You may have noticed that on the DocumentumWorld blog we spend a few months on a particular industry vertical before we move to the next.

We have just finished the Government stint and we are moving into Energy but I came across a few blogs linking to the AGIMO Draft Stategic Vision for the Australian Government’s use of ICT

Now, as EMC Australia has worked closely with AGIMO on the AGOSP Program I thought it was worth a read and maybe a comment or two….

A quick look at it shows this not to be a lightweight vision statement and the whole of government approach is to be applauded.

The opening quote of the strategic vision is very interesting and shows how the business of Government is changing.

“ICT will increase public sector productivity by enabling the delivery of world leading government services for Australian people, communities and businesses, supporting open engagement to better inform decisions, and improving the operations of government.”

In the earlier stages of civilisations, Government is concerned with defining and administering the law; in fact the 14^th Century Arab scholar, Ibn Khaldun defined government as “an institution which prevents injustice other than such it commits itself”

But if you look at the business of Government in Australia, increasingly its primary function is being overtaken by the need to deliver services, many of which are electronic services that require ICT Services to deliver them – the AGIMO strategic vision is key to this aim.

The draft strategic vision has three strategic priorities:

• Deliver Better Services
• Engage Openly
• Improve Government Operations

And all of these priorities require an integrated, secure approach to Information Management.

The Australian Government (and most other Governments) is the biggest collector of citizen related information on the continent and the key to increasing the efficiency of the public sector is managing this content and disseminating this sensitive information in a secure manner.

The demands of the citizens are increasing and the costs are too – no longer can the old processes deliver the turnaround that we expect so information needs to be more accessible, more quickly and more cheaply.

AGIMO recognises this and some of the drivers of this strategy, identified in the document, need to be addressed by not only managing but also interacting with content. Some of the drivers are:

• Customer expectations
• Declaration of Open Government
• Decision Making
• Transparency
• Innovation

It is not hard to see that Content Management has a big part to play in this (again identified in the document as actions)

• Simple, easy to use online services
• Personalised services
• Simplified Government websites
• Automated processes and services
• Data analysis tools and platforms
• Collaboration across Government
• Strengthen external collaboration networks

The strategic vision is one thing but delivering on it will be another. That’s where the Content Management industry can help….

On a final note, Ibn Khaldun as well as defining the role of government also hypothesised that civilizations have a lifespan and that as civilizations get more sophisticated, governments start to over-tax citizens and begin injustices against property rights. This leads to the downfall of the civilisation. Maybe the desire of citizens for more and more sophisticated electronic Government services is a symptom of this and in order to avoid it the tax burden needs to reduce. Solutions such as Documentum, Document Sciences and Captiva can help with this and maybe avoid the fall of civilisation…

ECM · Enterprise Content Management · Government

I recieved this email this morning from an admirer…

In the style of Monty Python’s Flying Circus – this email was written by someone who is a big fan who we will refer to as ‘Mr. X’ – although his real name is Jody-John Phillips, Public Sector Account Exec. at IIG…

I was watching A Few Good Men with Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise and Demi Moore last night and strangely thought of you and your little blog Documentumworld.com.let me explain why – In the movie there is this scene where Jack Nicholson is being questioned by Tom Cruise in a dramatic US style court room drama.  I could picture you at a BBQ on the weekend talking about content management with the same passion.In my head it went something like this….

Captain Maynard: Random person at BBQ, we live in a world that has content, and that content is managed by organisations with Documentum and protected by men with RSA Tokens.  Who else is gonna manage and protect your content? You? You BBQ Go’er.  As the Services Director of EMC Information Intelligence Group I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom.  You weep for our competition and you pity the people who work for them.  You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know.  The competition while tragic, probably manage content as well.  And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, manages content and business processes.  You want me managing your unstructured content and you need me protecting your repositories.  Our competition use words like agile, less risk and lower cost.  EMC use these words as the backbone of a life spent managing your most value asset – your information. They use them as a punch line.  I have neither the time nor inclination to explain myself to a random BBQ Go’er who rises and sleeps under the blanket of content freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which we provide it.  I would rather you just said thank you and went on your way….

