Darren Ferguson - Blog
28 May 2009 at 20:49
Thoughts on Autonomy Interwoven Gearup
Yesterday I attended
Autonomy Interwoven gearup at Claridges in London.
Interwoven were recently
acquired by Autonomy and as an independent Interwoven
consultant with nearly 10 years experience I was keen to learn
about the Autonomy product suite and how their integration into the
Interwoven product suite would affect my day to day work.
An Introduction:
The day was presented in a slick style with an even slicker accompanying audio/visual presentations - I counted six AV technicians seated behind a black screen at the back of the room. The audience was a mix of technical, sales and marketing people from Autonomy Interwoven partners and customers. The tone was very marketing based - the whole day was really about how to to increase revenue through your website using Autonomy products. A large proportion of the audience wanted something different, in an interactive vote at the end of the day 38% of the audience voted that they'd like to see "more technical content" at the next gearup, twice the percentage of any other option.
Throughout the day I felt that the confidence of some of the presenters bordered on arrogance we were told that "Interwoven invented web content management" and there were constant references to Autonomy technology being market leading with "no competitors". Interestingly some of those who had worked with IDOL referred to it as "dated" and "clunky" in private conversations. I'm yet to get my teeth stuck into IDOL personally so I'll reserve judgement but we were consistently told throughout the day what the future of content was and how certain practices were dated. On this subject I feel compelled to make a point.
A little rant:
It is extremely hard to sit and be schooled about the "future" by an organisation whose corporate website and developer support site fail to implement some very basic web standards and best practices. Validating your pages against your declared DTD, Providing RSS Feeds and SEO friendly URLs are just a few extremely basic items that a leading ECM vendor should take the time to implement. Oh, and you can't search the developer site for key TeamSite terminology like DCR, XML and TPL because they are too short. They've been aware of this for years and it never changes.
What I learned:
A few quick bullet points:
- TeamSite 7 and LiveSite 7 to ship this year - focus will be on more IDOL integration.
- LiveSite runtime available for .net platform.
- Autonomy pledged continued support for all Interwoven products (including MetaTagger).
- Autonomy have doubled the number of trained support staff.
IDOL:
We were introduced to IDOL server (Intelligent Data Operating Layer). TeamSite 6.7.2 SP1 ships with IDOL server and from what I understand all content that is entered into TeamSite is also consumed by IDOL via some kind of connector. IDOL is able to analyse unstructured content from a variety of sources - audio, video, email and many more - and "understand" it's meaning. There are lots of technologies in play here - OCR, speech to text, facial recognition to name a few - but the high level concept is that you can throw just about anything at IDOL (with minimal configuration) and it understands.
Let me explain a little about "understands". Like the rest of the day the notion of content being understood was reasonably vague but a lot of emotive language was used. IDOL can gauge sentiment, mood, intimacy and so on. My interpretation is that Autonomy are trying to tell us that their software is smart and it does all of that classification, summarisation, stemming and synonym processing without you having to think. They were also trying to tell us that it does more than that, an example given was how a search for dogs could yield results on Labradors and how IDOL may have a notion that dogs are used by the police. Good stuff maybe, but a bit too high level for my liking.
The demonstrations that we were given were unclear as to how data is retrieved from IDOL though I got the impression that SitePublisher components are shipped with the new version of TeamSite which somehow query the IDOL repository. I was also left unclear as to where IDOL sits within my environment - on the CMS server, in my production environment - and what kind of hardware resources it requires. I'm also wondering where the revenue comes from - If we get IDOL server for free what do we have to buy? Are we getting hooked on this new technology first and the paid for stuff that we can't resist gets brought into play later?
To be honest it was a bit of an information overload with IDOL, we saw it create tag clouds of user sentiment, create user profiling, recognise people words and video and I must admit it left me wanting to try it out. One point of note was that we were shown a scenario where a customer dialling in to a call centre casually mentioned the Chicago cubs and was presented with an application form for a Cubs credit card the next time they visited the company website. This may be fine in the US, I'd be a bit careful about that kind of behaviour in Europe though - perhaps do some reading up ob PHORM.
There was also an impressive demo of MediaBin combined with Autonomy Virage - now one product -which was able to automatically transcribe a video audio track. The demonstration ware pre-recorded. It would have been much more fun to see a video of one the presentations on the day fed into the software so we could see the actual real time results. Text to speech is still far from perfect and audio tracks which aren't clear and regional accents can still confuse the hell out of some systems. If Autonomy wanted to show us how powerful their software was they should have let a member of the audience talk to it.
Integrated Analytics:
Well no, not really. The new version of TeamSite allows you to view some analytical data *if* you are a Webtrends customer. To be honest it wasn't that impressive it was just a bunch of standard Webtrends reports linked to from the contentcenter GUI.
