A Few Things I am Thankful for

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2011 has blown by in a flash. A lot has happened and a lot will still happen in the final weeks of the year. As I think about the year and how things have changed I am also thinking about a few things that I am thankful for.

From a document imaging perspective there have been a lot of changes that will affect our business for the coming months and years. Content Creation, Convergence and the Consumerization of IT are at the forefront of the changes that we will all see.

imageFirst, the good news. Content continues to grow in size and complexity. While you may not think this is a good thing. In fact, it is. We now have devices with hundreds, even thousands, of times more processing power than existed on the Space Shuttle. Think about it ... at the end of your wrist you have enough processing power to launch a manned mission to the moon. That's pretty impressive.  

imageNow the bad news … The challenge of managing all of this content is going to continue to grow and it will expand to require the more and more of our attention. This is not all bad news … there will be countless opportunities for hardware, software and service vendors to create solution to exactly meet the needs of this ever expanding market.

Living in the Valley of Convergence

The days are long gone when a camera was a camera, when a music player was a music player, and when a phone was a phone.

Mobile phones of today have the ability to snap a (relatively) high resolution picture, to take hi-def video and to recognize and translate what we say into meaningful actions. Mobile phones can also be used as a "scanner" - perhaps not in the traditional sense, but for all practical intents and purposes a mobile device is a mobile scanner.

Convergence is Here. The Consumerization of IT is here.

  • How will consumers look to embrace and extend their mobile devices?
  • How will the (Document Capture) Industry look to embrace and extend the mobile devices available today? Tomorrow?
  • What will the impact be of mobile devices that can capture pictures, video and audio?

A few technologies to watch include mobile devices, emerging hardware and advances in software (with my comments):

  • Siri (Turning Talk into Action … hmmm?)
  • Microsoft Kinect (Turning Gestures into action … hmmm^2?)
  • Box.net and Dropbox (Turning Sharing into Reality)
  • SharePoint (Turning Corporate Content into Consumable Data)
  • Office 365 (Turning Ease of Use into Mainstream Solutions)
  • Scan and View (Turning Scanned Images into Assets)

How will Convergence Impact Document Imaging

imageFrom my segment of the world … Kodak continues to lead the industry in hardware, software and service. Kodak hardware continues to get better and to add increasingly advanced image processing functionality. Historically, Kodak scanners have helped customers around the world to capture and manage their Paper Mountains. Kodak continues to evolve the software segment of the business and recently added the first ever Microsoft SharePoint specific offering with Kodak Scan and View. In 2012 and beyond Kodak will continue to evolve and encapsulate the Business Document Automation needs customers and partners have come to expect from Kodak.

imageFACTOID: 700 Billion pages have been scanned with Kodak scanners since 1990.
How many more will be scanned in the next 25 years?

Paper is not going away. As I have said for many years there are 2 kinds of paper - nostalgic and business critical. Both are still important and both still have their place in the document capture world and in the bigger picture business document automation world.

In my 100,000+ miles of travel last year and speaking at dozens of events with customers, partners and fellow technology platform providers I still run into people that look at me with a little incredulity and they ask and wonder … You scan paper? 

The simple answer is yes. And we will continue to do so for as long as people want to scan paper --- nostalgic, business critical and whatever other forms they might take in the future.

Even in these challenging and convoluted times there is a lot to be thankful for. The technology we have created and become reliant upon continues to improve and I think it continues to make our lives easier. I am looking forward to next year and to the continued advances in Content Creation, Convergence and the Consumerization of IT.

I hope you and your business are taking advantage of all that technology and and the advances in technology brings us. 2012 will bring even more advanced technology to the forefront in the form of hardware, software and service. Kodak will be there to help make the most of it and we hope to be able to share our vision with you.

A Few Things I am Thankful for

I am thankful for the fact that the industry I have worked in for the past 20 years continues to grow and adapt to the ever changing demands of the market. I am also thankful for the people I work with on a regular basis. They are smart and committed to advancing the efforts to redefine the intersection where people meet technology (and process). Finally, I am thankful for the people I have met in the past few years via the various social media channels where I engage. I have met new friends that have had an incredible impact on my life and my view of the world.

What are you thankful for?

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imageAbout The Author:
I have spent the last 20 years working in various aspects of the ECM industry. I am currently with Kodak as a Director of Business Development. In my past I have spent time at Kofax, Microsoft, FileNet, K2, and at Captaris (which was acquired by Open Text). Prior to that I was a Unix VAR running my own company. Follow me on Twitter, check my blog, send email or find me on Facebook or LinkedIn.

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