Web 2.0 and social media continue to transform content management

Back in 2007, after spending a day at AIIM in Boston, I wondered if ECM was still relevant [1], but one voice that caught my attention that day belonged to John Newton, CTO at Alfresco (whom we interviewed last fall in this One on one interview [2] ). He was the only person I spoke to that day that recognized the nature of content management was changing and that Web 2.0 tools and concepts were about to take the industry by storm.

By last year I was much more upbeat about the state of the industry. In my 2008 AIIM report [3], I reported that the tide had turned since the previous year. Suddenly things were getting more interesting. There was talk of collaboration and Web 2.0 everywhere I turned. Where Newton was the only one talking about Web 2.0 the previous year, suddenly everyone was talking about it last year. Tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter are changing the way people communicate. As these open web tools proliferate, it only makes sense that companies want to find ways to take advantage of the same types of offerings inside the firewall.

Web 2.0 is a broader term for a set of tools that provide end users with the ability to create content and participate without the help of IT or other specialists such as web designers. Web 2.0 gives users a blog or a wiki, for example for creating content. It allows customers to upload pictures and video and it gives everyone the ability to judge the content by leaving a comment, rating it a certain number of stars or simply voting thumbs up or down. Users can view a tag cloud and see at-a-glance the most popular topics, and so forth.

Vendors are offering a variety of approaches to bring these tools into the enterprise such as stand-alone tools like Yammer trying to provide Twitter-like functionality inside the firewall or more comprehensive social media suites like Socialtext, which offers wiki tools along with Twitter-like communications and a social feed that looks somewhat like Facebook. Some companies are even using Facebook in the enterprise.

Content management vendors are also increasingly offering tool sets that include Web 2.0 and social media tools that are integrated directly into the CMS. You can use AIIM to learn more about how these tools can facilitate communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing at your company. Participate in some workshops, Interview some vendors. Listen to some case studies and see how these tools can help change the way you communicate internally and externally.