AIIM ECM Master Certification Achieved

Back in September, I went to Toronto for a week to take on the AIIM Enterprise Content Management certificate program. I was particularly interested in the program because it took a comprehensive look at all the various facets of ECM, without being technology-specific. SharePoint was certainly referenced many times in the course and at least half the other attendees were also using it in some fashion, but it’s sometimes nice to get out of the weeds of a particular application and get the bigger picture and an industry-wide view.

AIIM defines Enterprise Content Management as “The strategies, methods and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to key organisational processes.” The “enterprise” qualifier indicates that this is something being evaluated across a company. We all use multiple content management systems every day – our email, hard drives, flash drives, CDs/DVDs, SharePoint, intranets, and extranets to name a few. ECM isn’t a technology – it’s a overall system that looks at how a company needs to store information to be able to find it as needed.

The certification process involved an online exam done at home after the class, and writing a paper based on a fictitious (though extremely reflective of many actual businesses) case study. After review of the paper, the title of ECM Master was bestowed upon me, which I promise to only use for good and not evil.

AIIM offers several other certificate courses, including one on SharePoint specifically. I’m not sure at this point if I’m going to pursue any others at this time, but I thought the instructor, Bob Larrivee, was excellent and that the course was worthwhile.