SharePoint 2013 and WCXM

A lot has been written about and presented on SharePoint regarding it’s use as a WCM/WCXM tool.  My position, generally, is that unless you’re using SharePoint across the enterprise, it probably won’t be a good fit for the majority of firms as a WCM solution.   I reiterated this guidance in a SharePoint 2013 WCXM advisory paper and subsequent “Just how good is Web CMS in SharePoint 2013” web cast for the Real Story Group.

After I tweeted that little had changed between 2010 and 2013 WCM capabilities, Waldek Mastykarz suggested that I “didn’t get the memo.”  Waldek and I had a short twitter discussion on whether the latest release significantly improved SharePoint’s WCM capabilities.

Admittedly, there was some merit to his response, though I still maintain that for the majority of cases, SharePoint’s WCM capabilities are not significantly changed and the platform isn’t any better a fit for loads of WCXM scenarios than 2010.  However, I thought it would be interesting to post a set of questions I asked Waldek directly and let you hear what he has to say.   At Waldek’s suggestion, I’ve also included some additional commentary that he and I exchanged through e-mail.

1. In a blog post I published on the Real Story Group blog, I contend that not a whole lot has changed for WCM in the new SharePoint 2013.  You tweeted that I “hadn’t read the memo.”  Have I missed something really materially different?
   
   In SharePoint 2007 and 2010 the publishing model was based on Publishing Pages. One of the consequences was tight coupling between the physical location of the page and how it would appear in the site’s structure and in URLs. Additionally it was challenging in previous versions of SharePoint to reuse content across different sites. Finally it was maintenance-intensive to have an intelligent website which content and presentation would adapt to who the visitor is and which device he uses to browse the website. All of those can be now solved using the standard capabilities of SharePoint 2013.
   
   Next to the new search-based publishing SharePoint 2013 contains a number of capabilities that help you optimize your website for public search engines. In previous versions of SharePoint those capabilities had to be covered by third party solutions. Those are just two of the many WCM capabilities that SharePoint 2013 offers and that change how we think about and build websites on the SharePoint platform.
   
   [SHAWN’S NOTE] The search-based publishing features are not available in the Office365 version of SharePoint and only available on-premise.
   
   
2. You contend that search driven navigation is a major change in the WCM capabilities in SharePoint 2013.  How so?
   
   In previous versions of SharePoint the navigation was based on the physical structure of the website. If you wanted to publish a press release, you would navigate to that particular branch of your site and create a new press release page. With SharePoint 2013 search-based publishing and Managed Navigation this is no longer necessary. First of all we can leverage Managed Metadata and taxonomies to build more flexible navigation structures. Secondly using search-based publishing we can tie those taxonomies to the content and have everything published dynamically on the website. This not only increases web content management flexibility but also lowers the effort required to build and maintain websites.
   
   [SHAWN’S NOTE] SharePoint’s managed metadata service was available in 2010, though basing web site navigation on the term store is new to 2013; in 2010 metadata-based navigation was available for document libraries and presenting documents ordered by terms applied to those list items.
   
   
3. What are some of the other changes in SharePoint 2013, with regard to WCM, you think deserve highlighting?
   
   SharePoint 2013 contains many new and improved features for building public-facing websites. First of all it provides us with Search Engine Optimization features that we can leverage to optimize the website for public search engines. Next there are the Rich Text Editor improvements that make it easier for content managers to work with content. One of the common challenges in previous versions of SharePoint was working with content from Microsoft Word where all of the internal markup would be copied into the web page. In SharePoint 2013 this is no longer an issue as it automatically cleans the HTML of any Word markup. With regard to search-based publishing we can now leverage information about the visitor, such as information from social networks or his click-behavior, to personalize the content displayed on the website. With this we can build truly intelligent websites where the presented content is automatically tuned based on who the visitor is and what he did on the website.
   
   SharePoint 2013 also simplifies building websites optimized for mobile devices. Using the new Device Channels and Image Renditions capabilities we can now easier build websites optimized for different audiences using SharePoint 2013.
   
   Also, when it comes to scalability, because SharePoint 2013 uses enterprise-class search engine (previously known as FAST) as a fundamental piece of the content delivery mechanics, it is much more scalable than traditional database-driven approaches – especially if you take into account content personalization capabilities such as Recommendations and User Segments that are now a part of the standard functionality of SharePoint 2013.
   