No tags

Climate Change is a great topic of debate these days and it is scary stuff. This article will, as usual, link back to Content Management but you’ll need to stick with me for a while….

Climate Change photo attributed to http://www.flickr.com/photos/tellytom

Man Made Climate Change – The Key Players

In the Red Corner

On one side of the debate we’ve got the scientists and the United Nations who actively promote the idea of man-made climate change on the basis of what some would argue are flimsy models, speculative science and poor peer reviews (all lured by the funding on offer).

In the Blue Corner

On the other side we have the ‘climate change deniers’ who have been likened by some pro-climate change politicians to ‘holocaust deniers’.

They are a varied bunch; they range from those with a vested interest (due to being funded by the organisations with most to lose) to people who suggest that the Iron Mountain Report is authentic (time to Google) and that the fear of Climate Change is the latest mechanism for controlling the population. Some also claim that the UN’s Agenda 21 is the way that climate change fear is being used to destroy private property rights and move towards a New World Order…

The Spectators

Sitting in the front row seats are Governments – always looking for a new and exciting tax (some may say) ‘believe’ that a carbon tax may be the best way to go, taxing ‘polluters’ (like us) and using the proceeds to compensate those who they believe will suffer the greatest hardship (be it big business or the low paid).

In reality it’s just another massive re-distribution of wealth allowing ‘the state’ to further control the post-tax income level of the middle to high income workers.

Then in the cheap seats are the rest of us…

The majority of people are worried and confused. On one hand they’re worried about the fate of the planet (and future generations) and on the other hand they’re worried about whether they can pay the rent or the power bill and the furthest thought from their collective mind is whether this is a diabolical plot to introduce global government with total control of the world’s population…

So the bout has begun – we’re a few rounds in, there’s been a lot of sparring but although the red corner appears to have the upper hand no clear winner is has yet emerged.

Despite the fact that there is a lot of content floating around but still there is no consensus.

Of course, Content Management could help us to collect, collate and analyse the data but that’s not where I’m going with this….

Enter EPFM…

DocumentumWorld will soon be focusing on the Energy Sector and whether you wholeheartedly believe in Man-Made Climate Change, are a skeptic or an outright denier the fact is efficiency leads to conserving natural resources.

Also the switch to renewable energy generation is a huge programme of work for the energy sector and if it is done efficiently the time to value is not only accelerated in terms of the project itself but the time to value in terms of reducing CO₂ emissions and reducing our dependency on fossil fuels is also accelerated.

It doesn’t matter what side of the debate you are in there should be little debate that this is:

• Good for the environment
• Good for future generations
• Good for business
• Good for consumers

EPFM is EMC’s Engineering, Plant and Facilities Management solution and is a ‘best practice’ implementation of Documentum designed to optimise critical business processes within the engineering industry.

Where an energy company is looking building and commissioning new power stations, wind farms, solar power stations in northern Queensland or even nuclear power stations, EPFM can optimise the six phases of the plant lifecycle (feasibility, design, construct, operate, renew and decommission) by ensuring that the significant amount of content and processes that are shared between users, departments and external organisations is able to be accessed in a timely manner without duplication, at the correct version level and without potentially expensive data loss.

Not having a solution such as EPFM has the effect of delaying project completion, increasing overall project costs and ultimately delaying the switch to renewable sources of energy.

Having EPFM would allow the energy sector to not only derive all of the financial benefits of these efficiencies but would also allow it to report accurately on its progress towards the ‘green’ goals it sets (or has set for it).

The Golden Age

So I hope that this look at EPFM has demonstrated that the Energy Sector is in a unique position to make the switch towards sustainable energy, while demonstrating its progress towards achieving these goals. Solutions, such as Documentum EPFM, are a key tool in achieving these aims.

Maybe by assisting the Energy Sector with their move towards sustainable and renewable sources of energy, EMC can help save the planet, avoid a carbon tax, reduce power bills and halt the march towards Global Servitude – the New World Order will have to wait for another day

climate change · energy

Congratulations to David Martin from Australian Bureau of Statistics.

We will be donating $500 to the Heart Foundation on your behalf.

Thank you to all who participated in our Survey.

Government · Survey