Optimost:
TeamSite 6.7.2 SP1 also has an optional (paid for) component that allows you to test different permutations of a web page in order to determine which was most successful - aka multi-variable testing - success is gauged by the user reaching a 'goal' page on your website. The permutations would be subtle copy or colour changes in your website and you are able to rule out specific permutations to gradually reach the 'winner' page. I wasn't sure about this personally as I didn't like the idea of an ever changing page and how this would affect it's page rank with search engines. There was no demonstration of how the test results are presented and whether it breaks users down by any demographics within the results, but I did speak to a user from British Airways who was very satisfied with the result that Optimost had yielded and he claimed that the optimisations that they had made had easily paid for the software in a very short space of time.
A few moans:
I didn't like the fact that the executive Q&A session wasn't opened up to the floor, we had to provide our questions on paper at the end of the first session and they were vetted over the following hour before the ones which were selected were asked to the company executives on stage. I also thought that each individual presentation could have been opened up to questions at the end, but each presenter finished up exited the stage and the next demonstration video kicked in.
In my opinion they could have easily lost a couple of sessions such as Toby Bell of Gartner, a presentation from Fidelity on how they built their new website and a Q&A on e-commerce with some executives of Autonomy Interwoven customers. I feel that these would have been much better replaced with more audience participation but then again Interwoven have always been quite a closed organisation and I hear that Autonomy are even more so. For the record I thought Toby Bell delivered a good presentation but it didn't relate specifically to any Autonomy Interwoven products.
To Conclude:
All in all it was an interesting day. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some of the technology that Autonomy are bringing to the Interwoven product suite. Unfortunately some of it will be forever out of my reach as they don't really do evaluations. There is a market for technical workshops where developers like me get our hands on this technology maybe these could run alongside gearup in future.
Claridges is a lovely hotel, lunch was fantastic and it was fun to catch up with some old colleagues, meet some new people and put faces to names of people that I knew by reputation.
I'd love to here some feedback from any other attendees. I'd love to here from Autonomy Interwoven to see whether they think I've been fair with my comments and particularly on whether they plan to address any of the basic issues with their corporate sites - I'm here and very willing to help if you want to be helped!
If what we saw yesterday is true IDOL Social Media Analysis will probably read, classify and derive the meaning and sentiment of my blog post and let someone at Autonomy know about it. For all I know it may even respond automatically!
I'm sure I've missed something, but then a day with so much detail is very difficult to summarise.
14 May 2009 at 09:59
Sometimes I’m mistaken for the son of Alex Ferguson
When I check into a hotel in Asia approximately 1 in 4 times I'm asked if I'm the son of Alex Ferguson. Through gritted teeth, I'll reply that I am the son of Clive Ferguson and a Liverpool supporter as well.
Yesterday this "making assumptions based on having the same name as someone thing" went a little further than the normal polite enquiry at a hotel reception desk. My email inbox contained a message from 7cristiano7.
Hello Sir, My name is and am 16 years old. I live in Liberia. I have three years now trying to get help from people to play football in Europe mainly in England, but so far found no one yet. Sir am kid who sees only football ahead of my life. Knowing that you are a son of Sir Alex, i therfore neel in tears for you to help play football in England. I called you months back to ask for this help but your respond to me like"this is private no. Dont call this line again" made me afraid and i hung up. Sir if you don't really understand what am trying to, please permit me to call you and explain. A lot a people tells me" play football son it is your call".
I did feel a little guilty because as the email suggests I didn't give the kid a chance to speak when he called me a few months back. I assumed that it was another skype call where I'd be told that I'd won the lottery in Nigeria and all I had to do was furnish the caller with my bank details in order to receive riches beyond my wildest dreams.
So any suggestions on how to advise this kid? I composed the following draft which I am yet to send.
You have the wrong person, I am not Sir Alex Ferguson's son. I just have the same name.
Good luck with your football career.
If you are any good, I'd suggest you play for Liverpool.Cheers.
Darren "son of Clive" Ferguson
13 May 2009 at 21:30
A view on the Autonomy/Interwoven CMS Vendor meme response
In February Kas Thomas blogged A reality checklist for (CMS) vendors which was picked up by Michael Marth at day.com and turned into the CMS Vendor Meme - I guess most of my readers are familiar with the term meme. Over time various ECM vendors were 'tagged' and responded accordingly.
As a long term independent TeamSite consultant I waited for a response from Interwoven which came courtesy of Tom Wentworth's Blog.
All of the blog posts made for interesting reading and Tom's response was open and honest - however all of the viewpoints being blogged were from the vendors themselves and therefore had some obvious bias.