   Another thing worth mentioning is that using the new and improved REST APIs it is so much easier to reuse content from SharePoint 2013 outside of SharePoint. With the new API you can very easily create native apps for Windows Phone, iPhone or any other device/OS that will interact with the content store in SharePoint. With the new APIs you not only get access to the static content but can also benefit of the powerful capabilities based on search-based-publishing such as recommendations and user segments which allow you to easily build apps with rich and dynamic experiences.
   Even though SharePoint 2013 has been released just recently, there are already some customers having their production websites live built using SharePoint 2013. One of the cases is available at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj822912.aspx and presents the implementation of the mavention.nl website which was the first website worldwide live on SharePoint 2013.
   
   [SHAWN’S NOTE] Search engine optimization features include improve URL readability (e.g. no longer necessary to have the “pages” library name in the URL in all cases) and the ability to inject arbitrary metadata into a page through SharePoint site settings.  I had noted editor improvements (specifically improvements in markup produced), though SharePoint still lags other editors like TinyMCE.  Device Channels and Image Renditions are improvements,  the capabilities represented by these two features were available 2010 (automated thumbnailing was a feature of an image library and the mobile capabilities of 2013 simply make configuring device channel easier, though there’s little improvement over 2010 and you’re still required to build an entirely new site to support specific mobile devices).  Finally, the FAST engine was available in 2010 and the capabilities represented, beyond search-based publishing, are little improved (if at all) in 2013.
   
   

   [Waldek’s Response] Image Renditions are more than the thumbnail capability available in the previous versions of SharePoint. In the past SharePoint automatically generated thumbnails for images. Those were however fixed and always sized (as opposite to cropped). With SharePoint 2013 you can specify yourself which kind of Image Renditions you want to use on your website and how every single image should look like for a particular rendition. This makes Image Renditions way more useful than the thumbnails from the past.
   
   [Shawn’s Response] I did point out that Image Renditions were updates to thumbnailing.  I understand that there are some additional capabilities with redition; as a developer, it does open up some possibilities that weren’t available OOTB in 2010.  However, I question, as the average IT buyer, how much value the feature adds over thumbnailing in the context of WCM.  For me, it’s not hugely consequential across the range of sites potentially “powered by” SharePoint (i.e. for product-oriented sites, image renditions could be very valuable; for the average marketing site, not as much – or at all).

   [Waldek’s Response] Device Channels in SharePoint 2013 are nothing like the mobile capabilities of SharePoint 2010. In the previous versions of SharePoint, whenever it detected you were browsing from a mobile device (detection was done based on User Agent-substrings and properties from the .browser files on the server) it always served you with a predefined experience that was challenging to customize. The only customization capability here was to use Control Adapters (custom code) to modify the rendering of various pieces of the website. In SharePoint 2013, with the introduction of Device Channels, this whole situation has changed. Not only we can distinct between multiple channels, but we can also use different Master Pages and content panels to optimize how the website is rendered on mobile devices. I also don’t agree with you when you say you need a whole separate website for mobile. In my opinion, when optimizing content for mobile you have three options: you can use responsive web design, build a mobile website or build a mobile app. With SharePoint 2013 you can make use of all those options (or a combination) but neither of them is a must.
   
   [Shawn’s Response] Again, my point was that mobile channels are an update and not a radical departure from 2010 capabilities.  I would argue that the variations feature, combined with the agent detection provided roughly the same capabilities as the 2010 mobile channels functionality (including control over master page and layouts).  Is it the same, no.  Are device channels easier to manage and control, perhaps.  However, for whom are these features relevant? I would argue they’re mostly for developers, not business users or even “power users.”  In the same way, I’m evaluating value to the end buyer.  This functionality will be useful to only a narrow range of customers and site within the context of WCM tool buyers.   Lastly, mobile channels are not available in all versions of SharePoint, most notably in Office365.

4. Would you say that improvements in WCM are evolutionary or revolutionary?
   
   Some of the new WCM capabilities provided with SharePoint 2013, such as SEO-related features or Rich Text Editor improvements, evolved with the product. As SharePoint matures more capabilities are added and the existing capabilities are being improved. On the other hand there are also some capabilities like search-based publishing that are new and that offer us new ways of thinking about how we manage and publish web content. Using search in SharePoint 2013 we can now build more dynamic websites where the content is displayed not only based on relationships known to content managers but also based on information that we have about the visitors ensuring that they see the most relevant content that the website has to offer.
   
