I’ve got faults.  I sing in the shower sometimes.  Sometimes I spend too much time volunteering – that really gets on people’s nerves.  And, sometimes I hit people with my car, so sue me.



ECM: On that note, we’d like to say, again, thanks to Michael Scott, Regional Manager of Dunder Mifflin, Inc, leading provider of paper products in the U.S.

IOD 2010 After Math

The curtains are drawing to a close on IOD 2010 and we felt it important to draw some conclusions about what this conference means for ECM.  What were the big trends and numbers this year?

10,000 attendees

3,000 Cognos and SPSS Customers

300+ Customer Speakers

One headline for this conference: “Business Analytics Dwarfs ECM at IOD 2010.”  The sheer number of attendees focused on this maturing technology was overwhelming.  And, yet, there was very little overlap between the content and analytics spaces.  There was some discussion of content-based analytics, but no keynotes, no specific breakouts that went into detail, but there was a mention of it in the ECM Keynote on Tuesday.  One exception was information on IBM Content Analytics, formerly Cognos Analytics, but our opinion is that there was not a ton of emphasis on this key thought.

So, what does this say about our little $10B + industry?  Huge opportunities exist for solutions and firms that articulate the derived value from ECM to fuel visualizations.  With ECM + analytics, you get both the forest and the trees!

What ideas were resonating?

• Use the content you already have, and the BI tools you are implementing to drive a more targeted customer experience to your most valuable customers

• Use segmentation to drive visualizations to only your most profitable customers

• Be inclusive – provide same access to visually or hearing impaired that you do for other profitable segments

Gen Y Impact on Transactional Document Delivery

Gen Y, the 80 million Americans that were born between 1979 and 1999, represents a huge opportunity for financial services, insurance and brokerage firms, but so far, this group is more elusive, even more so than their predecessors in Gen X.  But their impact will be quite clear.  Did you know that this group, also known as millennials, will have more than $3T in income by 2018, far surpassing their baby-boomer and Gen X parents?  We need to think about the impact of this generation way before they hit their earnings stride 5 years from now.

Gen Y will completely alter the way we think about managing content in general, and transactional documents in particular.  Generally speaking, this group has elevated expectations, is willing to use non-traditional financial institutions, and has adopted mobile technology far more pervasively, even compared to Gen X.  After reading about this and talking with customers over the past couple weeks, here are some amazing facts and results that will be driven by Gen Y:

• Gen Y Loves Making Money!  6 in 10 rate making money is as important to them as it is to their parents, which contradicts conventional wisdom

• Big Online Adopters – 89% of Gen Y banks online, 30% want to open accounts online.  This compares to only 78% and 14%, respectively for other groups

• Tech-Engulfed: 97% have a profile on Facebook or similar, fully 35% own an iPod/iPod Touch, according to Alte Media.  Wonder how many have iPads?

• Alerts – This group is way more apt to use SMS alerts to notify them of payments and money movements due to (currently) tighter cash flows

In talking with an exec at a large brokerage firm, the topic of Gen Y came up, and in context of eDelivery of brokerage statements.  The exec has a 22 year old son, who never even opens his bank statement, forget about opening it and using it to balance the checkbook.  His son’s attitude, is “why spend time working off some paper which is 5 days old before it hits my mailbox?”  Instead, he is online constantly, and through his mobile phone, to track and monitor what is going on.

Does this mean the end of the “old think” SEC regulated statement?  Does it mean that the frontline view we show customers may be more like the online experience, with the SEC document as backup?  Another take on this is from a Xerox whitepaper which states that transactional documents in general will be transitioning quickly from vehicles that inform to online experiences that engage.  Maybe I was wrong when I wrote that …”Transpromo is for the Birds.” Perhaps, it is the first shot at making transactional history more relevant to Gen Y.

