Burton Group Says Enterprise Content Management Should Be About Making a User's Life Easier

November 3, 2006; 07:59 AM
Burton Group, an IT research firm focused on in-depth analysis of enterprise infrastructure technologies, has created a process-centric framework for enterprise content management (ECM) that highlights the shift in ECM from media-centric silos to a user-centric model enabled by viewing content as a stream.

According to analyst Guy Creese, the current practice of using media-centric silos where different departments manage different media types is waning. A stream approach is taking over, where multiple systems create and manage a content stream through its different process stages, a way of working enabled by standards such as XML, RSS, UIMA, and JSR 170.

"This shift from silos to streams is enabling user-friendly capabilities such as Google Map mashups, universal search (the wedding of web search, enterprise search, and desktop search into a single interface), a web content management system that customizes web pages for PDA, and an enterprise search system that clusters results for users by category," says Creese.

In order to reflect these industry changes, Burton Group has created a definition of ECM that draws on past definitions while highlighting the increasing importance of user-centricity and task orientation:

Technologies and policies used to create, store, distribute, discover, archive, and manage content -- and analyze its usage -- as a way for organizations to deliver relevant, easy-to-use content to users where and when they need it so they can accomplish a task.

A Burton Group Take 5 -- a complimentary 5 minute, audio-enhanced presentation, delves into ECM and provides practical advice for enterprises to plan for, and adopt this emerging ECM model. Click here to download http://www.burtongroup.com/LandingPages/Take5-04.aspx

About Burton Group

Burton Group (www.burtongroup.com) helps technologists make smart enterprise architecture decisions in increasingly complex environments. Burton Group's research and advisory services focus on in-depth analysis of infrastructure technologies relating to security, identity management, web services, service-oriented architecture, collaboration, content management, and network and telecom.