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The IM family

The IM Family

A discussion last week, during Bob Boiko‘s Taming the Content Beast workshop, lead me to personify the various information management systems that currently muddy the waters for many an enterprise.

  • Records management system—the collector of dead data:
    “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, please use the disposal authority or it’ll rust”
  • Document management system—the establishment:
    “We don’t care what’s in it, we just file it”
  • Content management system—the cool new kid on the block:
    “It’s a wired world, dude”
  • Digital asset management system—the art student:
    “I need a thumbnail of every version. Don’t constrain me with your rules, fascist!”
  • File system—the ditzy blonde:
    “What file?”
  • Knowledge management system—the voodoo witch doctor:
    “Me drain your brain now”

Related posts:

  1. Personas for Macquarie University Library

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 11:23 am and is filed under Ramblings. If you enjoyed this post, you might also like to leave a comment, find out more about me or follow @patrickkennedy on Twitter.

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Comments

  1. Chandima | March 29th, 2007 | 5:16 pm

    This is brilliant :-), can I use this in one of my presentations that I am about to do about ECM in a few weeks time? I will definitely credit you for this.

  2. Pat | March 29th, 2007 | 6:40 pm

    Of course, but you might want to find some better photos! :)

    I attempted to draw a cartoon character for each one, so they’d be consistent, but I discovered my drawing skills are not what they used to be.

  3. Pat | May 10th, 2007 | 6:12 pm

    I’m pleased my idea has enjoyed quite a bit of popularity!

    Here’s a slight clarification I made (in the form of a comment on the ECM Industry Watch blog):

    …the idea behind the file system persona was that typically the file systems (meaning *operating* systems) we have at our disposal are really not very intelligent at all. Some of the other members of the ‘IM family’ mightn’t be required as separate systems if operating systems did a better job at managing files for us.

  4. Column Two | May 28th, 2007 | 12:23 pm

    The IM family…

    Just catching up on my blogging, Patrick Kennedy has written a very amusing post describing the IM family. To quote: A discussion last week, during Bob Boiko’s Taming the Content Beast workshop, lead me to personify the various information management….

  5. JumpTheGap | The info management family | February 2nd, 2008 | 3:22 am

    [...] Information management systems personified. Gorgeous. [...]

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