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The AIIM Conference in Boston
By Jim Sinur | March 7, 2008
I attended the AIIM Conference earlier this week and walked away thinking that it was a conference of extremes. It was certainly large in scope and had plenty for all, but seemed to have a vendor driven “take-it-or-leave-it” attitude.
Just like companies that provide standard transactions and expect customers to “just deal” with them, AIIM pretty much drives attendees in ways that seem designed to benefit AIIM. Consequently, it was not attendee friendly by any means. The best way to describe it was you could have any color black “Model T Ford” you wanted.
It was certainly a bi-polar experience for me as some of the presentations were stellar and some of them just plain stunk. There was no consistency in the quality of the material and there was no opportunity to rate any of the sessions while you had the buzz or dull-turning knife sensations.
The BPM track had great marketing material, but the actual sessions were weak despite AIIM’s own survey showing that BPM was the biggest thing on their client’s radar screens. It’s like AIIM is giving BPM lip service. Despite the four dichotomies I will describe here, I did dig out some good material, though it was not easy. It makes me appreciate how good Gartner and others are at running their conferences.
The Dichotomy of AIIM and On-Demand:
There was the paradox of a green AIIM and a resource hungry On Demand.
AIIM was about capturing, storing and managing content in a very “green” fashion. There were deep details about the challenge of capture for multiple formats in multiple locations leveraging multiple technologies. There was a pride in capturing, indexing and transforming all types on content from both the vendors and the case studies. There was a strong green angle while saving time and money, so no wonder companies are keen to get this rolling. There was a little too much emphasis on justifying the need for electronic content on the basis that some compliance lawyer might have to work harder without automated content. There are certainly other better reasons.
On Demand is about paper-eating machines that can spew reams of papyrus faster than we can cut down trees, I kept thinking these machines were the culprits responsible for filling my snail mailbox full of undesirable junk mail. I imagined a new XBOX or a WII game that would allow me to blow these beasts up, thus giving me a score in trees saved and mail boxes emptied. Seriously, there were a number of “eye popping” machines that could print, sort, fold, stuff and auto-stack material for the mail. The quality of the print was astounding and I was slack-jawed several times watching these engineering wonders. I felt guilty in delighting in these wonders because my boss wanted me to gather potential partner candidates.
The Dichotomy of Commodity and Cool:
There was also a strong scent of consolidation and commodization in the air. I even overheard several of the mid sized vendors lamenting about the evolving consolidation when they thought nobody was listening to them. After all, how many vendors do you need to capture, store and manage content? I understand it’s not that simple, but the power vendors are swiftly moving on this large target.
In the same breadth there was excitement around content analytics, rule-driven micro content, web content, content taxonomies, social networks and other Web 2.0 influences. There also was the intrigue of someday having Google taking over everything (really?). Here I thought Chindia was going to dominate. Peter Fingar, please say “it aint so”
The Dichotomy of Simple and Confusing:
The most ironic thing for me was that the opening keynotes were about how simplicity, friendliness and ease-of-use were factors used to sort out the winners of the world. The opening sessions were compelling and entertaining. I really believe simplicity wins, but AIIM was the least compliant to this principal in it’s dealing with the attendees.
There was no map of the multi-level and complex facility; only a vendor floor layout. The registration process made each of the attendees stand in three lines. There was one line to scan your pre-registration form; another line to pick up a near empty bag plus your badge and one to get the conference guide (One inch thick with no pocket guide). AIIM does not understand BPM or elegantly simple/efficient processes.
The biggest farce was that the content masters hid the content from the attendees. There was no presentation CD or instructions on how to get the presentations online. The confusing web site did not offer the presentations in any overt way, so I called AIIM’s “helpless desk” and was summarily dumped into a voicemail system. I tried calling the outsourced registration folks as well. I still have not heard back. I guess $1500 dollars was not good enough to have simple and clear access to the content (the presentations). If I had a “fools of process” or “how to steal from and kick your victim simultaneously” award, AIIM would win it.
The Dichotomy of Breadth and Depth:
There was such a breadth of offerings that it would be hard not to find what you wanted, but the depth of most of the presentations were lacking. You could not drown in the deep end of any presentation I saw or anything on the website. I did like the ECM survey because it had useful information and it was easy to find and download. It was also rich in useful information for both vendors and clients alike.
Bottom Line:
It is clear that AIIM will have to morph and change to stay thriving, but I did dig out what I needed, though it was not easy. Content and clients are too important to have the AIIM conference be just a clumsy, vendor frenzy. Perhaps after the consolidation, AIIM can focus on quality content and a quality experience.
Topics: BPM |
March 7th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I saw a review of AIIM the other day that made me think it might be worth trying it again (after an absence of several years), but you’ve made me reconsider that. When I go to conferences, I also use Gartner as a benchmark for organization, although they’re not perfect at it — you’d think that AIIM would have refined it and got it right after all these years.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I hope AIIM ups the quality and customer experience, so I can return one day. As it stands, it may take years because of how far they have to go.