Here are the great resources I read for some of these facts:

http://www.firstdata.com/downloads/thought-leadership/geny_wp.pdf

http://www.xerox.com/downloads/usa/en/xgs/whitepapers/xgs_whitepaper_financial_services_customer_communications.pdf

Bridging the Gap Between Reports and Visualization



"Old Think" Reporting



Some savvy, wise souls commented on our last post COLD Reporting Meets the New Think of Biz Intelligence.  The comments express doubt about whether or not one can reliably, efficiently extract actionable information from print and harvest it in Biz Intelligence Visualizations - you know, the Executive Summary version of all that data.



Well, we’re here to tell you it is not only possible, but possibly preferable in some situations.  In fact, it may be the only data source you've got.  Let me explain:



The report-data nay-sayers rightly posit that going back to the source data is always preferable and we agree.  Why parse an abstract of that original data when you can easily tap the original source itself?  To which we must also say: Bravo!  But here is where the rub meets the chafe; the original source data is sometimes no longer available or so obscured that it would take an offshore army to reconstruct it.   Reports are really nothing more than a view to your organization's valuable finance, sales, operations and customer data.  Think of reports as the digital pics on your camera phone; they are accurate, though somewhat ugly snapshots in time.  Recreating the moments without the snapshots is difficult at best, and I have a real customer example that proves this point.



Same Data, but in a User-Driven Visualization



 A very large North American phone company is persuaded by the marketing department to change the way they present information to customers.  Does this sound familiar so far? They are fine with the way phone bills are dynamically presented in PDF instantly, but they claim that large commercial customers are demanding a more interactive experience, the ability to sort call detail columns, the ability to link to more information on the bills' tax section, and a more drill-down look and feel vs. the regular phone bill, which can be hundreds of pages for some customers.  The phone bills are assembled from dozens of billing systems and the billing detail really only exists in the bill itself.  So there are two options.  Go back to some data warehouse that contains all this data, or mine the bills themselves to generate the more dynamic experience.  Because there was no comprehensive data warehouse available, this customer chose to parse the bills during each cycle and generate the interactive experience dynamically.  
Because the report data was in a digital print format they were able to extract all of the pertinent data, call detail, tax, department breakdowns into reliable XML structures and then dynamically present a much improved customer experience.  Because the extraction process happens in advance, the actual user experience is fast and reliable.

We would agree that this use case does not represent all your Biz Intelligence scenarios, but we see this often enough to suggest it to our readers.  Please keep those cards and letters coming! And, please consider those trusty HVTO reports next time your marketing department comes calling!



Our next post: How to balance the need to present more relevant, timely transactional data to Gen X and Y while still complying with SEC, FCC guidelines.

COLD reporting meets the New Think of Biz Intelligence

We've discussed the unique, even peculiar nature of COLD systems, or HVTO archiving, and the conclusion is that there is a place for these beasts at the table, or at least a place for tools that enable traditional ECM’s to handle this content efficiently.  But the question remains: is there a newer paradigm? 

“Old Think”: mainframe compute, generate standard reports, archive reports, wait for users to retrieve, repeat, repeat.

“New Think”: Don't generate anything, give users interactive tools to "pull" data from reliable data stores, and generate only "their" own reports in real-time.  Users Rule!

New Think Impacts:

• Huge reduction in mainframe MIPS costs
• Reduction in effort to maintain voluminous report archives
• Users get what they want
• Shift in report ownership to rightful owners – report geeks themselves
• Drive content through new channels, iPads, mobile, SMS
• Absolutely necessary if you have made the decision to move off the mainframe anyway

This shift presupposes that you own some BIRT Open Source or Enterprise equivalent like Actuate or Business Objects, and it assumes you've made the cultural and ownership shift, but man is the business impact for real!  We’ve talked to several organizations that have done this due to cost reduction initiatives, and if you are looking for both cost takeout, and improved efficiencies, this one is for real.

