The Power of Words...

One of my first ECM projects was building a knowledge portal/intranet for one of the world's largest telecommunications companies. During the course of the project, we hired a consultant who had a degree in Library Science to help us define the global taxonomy of the content to be published. Now, she had spent much of her life focused on being a librarian and had forgotten more about taxonomies then I'll ever know myself, but, she ran an exercise that always resonates in my memory. She showed us a picture of a forest stream and asked us how we would categorize the image. Of course, our answers were varied and all over the map: stream, forest, peaceful, water, serene, green, nature. It goes to show that one image can render various interpretations and reactions, even amongst a group of like-minded folks.

We often take for granted the choice of words that we use to communicate. Most of the time verbal communication allows us to quickly clarify or redirect our meaning when using any given word. But, the written word can be even more powerful as you leave much of the interpretation up to the reader.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of hosting two of our Legal eDOCS customers, at our corporate headquarters in Waterloo. I know those of us on the Open Text side found the two day session tremendously insightful and I was very happy to hear from both customers how helpful the meetings were for them and how well they felt the time was spent. One of the surprising takeaways for me, however, was the perception of the eDOCS 5.x roadmap that both firms had coming into the meeting. Despite all of our (the eDOCS team) best efforts and intentions around customer communication, it would seem we were/are still missing the mark a bit with our message.

You see, both firms came into the board room that day with the belief that we would be spending a considerable amount of time talking about their journey from eDOCS DM to the ECM Suite; i.e. how they would migrate from one platform to another. So, why are those specific words highlighted? Well, because it was precisely our decision to use those words that led these customers to believe that they would be forced to switch platforms. Consequently, the realization of the power of words is something we have learned to be conscious of.

While the eDOCS team believed that the use of the phrase "journey to the ECM Suite" was most positive in connotation, the reality was that for these firms, and most likely many other customers as well, the message they received was one of migration and not integration. The fact of the matter is, eDOCS DM 5.x is integrated to the various components that make Open Text's ECM Suite. What does this mean for customers? It means that customers who wish to continue using eDOCS for their document management needs and possibly leverage their existing investment with Open Text by implementing other features of the ECM Suite (Enterprise Library Archiving, Email Archiving, Enterprise Connect, etc.) may absolutely do so. Open Text has created these integrations and the roadmap for customers to do just that...and that's what we mean when we say "a journey to the Suite."

Another example of 'the power of words' that I came across in the last couple of weeks was from our friends at Autonomy/iManage. In a recent press release by Autonomy, the headline read: "Autonomy iManage First To Deliver Mobile Document Management On The iPhone To Legal Market." Is Autonomy's use of the word "first" accurate, ignorant to other vendors, or just venturing into that gray area of truth that so many of us in marketing are often tempted by? According to Alan Pelz-Sharpe, a Principal Analyst with CMSWatch, they were not the first, but rather the sixth. You can read Alan's blog '...in the spirit of debunking myths...' at CMSWatch.com. I have to admit, I was quite pleased to see our long time partner, Matrix Logic's, iPhone for eDOCS DM offering right at the top of his list.

I do wonder, though, if the use of words in this fashion matter to customers and prospects? Do you see press releases from Open Text, our competitors, or your other vendors and just accept the words used as fact? Or, has the misuse of words in marketing just cemented the cynicism in all of our communications?