   
5. Given SharePoint’s fairly heavy infrastructure requirements (e.g. disk space, RAM, number of servers to run the various services), do you believe that SharePoint can effectively compete with other, more pure-play WCM tools (e.g. SiteCore)?
   
   The exact hardware requirements depend on what you are exactly trying to achieve so even when you see some high numbers, it doesn’t mean that this is exactly what you need just be able to publish a website on SharePoint 2013. The only way to really determine what you need is to get a clear understanding of your requirements, test your website against them and make an educated choice about what kind of infrastructure you need to fulfill those requirements. Given the changes in how SharePoint 2013 is licensed for public-facing websites as well as what the rich Web Content Management capabilities it offers, SharePoint 2013 is a very interesting candidate to consider for choosing a web platform – even for organizations that don’t have SharePoint implemented yet. Compared to the past, licensing of SharePoint 2013 is very attractive now. Not only the price per server is lower but you also get best-in-class search capabilities as a part of that license.
   
   [SHAWN’S NOTE]  I’m not sure I agree that pricing is improved over 2010 and certainly the “it depends” answer on hardware is an appropriate response (I use that answer frequently).  However, “best in class” search is something you, as the buyer, should evaluate in the context of other available search technologies.  The Real Story Group has very deep research on Enterprise Search Technologies that will help you understand your choices and the trade offs.
   

I want to thank Waldek for participating in the discussion and hope that it has helped you, the buyer.

About Waldek

Waldek is Microsoft SharePoint Server MVP and works as SharePoint consultant at Mavention. Waldek participates frequently as a speaker and expert in community events such as SharePoint conference in London, SharePoint Connections, SharePoint Saturday and DIWUG. Recently Waldek became a Virtual Technology Solutions Professional for Microsoft Netherlands. In this role he answers customer questions around SharePoint Web Content Management (WCM).  Blog: http://blog.mastykarz.nl  Twitter: http://twitter.com/waldekm

Office and SharePoint 2013 Products Revealed

On 16 July 2012, Microsoft publicly announced the previews for latest versions of Office and SharePoint 2013.  For many of our clients, the announcement will be significant as these products may form the foundation of their information management and collaboration architectures for many years.
As a part of my continuing work with the Real Story Group, I just published a short blog post on our initial SharePoint 2013 advice for dealing with the avalanche of content that will be broadcast about the platform.

Technology Just Gets in the Way

The idea that most folks in IT, and even some  on the non-IT side, spend way too much time worrying, thinking and generally kvetching about technology is almost passé these days – everyone knows it true, but they still get wrapped up anyway.  Incredibly, most people tend to see the process of solving business challenges exclusively through the lens of what a specific tool can solve.  This condition is never more obvious than when firms start discussing SharePoint. 

Inevitably, there are discussions that start out well – focused on business needs and what users have to accomplish.  Then, for some strange reason, things go seriously awry.  In the words of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective – “Gee, Chuck, the date started out good. Just before we got to the party she seemed to tense up.”   Perfectly rational people start discussing if SharePoint’s wiki has sufficient functionality, can the firm really use the out of the box search, are the records management features robust enough for the entire enterprise?  All of these questions are very reasonable to ask if two conditions have already been met: 1) you know what problems you’re trying to solve and 2) you have well-defined goals and corresponding metrics to measure if you’ve successfully met those goals (notice I avoided using the word “requirements”).  Unfortunately, most organizations fail to satisfy either condition before pushing head long into a “how do we implement SharePoint” discussion.

If you regularly read this blog, you’ll know that I’ve already said SharePoint is not the answer.  However, this is true of any technology if you haven’t clearly defined what you want to accomplish.  No matter what tools you might be considering, you must be clear about what you’re trying to accomplish AND ensure that your goals are achievable.

Published on the Word of Pie blog, there’s a great post about taking a break from ECM that illustrates this point perfectly (though through the broader lens of ECM).  In the post, Laurence Hart (@piewords) describes all of the challenges with ECM implementations.  He does such a terrific job that I’ll end this post with only one bit of advice; read his post.

