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Interview : Jeff Potts, Experienced ECMarchitect at Optaros & ECMArchitect blogger
Today it’s a real great day! I interviewed one of my "Guru"!I read his blog (ecmarchitect.com), his tutorials (Alfresco Developer Series) and finally his
book (Alfresco Developer Guide)... He participated (indirectly) to the creation of my blog and presentation.That's why readers, I'm proud to interview
Jeff Potts, Experienced ECM architect atOptaros, blogger and writer.Hello Jeff!
First of all, as usual, many many thanks for the time you are spending to answer thisinterview and to share your knowledge about ECM.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity, Jean Marie, I'm happy to do it.
So Jeff, where the "ECM Experience" has begun for you? How was your first date withECM?
Back in the early 1990's, I began going deep into Lotus Notes development. What I likedabout it was the unstructured nature of the content, the focus on people, how they workedtogether, and how they could become more efficient, and the rapid application developmentthat the Notes platform provided. At the time, business people who needed to get a solution in place were finding that they could go around their IT shops and implement their own systems by using a platform like Notes so there was a lot of uptake in the market. From a techie point-of-view, it wasn't just an end-user tool--you could really dig your hands in there and work onsome interesting technical problems. Notes added a web server just when businesses started exploring the web. The server waslater branded as Lotus Domino and we were doing some really cool web apps on that platformin the very early days of the commercial web.Interest in WCM grew as interest in the web grew and before long I was working on customWCM solutions first on Domino and then using purpose-built packages like Interwoven andDocumentum. Interest in Notes began to fade so I shifted my focus to Documentum and broadened the solutions to include broader document management--not just WCM. At thesame time I was exploring all kinds of open source software including dev tools, of course, but also packages that were further up the stack like blogging tools, wikis, search engines, andcontent management. That's when I found Alfresco and it wasn't long after that, I decided toget behind open source full-time.
Interview : Jeff Potts, Experienced ECMarchitect at Optaros & ECMArchitect blogger
Could you identify the ECM birth? Is it a new notion or an old idea?
The idea of "Enterprise Content Management" is really used in a couple of different ways.When it is used as a term to describe software that really came about by folks like Gartner AIIM, and big vendors like Documentum and IBM looking to be one-stop-shops for their customers. They were acquiring or developing document management-related packages likeimaging, collaboration, and records management, and they really wanted to tell customers,"Hey, you should let us solve your content management problem for ALL of the content inyour enterprise by buying our suite of software."The second way it is used is to describe an approach or a strategy in how a company dealswith its rich content. You can look at books like Rockley's "Managing Enterprise Content" or Boiko's "Content Management Bible" to get a feel for what I'm talking about there.Either way, I think it is an old idea. The bottom line is that you have data that doesn't fitneatly into rows and columns. It needs to be secure, discoverable, taggable, accessible,reusable, etc. And there are many different types of content-centric applications that need todeal with this rich content which includes the types of systems typically lumped under "ECM"like WCM, imaging, records management, document management, digital asset management,etc.
Is there a difference between Open Source ECM solution and Proprietary?
I think the difference is getting smaller all of the time in terms of functionality provided.When I think back across the different systems I've implemented on commercial ECM platforms, there are very few--almost none--that I couldn't do using an open source alternativetoday. Now the disclaimer there is that most of the solutions I've implemented have beeneither WCM or custom content-centric apps with a significant workflow component which are both sweet spots for open source ECM. Open source ECM still has a ways to go in some of the other ECM areas (like imaging and records management), which, just aren't thatinteresting to me, to be honest.
Have you your personal ECM definition?
Sure. To me ECM is about how you leverage your rich content assets with the entire contentdomain (which might actually go beyond the enterprise, BTW) in mind. It means at aminimum providing "basic content services" like search, security, metadata, check-in/check-out, and workflow--these are "table stakes" for any ECM repository. But it also requires that it be drop-dead simple for both people and systems to get content into and out of the repositoryin the right way (user interface, API, protocols) and the right format that is useful to them.The "E" in ECM also implies something about scalability and performance--we're talkingabout solutions that scale beyond departments to handle very large data and transactionvolumes.
Interview : Jeff Potts, Experienced ECMarchitect at Optaros & ECMArchitect blogger
Let's back to you, Can you tell us more about your position? What's your role and whatare you doing day after day?
Well I'm the ECM Practice Lead at Optarosso I wear a lot of different hats which is
something I really like about my job. On any given day (and sometimes any given hour in aday) I might be:
Writing code for a client project or an Optaros product/solution
Contributing to an open source project by writing code, documentation, or bug reports
Providing architectural or technical support to an Optaros client or solution team
Providing feedback to a partner about strategic product direction
Following numerous news feeds on ECM, related technology, and open source
Blogging internally, on optaros.com, or on ecmarchitect.com
Presenting at a conference or a webinar
Mentoring colleagues
Pitching a client, building a demo, or scoping work as part of a pursuit team
Learning about and trying out a new piece of ECM-related technologyAll of these buckets of work can be summarized as:
Grow Optaros,
Grow the ECM Practice,
Grow the Open Source Community.Everything I do should fit in one of those three categories.
Could you present your company: Optaros?
Optaros is a global consulting firm focused on assembling Next Generation Internet (NGI)solutions--more on those in a minute--from open source components. We're about 4 years old.We're headquartered in Boston, which is one of four "development centers". The other threeare Austin, Geneva, and Bucharest. We have other offices in San Francisco, Dallas, NewYork City, Zurich, Munich, and London.We have an impressive list of well-known, happy clients from all industries.
I often read on your documentation the NGI term ? Is it an Optaros term? What's thisexactly ?
NGI stands for Next Generation Internet. It's about building web-based solutions with richinterfaces, loosely-coupled, services-oriented architectures, and open source componentry.We want to help clients think beyond just a single web site and think more about their overallweb presence. We do that a lot for Media & Publishing and eCommerce companies but reallyit applies across all verticals.
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