As with every big move, there is room for synthesizing old and new to bridge the chasm, and this is where the COLD helper apps can still play a role.  For example, did you know that the reports we are discussing have been generated for years, and represent “cleansed” data that has been proven to be reliable and accurate?  Whenever you stand up a data warehouse to use with BIRT or similar, one of the key tasks is making sure the data is cleansed, not duplicated.  This can gobble up a lot of time and resources.  If you do it right, you can use HVTO technology to parse report data and feed your Biz Intelligence engines.  The data in those reports is abundantly available, clean, and can be mined.  By tapping the HVTO report archive, you build in a natural segway to the point at which you can easily connect to reliable datawarehouses to create BI reports, and for those users who are in love with those old reports, you can even maintain some of the comfortable look and feel.  It's all about the users, isn't it?

So, don’t throw the old report apps away.  Combine their intelligence, and ubiquity to carry your organization to the new world of real-time, user driven reporting.

I Only Have Ice for You

In our previous post, we outlined how the big boys have traditionally dealt with large volumes of computer output by storing this voluminous content into COLD systems, aka HVTO archiving.  There are specialized systems for handling HVTO archiving, but many of our customers have attempted to store output into traditional ECM systems like FileNet, Documentum, Content Manager, and now Sharepoint, Alfresco and Nuxio.

The big question is: If you can get by with one ECM, why have two, or three?  Or, as a customer recently told me: “Why do I need another ECM when I already have four?”  Apparently ECM’s breed like guinea pigs.  The answer is: it depends upon a couple key factors.  Some of these factors have to do with your existing systems and others have to do with the nature of the HVTO content itself.

HVTO archiving products like OnDemand, ASR, ViewDirect, and others do an excellent job of working with large reports.  In our last post we wrote that reports represent a whole other conflict.  This is true because reports can require discreet access privileges, bursting by department or user, and some report applications require bundling of reports together into super-reports, comprised of multiple reports for specific users.  I dare you to try this with a traditional ECM!

Another use case well-suited to HVTO archiving is high volume statement generation.  What is interesting about this content is that it is repetitive.  Sorry to report this, but my bank statement is almost identical to your statement, which is the same as Lindsay Lohan’s – really, it is!  What changes are transactions, names, addresses, but the really big stuff, like logos, fonts, fancy tables, and terms and conditions stay pretty much the same, but are repeated millions of times for all the banks’ customers.  What OnDemand and others do to reduce massive resource duplication, is that they store a “stacked” file of these statements.  In other words, they store the repetitive stuff once, with special tags to keep track of individual statements in the stack, and reference the repetitive stuff to the multiple individual statements.  In this way, they are able to retrieve the statement file for me, you and Lindsay, and re-combine it with the fancy graphics, and display the statement in real-time.  Again, don’t try this with a standard ECM without some additional technology, or you are likely to present Lindsay’s statement to somebody else.  Or worse, my statement goes to Lindsay in the slammer.  Does minimum security have Wi Fi?

Having said this, there are ways to turn a P8, for example, into a system that can handle HVTO, but it takes some special technology and know-how.  By using specialized output manipulation software and a web-based presentation layer, you can replicate most of the COLD features like indexing, bursting, and bundling found in OnDemand or similar systems, and then use emerging web presentation techniques to display the content in real-time.  This prevents ECM reproduction.  This will also mimic the storage savings you would have gotten, and enables you to manage some of the peculiar report delivery requirements.  But the rub with traditional ECM systems is that they are object-oriented warehouses, not really built with the stacking thing in mind.  So, if you are storing lots of very large reports, for example, you might be better off looking at COLD or HVTO archiving (OnDemand and others) anyway.

So, my next question is: Is any of this relevant anymore?  Is the old paradigm of creating massive report content with very few actual report retrievals really cost effective?  Do you, or anybody you know, actually download bank statements?  The advent of newer technologies around real-time information delivery and that famous oxymoron, Biz Intelligence, are turning this COLD world on its head.  Check out the next post for answers to these and other chilling questions.