Make SharePoint Governance Plain and Simple

Much has been written on the topic of SharePoint governance (and just to satisfy the Bing lovers: SharePoint governance).  Microsoft even has a Governance Resource Center for SharePoint on their TechNet site.  While most of the content I’ve found is quite good, though a bit fragmented, I still felt like there was something missing.

In fact, all of the discussions around governance got me thinking about the idea that you should be able to create a model where governance just “happened.”  Before you go away thinking that I’ve spent a bit too much time inhaling paint fumes, hear me out:  is it possible  to create a self sustaining “culture” of governance where participants reinforce content and technology best practices because “that’s the way we do business?”  I think the answer is: YES.

Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of older companies – companies for whom computing technology is relatively new compared with their years in business.  Many of these older companies, especially those with a strong founder affinity, have a deeply engrained company culture.  This culture is so pervasive that it permeates virtually everything they do without being overbearing.  

I’m not speaking of the largely manufactured “culture” we saw sprout during the dot com days; that’s the kind of culture that never leaves any lasting impression beyond a few hollow words by an executive.  I’m speaking of , the real ingrained and consuming kind of culture.    Examples can be found in companies like GE, Caterpillar, Kiewit and the “old” IBM (somewhat paradoxically specifically because they’re a technology company).  These companies have a “way of doing business” and new employees quickly learn this “way” by having it reinforced by the processes and people around them.

Another such culturally rich company is PCL Constructors Inc.  They’re based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.  PCL’s founder, Ernest Poole, created a memo that’s now called “Pooles Rules.”  At the time of its creation, it created the basis for a company culture, PCL’s business practices and values.  Even today, the words of Mr. Poole are displayed throughout their headquarters and guide the companies business practices. 

What struck me about the rules was the plain and simple language used to describe “how to do business.”  These rules can be applied to a broad set of circumstances, even ones that couldn’t have been anticipated by Poole himself.  Today, while the language may seem “old,” the concepts and guidelines haven’t gone out of style and PCLers still largely operate using the insight that Mr. Poole jotted down on a single piece of company letterhead nearly 70 years ago.

To demonstrate just how applicable the rules are, I’ve created a derivative work that could be used as a basis for a SharePoint governance “culture.”  I’ve replaced certain words in Poole’s Rules with more SharePoint or portal-relevant terms (if necessary). 

