Intelligent Enterprise

This week, CMS Watch officially kicks off a formal training program. In conjunction with AIIM, we are providing classroom workshops (leading to official AIIM designations) in Information Organization & Access (IOA) and Business Process Management (BPM).

I'm very excited about these new courses. CMS Watch undertook the coursework development under the guidance of AIIM's Educational Advisory Group, and both organizations will be leading courses throughout North America, Europe, and (next year) Asia-Pacific. Here's why these courses are so terribly important.

What are the two pillars of successful content technology implementations? Content Analysis and Process Analysis. Without those two skills, effectively deployed, all the technology in the world won't help you. Yet, there is a worldwide shortage of proficiency and experience in both areas. As an industry, we need to grow the talent base. That's what these courses do.

In addition to describing the what of IOA and BPM, the workshops provide a lot of practical information about how. How do you manage change? How do you construct a proper taxonomy? How do you optimize a search results interface? How do you leverage your existing content management tools for process improvement? And so on.

What's interesting about both disciplines is that each has core concepts and antecedents going back decades. There is a fundamental body of knowledge in both information analysis and process improvement. Yet, both have seen the advent of sexy new technologies (e.g., rules engines, text mining), as well as useful, if controversial, new techniques (e.g., folksonomies, process monitoring).

In the workshops, we've combined the old and the new.
Both courses are designed to equip you to become an effective consultant either within or beyond your enterprise. There are two levels of training and designations. To become a "Practitioner," you must attend the first two days of the four-day course and pass some online exams. To become a "Master," you attend the full course, pass the exams, and complete a take-home case study analysis. These are official AIIM designations.

Check our site for details on upcoming classes. Hope to see you at one of these courses in the coming months.