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Documents Pulped By Bulldozer - XML To The Rescue!
Important documentation is all too easily destroyed by fire, flood, and enraged citizens, but according to JoAnn Hackos of Comtech the best way to plan for disaster recovery is to implement XML-based content management systems.

On June 4th, Marvin Heemeyer, 52, ground his armor-plated bulldozer into gear and headed for Granby, a small town 85 miles west of Denver. He was on a mission of destruction. Two years previously he lost a zoning dispute with the town and now was about to take revenge on everyone he saw as responsible for his misfortune.

For over an hour and a half Heemyer proceeded to destroy as much of the town as he could. The police couldn't stop him - their rounds couldn't penetrate the bulldozer's armor-plating. When he was done, the Town Hall, library, several businesses and stores, and a bank were all crushed under Heemeyer's treads.

The damage ran to over $5 million. But it wasn't just the municipal buildings that were destroyed - the documents in them were all wiped out too. The fact is, many city governments still keep much of their documentation in paper format and aren't prepared for catastrophe.

Saving angel

The saving angel of city government and organizations who still have big stashes of paper is JoAnn Hackos of Comtech Services (www.comtech-serv.com). She says many haven't given much thought to disaster recovery.

"When you mention disaster recovery, a lot of organizations get a frightened look on their face," she says. "They haven't thought about what they would do if there were a fire or flood - or, something a little more off the beaten path, like what happened in Granby. They would lose records and documents, some of which are required by law to be kept permanently."

She believes all organizations - public and private alike - should implement a content management strategy. That way, documents and records will be in electronic form and can be backed up safely. Solutions can be low tech or high tech, depending on budget and requirements.

"If you are solely concerned with backing up your data, scanning all your records and documents is a good solution," she explains. "When you do that, however, you only have an image of your document - so you have to create a record management plan, which involves labeling and categorizing your records."

Choosing keywords

In other words, appropriate keywords (or "metadata") have to be added to the stored images. That way, files can be found more easily - always assuming the person inputting the metadata has used keywords likely to be used by those searching for documents. This isn't as cut and dried as you might imagine.

"Choice of keywords can be very idiosyncratic and subjective, which often means those searching have real difficulty finding the files they need," says Hackos. "This can be overcome by using an Optical Character Reader (OCR) to create text, rather than just an image, when documents are scanned. Searchers would then able to run a full text search, which means they are far more likely to find the documents they need."

One irony Hackos discovered is that many of the paper documents, which would ideally be stored on a Content Management System, were actually first created on a computer, then printed out and stored in filing cabinets. Now they need to be computerized again.

"What happens then is people decide their filing cabinets are full to overflowing and scan the documents, turning them back into electronic copy - which means there are duplicates on the system when there doesn't need to be," says Hackos.

Document life cycle

The answer, in many cases, she says, is to keep these documents in electronic form in the first place. This involves looking at how documents are developed and at how they are managed - the full life cycle. Managing even the simplest content, however, has inherent problems - even when it is created and kept in electronic format.

"Whether you have tens or thousands of employees, content doesn't happen by accident," says Hackos. "It usually has multiple authors. So, despite assumptions to the contrary, content has a long and sometimes convoluted life before it is ready to go live [on the web, CD-ROM, or other medium]. But in a surprising number of organizations, that life cycle starts on someone's hard drive and remains there under little or no management."

Tracking workflow

She believes the answer is to implement more formal content management systems (CMS), and in many XML-based systems these are the appropriate technology. They provide mechanisms for automatically assigning metadata to individual documents or to elements within documents. You can then easily identify the author and subject of documents, and track who else worked on them or approved them. You can also track when amendments were made.

"This makes a big difference to workflow in organizations and to records management in city governments and other public bodies," says Hackos.

The other big bonus is it makes disaster planning much easier. All data can be back-up off site. Which means next time an enraged citizen decides to plow up you town with a bulldozer, you will be well prepared.

DCLnews Editorial
July 20th, 2004

About Dr JoAnn Hackos

Dr JoAnn Hackos is President of Comtech Services (http:\\www.comtech-serv.com), a content-management and information-design firm based in Denver, Colorado, which she founded in 1978. She is called in by corporate executives around the world to consult on strategies for managing and reusing content - which, these days, is a big issue for companies and the public sector alike.

For more than 25 years, Dr. Hackos has addressed audiences internationally on subjects ranging from content and project management to information design and organizing online and web-based documentation. She is author of Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery (Wiley 2002), Managing Your Documentation Projects (Wiley 1994), and Standards for Online Communication (Wiley 1997), amongst others.

Books by JoAnn Hackos

Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery

Discover how to successfully manage Web content and get the competitive edge. Using the content-management strategy she developed for companies like Nortel, Motorola, and Cisco, Hackos guides you step-by-step through effective Web content management.

Managing Your Documentation Projects

Arm yourself with proven strategies and techniques for producing top-quality, truly usable documentation, while cutting costs and time-to-market. Hackos reveals the hard-won secrets of over 25 years experience in document design and project management. What's more, this is the only book on the market devoted to the project management of technical publications.