Bailey Spencer, who heads Open Text's Public Sector Business, is leading the charge for helping public sector organizations better manage vast amounts of unstructured information, and deal with such trends as the retiring baby boomers. We had an opportunity to catch up with Spencer recently about his perspective and vision for enterprise content management in the public sector.

Q: What are some of the key challenges facing governments?

A: Virtually all the business of government is document and content centric…dealing with all forms and types of information. In today’s world, we can’t make good decisions without a lot of supporting information that historically was paper based and increasingly is electronic. The world is struggling, and the public sector is no exception. Government agencies are using electronic information and must be able to manage it, hold on to it over time, and then have that information available to help make good decisions on a real-time basis. In the 21st century, you can’t do what you need to do in the public sector without having ways to convert electronic documents into actionable information.

Q: What is your vision for ECM software?

A: From a vision perspective, my main points are: Increase citizen satisfaction with government. Assist government in the defense and security areas where protecting electronic information is so critically important. And finally, provide a true level of transparency. Government is accountable to citizens, and citizens have a right to expect that their governmental organizations provide a level of transparency so that citizens can understand what the government is doing and how they are doing it.

The summary comment about content management at the moment is that through the 1980s and the 1990s and really up until the present with the explosion of content and electronic information, there’s a new dimension to managing public sector information, and that’s dealing with all the word-based, picture based and sound based information that is now woven into our day to day lives. The vision that Open Text brings is to be able to make a real contribution to the missions and goals of the public sector and address the word, picture and sound based content that the database applications of the past 10 or 20 years do not provide. So we see ourselves as a complementary provider at the enterprise level and offering capabilities that extend and enhance a lot of the IT investments that have been made in the past.

Q: What difference do enterprise content management systems make?

A: In the post 9/11 world, the metaphor used often is connecting dots. One of the real requirements that everyone understands needs to be built on and improved to enhance the homeland security of the United States, and the national security of our allies, is connecting all of those disparate types of information, and being able to draw conclusions and take appropriate actions. So the true picture of some of the threats and situations only comes when you’re connecting all the information together. One of the areas that Open Text has focused on is an area called secure collaboration. That is a platform that allows all of these different kinds of information to be gathered together in an integrated and searchable manner and then allow people who are often times spread all around the world to be able to analyze that information in a collaborative way, to share information, to interact through various kinds of instant messaging, various Internet based meeting technologies…the world of 9/11 security is an area where Open Text is getting involved and starting to have an impact.

Q: Who are some of your major partners?

A: Open Text is now a major participant in one of the most rapidly growing areas of information technology in the market. As a result we are teaming with some of the blue ribbon companies like SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and Accenture.

Q: How important is public sector for ECM and Open Text?

A: We’re providing capabilities and services for an area that is core to the business of government. Government historically has been in the information processing business. Everyone interacts with the government in paper and forms and now that is increasingly electronic. The public sector is core to our business and strategy. We have a set of solutions that are content-centric and deal with some of the most important areas of government operations, be it national security and defense or criminal justice or supporting the mission of government agencies in an informed and comprehensive way.

Over the past few years, a number of rules and regulations have helped many corporations keep their records and information in check and under control.

Now federal rules – in this case, The Federal Enterprise Architecture Records Management profile (FEARM) – have government agencies on the block, insisting they tighten the reigns on their information and ensure enterprise-wide consistency in terms of records management. But with information spread across multiple systems, in multiple formats – it hasn’t been an easy task.

To be successful with their records management approach and to comply with rules like FEARM, agencies need to start thinking of managing all their records and information from a central location – that way, no matter what format a record is in, or where it’s located, rules can be consistently applied across the board.

We’ve put together list of steps agencies can take to make sure they’re on the right path to creating a centralized records management system. More information on these steps can be found in a press release we issued today.

1. Apply Appropriate Metadata
2. Map Record Classifications
3. Ensure Enterprise-Worthiness
4. Create a Common User Interface

Additionally, we’ve compiled a few resources that will provide more information on records management in the government space, including a podcast that talks about the challenges and trends facing government and public sector organizations globally; a whitepaper discussing what federal agencies need to know about records management; and a scorecard to help you assess and track your progress as you implement your records management system.