Yesterday I found a blog post from Adrian Mateljan which gave an alternative response to the meme. Adrian answered the meme drawing upon his experience as RedDot CMS developer. I'm unable to work out from Adrian's site whether he has any connections with RedDot or whether his point of view is an independent one but the post inspired me to give some feedback on the Autonomy/Interwoven response.
By way of disclosure I've been working with TeamSite for over 8 years and I have represented Interwoven on client sites in previous years but not for the last couple of years. All of my opinions relate to TeamSite version 6.5 and are not relevant to any of the other diverse range of software that that they vend.
Tom W didn't see fit to score himself on each point as the meme suggested so I'll suggest one where I feel qualified to do so.
1. Our software comes with an installer program.
Yep. GUI and command line versions. Simplicity itself.
My score: 5/5
2. Installing or uninstalling our software does not require a reboot of your machine.
Nope, but like Tom I question how useful this really is. In my experience if you are installing/uninstalling/servive packing and ECM system then you'd expect some downtime.
My score: N/A
3. You can choose your locale and language at install time, and never have to see English again after that.
I'd never tried that before. Simple, as Tom says. I've just learned that French for logout is "Se déconnecter".
One point, if you customise the GUI and add custom menu Items you don't appear to be able to "localise" those. I'm also pretty sure that when you build a data capture template in TeamSite you'd need to create a copy for each locale in order that field names are displayed in the appropriate language. You could workaround this using TeamSite inline callouts in the data capture template but this would mean custom localisation code.
My Score: 3/5
4. Eval versions of the latest edition(s) of our software are always available for download from the company website.
No. This has long been a frustration of mine. Your customer support account allows you to download the products that you are licensed to use from the support website. As an independent consultant there is no way I can try out new products/upgrades and service packs myself in order to recommend them to a client.
My Score: 0/5
5. Our WCM software comes with a fully templated "sample web site" and sample workflows, which work out-of-the-box.
I agree with Tom about the example workflows. They cover some sample scenarios for content publishing/deployment and I have often used them with minimal modification.
I've never used the "Component Guide" that Tom refers to. I'm not sure if it ships with TeamSite or LiveSite there is an example Templating directory which contains a lot of files and documentation but I've never needed them.
My Score: Not qualified to comment!
6. We ship a tutorial.
Absolutely, see above.
7. You can raise a support issue via a button, link, or menu command in our administrative interface.
No, but I don't see the point of this. You go to support.interwoven.com, login and file your issue. As a developer you could customise the TeamSite GUI and add a link to the support site which would satisfy this requirement. From my perspective I wouldn't want end users raising support issues to the vendor as more often than not they won't be able to distinguish between a bug in the product and a bug in our customisation of the product. Normally issues are reported to an internal development team who escalate to the vendor as appropriate.
My Score: N/A
8. All help files and documentation for the product are laid down as part of the install.
As Tom says, "Help files, yes. Documentation, no". The docs are available to download as a single bundle from the support website or can be viewed online.
My Score: N/A
9. We run our entire company website using the latest version of our own WCM products.
Take Tom's word for it.
My Score: 5
10. Our salespeople understand how our products work.
My *very limited* experience of Interwoven sales suggests that they understand the company product suite very well and how each product integrates with the others. They also seem to be a tight-knit company and the communication between sales and engineering seems to work, when there is something they are unsure of they'll go to the right person and get you an answer pretty quickly.
My Score: Not qualified to comment!
11. Our software does what we say it does.
Very general question. I always find the marketing blurb very high level and fluffy, but then it isn't really targeted at me.
My Score: N/A
12. We don't charge extra for our SDK.
No.
My Score: 5/5
13. Our licensing model is simple enough for a 5-year-old to understand.
Agree with Tom "Since when do 5 year olds buy enterprise software?". I don't really get involved pre-sales.
My Score: N/A
14. We have one price sheet for all customers.
Tom says Yes
My Score: 5/5
15. Our top executives are on Skype, Twitter, or some similar channel, and: Feel free to contact them directly at any time.
Not sure I need to get in touch with 'top executives'. I think a better point would be to question whether it is easy to get in touch with the right people easily, e.g. developers able to contact support. I do know that most Interwoven customers have a dedicated account manager who can put them in touch with whoever they need.
Maybe Kas needs to clarify why he is asking this question. It is good to See Tom Wentworth on twitter and blogging regularly. I just wish Interwoven would give a little love to their developer portal which is missing a few very basic features.
My Score: N/A
In conclusion
I hope this made an interesting read an offered an alternative viewpoint on Autonomy/Interwoven's meme response.
Having stated that CMS vendors should "Violate these rules at your own risk" I wish that Kas Thomas could possibly follow up on his original post and let some of us who have been following know why he thought that some of the points that he raised are so important.
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