Document Strategies—Convergence in an Hierarchial World

By Keith Davidson, Ph.D.

Convergence, like much of the lexicon of the digital economy, has taken on an Alice in Wonderland quality. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I want it to mean – neither more nor less." One of the characteristics of the digital revolution is the obsolescence of language sufficient to describe its awesome effects on business and society. It’s a useful exercise to take a word like convergence, which has become a prevailing part of our technical jargon, and examine its impact on the use of the document paradigm as a basis for strategic direction.

Convergence is a phenomenon rooted in digital technology. Claude Shannon, in his discussion of Boolean theory in the 1940’s, proposed that all information could be converted to a series of binary representations (bits – the absence or presence of charge). Without articulating its precise nature he foresaw convergence - television no longer dependent on broadcast towers and dedicated receivers, telephones no longer dependent on switchboards and telephone lines, publication no longer dependent on ink and paper.

Convergence is also a phenomenon of the bandwidth revolution. Not merely a product of the telecommunications bandwidth explosion occasioned by optical technology, but enabled by the array of technologies that miniaturize, speed, compress, transmit, and store bits ever faster, cheaper, and better. All information technologies are experiencing exponential expansion of efficiencies. Not just the pedestrian improvements of Moore’s law – a doubling of efficiency every 18 months – but millions of times more powerful technologies like optical networking.

These technologies make it possible economically and practically to send, receive, and process binary representations of ever and ever larger chunks of information. Communications are less and less dependent on specific devices designed to maximize the efficiency of the particular mode of communication. It means that a computer can now display what formerly required a television set – in the form of streaming video, for example. A cell phone can now deliver what once required paper and the postal service—e-messaging for example. It means that printers can now accomplish on their own tasks that previously required prepress experts and graphic artists. It means that authors can now do what printers formerly did for them. It means that software can replace hardware and the humans using that hardware.

Although technologies are producing rapid change driven by convergence, organizations tend to move more slowly. Consequently, the issue for most organizations in developing document strategies is not convergence - it's integration. It makes little difference that technology permits documents to be generated, stored, processed, and distributed in digital formats, thus facilitating use appropriate to business purpose, location, and cost/value relationship of the informational need. In order for convergence to be a force for gain and growth in an organization, it must be integrated with the business strategy, the business processes, and the culture.

If that seems like a modest challenge, note that most modern organizations, even those with substantial decentralization and empowerment, are still substantially hierarchical. This means that information is departmentally gathered and owned, processed and distributed with proprietary technology, and utilized based on strategies and processes meant to maximize parochial corporate interests. This means that although the technologies may converge, the information doesn't - the so-called "silos of information" effect.

So the webmaster is implementing content management to insure that the company website, portals, and intranets all contain current, correct, and properly documented information. The print buyer or in-plant manger is using digital asset management to insure that printing produces high-quality, timely print runs at the lowest costs. The customer service department is working with MIS to ensure that the CRM system is producing the right kind of customer and transaction documents, while ensuring that the call center is supplied with current, responsive information to meet customer needs. And the human resources department is struggling with collaboration and knowledge management techniques to answer management's mandate that the organization leverages its knowledge asset. The results are duplication of information and efforts, incompatibility of systems, and frustration for the stakeholders served by the organization's business processes.

The scope of these challenges, implanted deep in the organization, makes progress towards integration uncertain and expensive. Successful document strategies are characterized by an approach that strategizes across the organization, but implements by the application. A key to successful document strategies is the selection of the applications that will produce high enough levels of financial return to support the ongoing integration.

A major opportunity area comes from applications where print is a primary method of output. These applications usually have the highest cost per document produced and usually support high-value business processes. Because they focus on processes that have quantifiable volumes and costs, document strategies that focus on "sourceward" integration of the information streams that produce printed documents often have demonstrable return on investment.

Applications which are likely to show greatest returns from the integration of printing information streams are customer loyalty and retention programs, prospecting and market development activities, new product development, and programs requiring large volumes of materials based on changeable information - like financial reports.

Applications which serve high value intellectual property such as research and development, new product development, and patents and trademarks are also candidates for document strategies that will integrate information use with a high short-term ROI.

Convergence means that document strategies must focus beyond the devices that are used to communicate. Convergence means that document systems professionals must focus on what is to be communicated, the senders and receivers of communications, and the values which will be engendered by the communications. Convergence means that predicting the economic values may be just as important as understanding the technological outcomes. But integration requires a business-savvy selection of applications that will insure bottom line effects that will fuel the implementation.

Keith Davidson is the president of Davidson Communications, a consultancy serving the Document Systems Industry. You can reach Keith at drkeithdavidson@cox.net.

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