One on One with Dan Keldsen of Information Architected

Dan Keldsen has been around enterprise software for 15 years, first as part of the Delphi Group, later as director and co-founder of the Market Intelligence unit of AIIM International and most recently as co-founder and principal at the new consulting firm Information Architected. We asked Keldsen about his new company and the state of content management in 2009.

FCM: You and Carl Frappaolo just started a new company. Tell us about what you're doing?

DK: Sure, the new company is Information Architected, Inc., and we provide consulting, analysis and training relating to process, innovation, content and knowledge. The basic premise is that while we are absolutely interested in the technologies that people and organizations use to manage content, information, knowledge and processes, it is well past time that people ask first and foremost: What is your information architected for?

"We need better search." "For what?" "To make our employees more productive?" "For what purpose?" "To increase customer satisfaction." "How will that be accomplished?" "By providing an environment for users to help each other, as well as for support personnel to find answers more quickly."

Even in a smoothly running economy, these are the sorts of questions that should be asked, but aren't. In a down economy, you can't afford to waste time and effort on new technologies or "improvements" to existing solutions you have unless you have targeted revenue increase, cost decrease, risk mitigation, etc.

FCM: Why did you decide to leave AIIM and step out on your own?

DK: Having been bitten once (or thrice in Carl's case) by the entrepreneurial bug, it was simply time to return to the world of the private company. Consulting work is always something we had been involved in previously, at Delphi Group, and being able to jump into action to help organizations directly in these difficult times is quite rewarding.

The possibilities for improvement in most organizations remains at a very high level, but when the world is panicking, it can be difficult to see a path out of the mire without getting an outside opinion on what is or is not possible. While we were able to provide limited advisory insights within the structure of AIIM--simply due to the nature of being a non-profit trade association, rather than for-profit private company--the best use of our full set of skills in this climate seemed to be back in the commercial realm. We remain active in AIIM and with AIIM however, as we have been for many years prior to being employed directly by the association. You'll still see us contributing to webinars, at the show, with their training programs, and in articles, from time to time, as long as the topic is on target for us.
 
FCM: What in your opinion are the biggest content issues companies are facing today?

DK: Organizations continue to make processes and applications relating to content harder than they have to be. Internal processes are needlessly complex and time-consuming, content is fractured into hundreds of shared drives, SharePoint sites, desktops and the like, and more than likely, nobody really knows where "the answer" to any given question lives. Tools for content are targeted extremely narrowly, with most organizations unable to easily produce content in multiple formats without major manhandling, making the ability to take advantage of publishing to the iPhone, Kindle, web, book, PDF and other formats a near impossibility for them, while the "content smart" companies can produce content in any format they desire, with almost no additional cost. The "content rich" get richer, and the "content poor" get poorer, and the content poor don't even realize that the extra effort to dramatically open opportunities is just around the corner from where they are now, if they can pop up and take a moment to focus their efforts to put real systems and processes in place.

In a single word? Maturity. While content management is just beginning to "go mainstream," just because something is starting to become more popular, doesn't mean that people know how to make the most out of it. I certainly hope that 2009 is a year of realization for people that they can do more with less, the less being cost, effort and complexity.
 
FCM: How well are content management vendors coming up with tools to resolve those problems?

DK: The tools are better than ever, and cheaper than ever, even (potentially) free via open source or "2.0 tool providers" that are supported by ad-based subsidies. SaaS offerings, the rise of Microsoft SharePoint as a "good enough" set of Basic Content Services for the masses, the options are perhaps overwhelming at this point.

But as with any set of tools, if you don't know how to use them, don't know what you're trying to accomplish, or find it too hard to figure out how to make them work as you'd like, then of course that's when problems arise.

Even though I'm not a "usability professional" per se, I've been trying to preach to suppliers of content management technologies for about the last 10 years that usability really does matter. ECM remains terribly under utilized, and in large part, it's because the software is so painful to use. This is exactly why I started harping about the rise of blogging and wikis around 2001 or 2002. Powerful and expensive solutions abounded, but usable, even enjoyable systems to use were far and few between.

Usability and focus has gotten somewhat better in the last decade, but there is a long way to go on that front.
 
FCM: What impact is social media having on the enterprise and how is that affecting content management?

DK: Some of the greatest commercial successes of "content-oriented" businesses have been embracing the social world for some time. Amazon, eBay, Apple (via the iTunes Music Store), and so on. The very slow realization for many organizations, is that maybe, just maybe, there's something to this "talking with your customers" business, and even (gasp!) in allowing your employees to talk and collaborate amongst themselves. The simple fact of the matter is that your customers, whoever they are, or for that matter, employees, are already talking about you, and without active engagement in those discussions, your organization is far more likely to get out of sync and even inadvertently aggravate the communities that feel they've been isolated out of the daily activities of headquarters.

If you're not engaged, how will you know when things are going well or badly? And if you don't know where you stand now, how will you change that stance for tomorrow? And the day after that?

Feedback loops are incredibly powerful--and yet, so few companies actively create the mechanics or jump into existing loops (such as "fan-driven" forums)--the potential for extremely pointed and relevant information to keep customers from abandoning, or attract new clients, is really vastly under appreciated.
 
FCM: How will the economic meltdown of last fall affect content management in the coming year?

DK: Well, for those organizations in a blind panic, I've seen projects completely stall out. Everyone is being cautious of course, but prices for solutions have never been better, the ability to easily integrate or buy pre-integrated solutions continues to increase, commercial open source, SaaS and yes, SharePoint all have entirely usable interfaces and can at least begin to apply some sanity to the uncontrolled chaos of content that many organizations have at the moment.

Mergers & acquisitions certainly seem to continue, as some of the stronger "big dogs" have the cash to acquire technology or market share at a discount, and the weaker players struggle to last through to more prosperous times.

Buyers should be willing to play hardball, and for sellers, selling an unfulfilled dream isn't going to cut it anymore. They easiest option for anyone right now is to do nothing, but that's certainly not going to solve any problems either.

I have to say, as a new start-up, the possibilities we have for our own operations are easily 1000% less expensive than when I'd first started at Delphi in 1994. Capabilities are dramatically improved, usability is improved. Our site was running as a bare shell within an hour or so of work, and 3 days later, mostly spent haggling about the template, initial offerings, and word smithing of initial marketing copy, and NOT the technical aspects, we're up and running.

Aside from the raw content that we're creating, almost everything that we are using is some variation of a hosted solution, and I really can't see a single good reason to "own" any of our own infrastructure for the foreseeable future. As an ex-IT guy, I'm happy to let others deal with the operational side for me. I'm too busy trying to help clients make and implement sane decisions. If the technology isn't working for you, what good is it?

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