With so many forms of media moving through the digital realm it’s hard to keep track of every item coming down the pipe. Media and consumer products companies are dealing with the influx of branding assets that come with each e-mail and marketing campaign; broadcast companies are making TV shows available online for viewers to watch; podcasts available online can be downloaded to your desktop; not to mention the latest craze of uploading personal videos to be viewed on the Web – all of this digital content has to go and be managed somewhere – but where? How are these companies managing the explosion of rich media?

Many organizations have turned to Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems to manage it all more efficiently. Both broadcast companies and enterprises in a diverse set of industries are finding that these systems offer substantial return on investment. It some cases, a DAM system is a must have, not a nice to have.

However making sure you get maximum value from a DAM does not just happen by chance. In this whitepaper entitled Digital Asset Management (DAM) Solutions: Measuring and Realizing ROI we delve into many of the areas where ROI has the potential to be demonstrated for a DAM implementation and offer up tips that will help ensure that ROI is realized in the shortest time possible.

Here are a few points pulled from the article to consider:

• Identify the greatest pain points in order to bring greater value to initial users, drive adoption, and see an earlier ROI.
• Create a steering committee with representatives from all key business owners to identify high value assets and pain points.
• Invest in training to speed time to ROI. Even though the system is user-friendly and will ultimately deliver greater efficiencies, early frustrations by end-users could result in slower adoption.
• Don’t underestimate change management and the impact DAM will have in changing established workflows.
• Think enterprise, but start tactically at the department level to build momentum and establish common components such as vocabulary and metadata.
• Develop a communication plan to keep end-users interested and informed. This will also help to spread the word as you expand access to the system.

Other resources we’ve compiled on digital asset management:

• A series of Web seminars to help you learn more about DAM and what it can do for such industries as marketing and advertising media, broadband and broadcast media; and published media
• A whitepaper that will give you the essential characteristics of enterprise digital asset management

Last year, we announced that Kichler Lighting, a leading supplier of decorative lighting fixtures, was seeing fantastic return on investment from the digital asset management solution (DAM) it implemented to manage its growing library of photographs and other artwork.

Kichler created a self-service approach that allows representatives and dealers to easily search through an online database of images managed in the DAM system and either download or create CD-ROM images on the fly.

In our news podcast this week, we talk to Joe Propri of Kichler Lighting about the progress the company is making with the DAM a year later.

You’ll also hear Scott Bowen, President of Open Text’s Artesia Digital Media Group, offer his insights into the latest developments and trends in digital asset management. He talks about how DAM solutions are changing and delves into how other customers are using DAM to more efficiently manage their rich media.

Listen to the news podcast here.

Few companies would argue that managing the accounts payable process is a pain -- especially when that process is less than fully automated. It drains internal resources due to the time it takes to process documents, request additional information from vendors and update reports on unpaid invoice status – and those are just a few pain points.

Some companies, however, have seen the light.

This week at SAPPHIRE® ’07 Atlanta, SAP’s international customer conference, and the 2007 ASUG Annual Conference, we announced that natural gas distribution company, Alabama Gas Corporation (Alagasco), has optimized and automated its Procure-to-Pay process using enterprise content management (ECM) software together with SAP® solutions.

Alabama Gas is regulated by the Alabama Public Service Commission and serves more than 460,000 homes, businesses, and industries. By automating accounts payable processes, the company hoped to significantly improve the success of its business.

Before the implementation, Alabama Gas had issues that many companies have – it needed to decrease the amount of time spent searching for and/or re-filing documents, improve invoice tracking, streamline the approval process, improve visibility of non-purchase order liabilities, reduce the length of time spent responding to vendor inquiries, and ensure a more efficient internal control system.

Now, with an integrated ECM and SAP solution, along with a vendor invoice management system, the company has realized several benefits including:

• Significantly reduced invoice approval time (minutes vs. day)


• Increased early-payment discounts


• Improved ability to track invoices in the approval process


• Increased visibility of all accounts payable documents


• Reduction in vendor calls


• Enhanced ability to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley Act requirements