• Employ highest grade employees obtainable
  SharePoint is a unique product with it’s own complexities and nuances.  I’ve seen some companies try to “fit” employees into a SharePoint administration role or use less-experienced resources to create solutions.  Just as Mr. Poole suggests using the highest grade employees to build a building, you should strongly consider the same approach for your SharePoint environment.   Frankly this rule is just good business and common sense.
• Encourage integrity, loyalty and efficiencies
  Create an environment where your content consumers and contributors see the SharePoint solution as central to their work.  This means avoid “snazzy” features for their own sake and instead focus on real time-saving or productivity-improving functions.  These functions don’t have to be complicated and can be simply a good employee directory or the place to find the right template for proposals.  By considering the time your users will invest in learning the new SharePoint solution and leveraging any given function, you’ll avoid overloading them with frivolous content or features – this builds loyalty, trust and a sense that the SharePoint application is meant to improve efficiency, not make it harder to get work done.  Further, employees won’t try to use “rogue” applications to get their work done, since you’ve demonstrated real value.
• Avoid side lines
  Don’t try to make your SharePoint environment be all things to all people.  As I’ve mentioned in the past, SharePoint has strengths and weaknesses.  Make sure you know what they are and avoid trying to make SharePoint do something it wasn’t meant to handle.  It’s better to do a few thing well than create a broad, mediocre application.
• Do not permit side lines by employees [or SharePoint environments]
  Don’t allow rogue SharePoint implementations in your environment; more than one organization I’ve worked with suffers this problem.  Multiple, unmanaged SharePoint environments cause lots of pain in the organization and confuse the general employee population.  I would highly recommend working to create a tightly controlled, singular (or set of SharePoint) environment(s) that can be relied on, supported and recovered (in the of a disaster).  The idea is not to create a uber-SharePoint group, but rather apply real discipline to the management of the environment, even if more than one group physically operates an environment.
• Be fair in all dealings with owners [content contributors and consumers], architects [SharePoint managers], engineers [internal SharePoint developers] and sub-contractors [consultants]
  The critical bit of  the initial deployment as well as long term application management is to understand there are lots of individuals, groups and interests involved.  You will do well to develop very clear goals for your environment, a plan to achieve the goals and metrics to measure success.  In addition, communicate constantly with everyone involved.  How does this equate to fairness?  In the end, no one group can bear the brunt of the development or maintenance.  Your contributors can’t be expected to create content over night, managers can be expected to solve “world hunger,” it should be understood that it will take more than 24 hours to design/develop/test/deploy a SharePoint solution and any consultants you hire don’t know your business as well as you do.  In addition, you need to make the environment accessible and easy to use for your content consumers.  Try to minimize overburdening one group or another when developing and maintaining your solution.
• Keep your word as good as your bond
  This is about credibility.  If you (as the “owner” of the Intranet) want to encourage use,  make sure you deliver what you promise and what is useful.  This means not only delivering the obvious – SharePoint functions and the environment – but also the ongoing content contribution, continuous improvements and overall management.  Living web applications – whether their internally or externally facing --  need to be cared for and “fed” to survive.  Once you’ve built your solution, you or another group must be responsible for keeping your implied promise that the solution won’t be abandoned.
• Give encouragement and show appreciation
  I had the good fortune of working for knowledge management guru Susan Hanley while at Dell.  She was famous for saying that organizations should use techniques like “bribery” to create a vibrant community of content consumers and contributors to build up an intranet.  In fact, as she often pointed out, without both communities, a intranet will wither and die away.  Providing encouragement and showing appreciation is especially important for fledgling SharePoint environments; participation and adoption are paramount to success.  It’s also critical for ongoing success; consider your own population and develop a program that continuously provides encouragement and support to all communities involved.
• Be firm, fair and friendly
  Think outside the box, encourage suggestions and get folks involved.   Improvements or changes can come from all levels in the organization.  Treat all who participate as if they can constructively contribute to the environment.  However, it’s also equally important to set firm ground rules for that participation and refuse some requests if they’re either unreasonable or don’t fit the “model” you and your team have developed for the application.  See the “avoid sidelines” rule.
• Avoid jobs where design is not good or financing doubtful
  If you don’t have the funding, time, human resources or the budget to effectively create, deploy and maintain a SharePoint solution, don’t start one.  I have seen numerous companies attempt to develop a solution with insufficient resources, thinking “it’s just a simple intranet” or “SharePoint does that out of the box.”  There is nothing simple about an intranet and while SharePoint does provide a lot of out of the box functionality, more enterprises must buy add-ons, build customizations and deal with challenges that are often underappreciated.
• Good accounting and cash keeping are essential [Develop good metrics for success]
• Do not let finishing up of jobs or collecting payments lag
  These last two bullets are close enough to lump them together.  In construction, like developing a SharePoint solution, demonstrating success is critical.  How do you demonstrate success?  You have objective measure to compare against.  Whether this means that the new application supports a certain number of users, that it helps to reduce the time it takes to accomplish a task or eliminates work altogether, you have to be able to measure it.  Many organizations say that it’s impossible to measure productivity improvements or more “soft” metrics. I would agree that it’s very difficult in many cases to determine whether process improvements have saved time, for example; often you don’t have a baseline to compare against or it’s difficult to gather ongoing data.  However, even anecdotes can serve as a metric (e.g. here’s an example of how I save time generating a proposal using the new intranet).  Further, stay on top of these measures of success both throughout the initial deployment and the applications lifecycle.  It’s the only real way of figuring out whether all the time, money and effort paid off.

Keep in mind that I’m not necessarily endorsing this specific approach for everyone.  However, I think it’s an interesting model to explore when developing a governance program for a SharePoint environment.  Obviously, a good governance has to include more than just a few rules.  That said, writing this blog entry, for me, has only reinforced that there is an argument for creating a relatively broad set of guidelines that can apply across numerous circumstances.  Many companies fail to realize this and end up creating an inaccessible, overly complex governance policy.  In the end, their policy fails because no one understands it or it is too hard to follow. 

Consider creating your own “Poole’s Rules” for your SharePoint environment.  I suspect you’ll not only gain new insight on a practical governance strategy, but also end up creating something that outlives SharePoint.

