Previously posted on GTEC blog by guest blogger Cheryl McKinnon.

Last week, AIIM, the non-profit association dedicated to nurturing, growing and supporting the ECM (Enterprise Content Management) community published its state of the market survey findings. The 30 page PDF can be downloaded here: Link to AIIM.org download (free - registration required).

Of the nearly 800 survey respondents to the May 2009 survey, 19% were from public sector - the largest single industry vertical. National governments as well as provincial, state and local were included here. 67% of the participants were from North America (no breakout of Canada vs. USA). The IT sector, finance and insurance were the next 2 largest responding, at 15% and 12% respectively (Survey Demographics on page 20).

The points that that caught my attention:

What a difference a year makes:

In 2008, over 40% of the survey participants had "no clear understanding" of Enterprise 2.0, or what it could do. In 2009, only 17% chose that response. And in 2008, 44% considered Enterprise 2.0 to be important/very important to their business goals, rising to 54% in 2009.

Age matters - sometimes...

Not a big surprise that the 18-30 demographic is more willing to open up their personal details to an mixed business and leisure social network, 32%, in fact. Less open are the over 45 crowd, where only 12% see a mixed network of value.

But - Not a big difference across the generations when asked "I can do a much better job at work making use of professional networking on the web". And everyone has the worry that "there is so much out there I could read, I get 'information overload'".

2.0 content is our looming ATIP/FOI/e-Discovery nightmare

This is the part that scares me: the 'newer' online tools were the least likely it is to be covered by usage policies or records management retention rules. Here is a wake up call to government and regulated private sector to look carefully at this next generation content explosion. While 50% of companies have email records management rules, less than 10% have figured out what to do with wikis, forums, text messaging, chat rooms, social network groups or Twitter. RM 101 = the format shouldn't matter... the content purpose should.

Still lots of room for education and awareness

2.0 technologies and social media aren't new anymore, but real adoption for business purpose is still in early adoption phases. Organizations need to pay attention to where and how their content is being created and shared, and ensure we're not ramping up for nasty surprises in the future.

The time to develop safe social media practices is now. Encourage innovation, better collaboration, fuel the social workplace... but not at the expense of good information management fundamentals.