SharePoint Summit 2009 Recap

I have just returned from a fantastic trip to Montreal for the SharePoint Summit, where I taught one tutorial on making SharePoint work in the Enterprise and one regular session on Web 2.0 and SharePoint.    The sessions were very well attended (partially to my surprise) and I really enjoyed seeing a different side to SharePoint implementations – in the U.S., Consejo tends to see more commercial organizations and, while there were definitely a number of folks from commerical organizations, I saw quite a few Canadian governmental agencies represented as well.

Overwhelmingly, the questions about SharePoint remain largely consistent with the U.S.

1. What does SharePoint do well and where does it falter? 
   The answer to this question really depends on your needs.  I saw quite a few organizations who needed records management, for example.  However, as readers of CMS Watch’s SharePoint Report 2009 know, SharePoint does not have any real depth in records management; if that’s what you need, you should probably look elsewhere or find an add-on to improve SharePoint’s RM capabilities.  Beyond that (and imagining), SharePoint is a pretty mediocre player.  However, Mike Fitzmaurice  from Nintex (and his Microsoft days), made an interesting point: SharePoint doesn’t have to be the best at any one thing as long as it’s pretty good at a lot of things; partners, organizations or even Microsoft can add point capabilities to supplement what SharePoint does natively and cover a good deal of what organizations need to accomplish.  Interestingly, Mike made his point with a little “presentation zen,” by showing images that represented examples of the “best” animals in specific categories (e.g. Cheetah’s are the fastest land animals, the Bull Elephant is the strongest , a specific species of Shark is the fastest sea creature) and then comparing those “best of breed” animals to a human with a tool.  Obviously an elephant could lift, literally, a ton.  However, a human with a crane can best the elephant.
   
2. How do I control (govern) SharePoint in my environment? 
   This is something that I had the opportunity to give a keynote on during the conference.  I’ve also written a little about governance in the SharePoint Report 2009 and on SearchWinIt, in my article “Four steps to creating practical SharePoint governance standard.”  However, the short answer (if you don’t want to read the source material) is really about establishing “how” to use SharePoint within your organization.  Microsoft gave administrators some tools to limit growth or unused sites, but the tool won’t solve any real governance problems or create your policies.  Good governance has to be an explicit effort on your part.  You must actively engage in a process of policy creation and education to ensure your success.
   
3. Do I have to buy add-ons to SharePoint and/or why doesn’t Microsoft handle “this” out of the box?
   The answers to these questions are: “probably” and “by design.”  More often than not, organizations will have to buy/build/download add-on components to supplement SharePoint.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; Microsoft could not be expected to anticipate every need or “solve” any specific requirement in a way that all organizations may require.  In fact, as Mike pointed out, Microsoft explicitly excludes certain features and/or components by design.  Mike shared that even Microsoft does not have inifinite resoures and when deciding on what features end up in a version of the product and which don’t, the product team focuses on “platform functionality” over “improvements to the UI or scenario specific” features.  The expectation is that partners, consultants or customers will fill in the gaps.  This approach doesn’t work for every customer, so be clear about your own goals and how much you’re willing to accept with regard to “missing” functionality and/or capability.
   
4. What’s in the vNext of SharePoint?
   Only the Microsoft product team knows for sure.  However, what I did hear from people in the know is that Office 14 (the version number of the next release) will be largely evolutionary with some slightly cooler, but not revolutionary components.  The one caution I will provide is that point 3 (above) still holds true; don’t expect Microsoft to cover every base and you should still budget for consulting and add-on products in your implementation.

Beyond all of the points I’ve made here, SharePoint is one of the fastest growing portal products on the market.  There were over 300 attendees at the conference and, universally, everyone was legitimately interested in better understanding SharePoint – primarily because they had all committed to using the platform for some web-based application within the enterprise.  I’m excited to see what’s coming in the next release and encouraged by the excitement I saw at the summit. 

ECM Training from CMS Watch

CMS Watch recently released a new training program.  Their Fundamentals of Enterprise Content Management Technology aims to help educate organizations on ECM technologies.  The course has a broad focus from what "you're getting into" when implementing ECM technologies to how gather requirements (and a lot in between).  Even if you are working with  or plan to work with a consulting agency, it will greatly benefit your organization to be educated. 

 

From experience, educated clients are in a better position to make decisions about implementations than clients that have limited experience and/or education.  If you're considering implementing ECM technologies, I would highly recommend attending the course.