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When Content Circles was formed in 2007, our goal was to address some major gaps in the current state of Enterprise Content Management systems. In particular, these systems assume:

• ECM requires large expensive systems that are purchased, installed, and managed by central IT
• Users will adhere to a rigorous upload/download discipline for keeping the central repository up to date
• All users who need to collaborate on a project can access the central repository
• Users work primarily in the office and do not need remote access to their repository

The result of our efforts is Content Circles which was launched in January 2009. It is a Rich Internet Application (RIA) combined with a hosted web service in the cloud and provided as a subscription SaaS.
Content Circles enables:

• Collaboration in Circles where content is only shared with the specific members you have invited
• Uses P2P synchronization so no content is held in the cloud to further enhance content security
• Works across firewalls and cross platform so there are no barriers about who can participate
• Direct access to popular ECM systems including Microsoft Sharepoint, Xerox DocuShare, and Alfresco
• Online and Offline access to your content since you always have the latest copy synchronized to your desktop
• Automatic tracking and audibility of content so you know what everyone is working on in the Circle
• Instant messaging is integrated with the app so you don’t have to leave the tool to chat with other members

Everyone here was excited to see the announcement of Google Wave last week at the Google IO conference. Even though Google set out to redefine how email and instant messaging work, we find many similarities between Google Wave and Content Circles including:

• A Wave and a Circle are defined as a set of users working on a specific project who always need the latest state shared amongst all members
• Focus is on the workgroup and the work they need to complete rather than the constraints of a traditional ECM system
• Support for Mac and Windows based users
• Commenting and Instant messaging integrated with team collaboration around the documents
• Change tracking with the ability to track the history of project from the beginning to current day
• The results of collaboration in one Wave/Circle can be published to another
• We envision a rich ecosystem of extensions built on top of our APIs to expand the use of the system beyond the current implementation

The differences between our approaches include:

• Google Wave is a pure cloud / browser delivery whereas Content Circles is fog computing
• Google Wave has direct, character by character editing of shared documents by the multiple participants in the Wave
• Content Circles allows continued use of your desktop applications rather than having to move everything to the cloud and browser based interfaces
• Content Circles integrates with existing ECM systems to preserve corporate investments and allow access to historic content and ongoing projects
• Content Circles allows offline productivity since you always have your content with you and can synchronize updates when you are back online
• Content Circles is available today for production use

We look forward to helping users break out from the constraints of traditional systems and leverage the power of these innovative new systems like Content Circles and Google Wave to better address the needs of the modern workgroup. Together we can change the document collaboration world for the better. Catch the wave.

From nice-to-have to mission critical!

This is the ultimate challenge in the business software market for new solutions. ‘How do I model my customer base to both make my products unique, effective, affordable and desirable within a viral network’.

At Content Circles, we started with the idea that workgroup collaboration and content management happens today despite the available technology and not because of it.

Speed, agility, security, one-to-many and many-to-one relationships, the ability to add and delete people in a workgroup, low cost, TCO, ROI are all fundamental requirements that are limited by the artificial constraints of current enterprise systems. These systems are just not flexible enough in their ability to adapt to the needs of today’s distributed and mobile workforces.

We have cracked the code on all of these issues, and we are now seeing the viral expansion that comes from new users being exposed to new solutions and technology by trusted peers. An invitation to join an existing circle, brief experience on the ease of use, reliability and low cost of the solution, all lead our new members to quickly imagine new applications for Content Circles with completely fresh and unique use cases.

One such unanticipated new application is large file transfer. Although many of our customers are using Content Circles to share and collaborate on content as anticipated, many are just using it to send and receive large files as they find it easier and much more cost-effective than burning and shipping CDs and DVDs; maintaining and using FTP servers; or even using web-based file transfer services that are available today.

Another such unanticipated new application is secure file transfer. Many customers, especially CFOs and HR managers, are using Content Circles to send and receive highly sensitive files such as files with social security numbers in them. We are finding that many states have laws that require encryption of such files before they can be sent via email or other electronic means. The fact that Content Circles automatically encrypts all files and the fact that even those files are never stored on any computers other than the intended recipients' computers, makes it an ideal communication tool for these customers.

We would love to hear from you about how you are using Content Circles. So please let us know how you are using Content Circles in ways that we have not yet discovered.

With all the hype these days around Cloud Computing, it is hard for people to remember there was a time before Amazon, Google, and Salesforce with their huge data centers and application hosting. It is also hard for people to believe there will be something after Cloud Computing.

Cloud Computing is not the solution to every problem. Users must ignore their inner voice and trust these remote applications and data centers are secure with their precious, private data. Users of Cloud Computing must accept they can only use the service when they are online. And one of the biggest flaws in Cloud Computing is the incredible power of the desktop being wasted by hosting a plain, old, kiosk browser. What we need is a way to bring the cloud to the desktop - to make it Fog Computing.

Content Circles enables Fog Computing with a rich-internet application (RIA) that integrates with your native applications to enable seamless content collaboration on documents. Instead of moving your favorite office, engineering, and creative applications to the cloud, Content Circles shares your local updates automatically with the other trusted members of your circles. Everyone gets a copy of the latest documents without having to download from the cloud and the files are stored locally so even when you are offline you have the most recent content with you. The service works both within and outside of corporate firewalls so there are no restrictions on who can participate in your circles for file sharing. And since everyone has a copy of the content, there is built-in backup/restore whenever someone loses their computer and must rebuild their circles.

For cases where not everyone is online at the same time, you can install Content Circles on a desktop that is always on as a store-and-forward. With this store-and-forward node as a member of a circle, it will always synchronize the latest content and will make it available to other members when they come online. In doing so, you still maintain complete control of your content without having to let it be hosted in the cloud, but still get the benefits of immediate synchronization when members of the circle come online.

By blending the best of Cloud Computing with the strength of the desktop, we feel Fog Computing with Content Circles is the best solution for team collaboration around content. Long live the Fog!

Gmail went down Tuesday...again.

Please don’t get me wrong, I do agree with cloud computing and we should move services into the cloud. However, services in the cloud, like Salesforce and Gmail, always have the chance of going offline. Users and developers are starting to realize this and solutions such as GeeMail are appearing to minimize the impact if Gmail goes offline.

We recognize that placing services in the cloud is insufficient to guarantee the accessibility of your information. It is important to provide the service to the user regardless of the status of the server in the cloud.

Therefore Content Circles enables users to work both online and offline. If the server in the cloud (which maintains user directory, stores content status, and handles email notifications) goes offline, users can continue to use Content Circles to share content with other members. Users can invite existing members to new circles, can add new documents or versions and synchronize with other members as long as the users are online.

When it is the user who is offline such as on an airplane, any changes they make will queue up in their local machine. Once the user goes online again, the changes will automatically be delivered to other members and the activities and emails pushed to the cloud. The Content Circles design eliminates the barriers for members to collaborate once they have established a trust relationship.

Without storing your content on the server in the cloud plus the ability to work offline and later synchronize changes back to other members once online, we believe Content Circles properly addresses the needs of content management for distributed teams. Members can continuously collaborate on their project, minimize wait time between versions, and have more time to focus on their actual business.

For the past decade, I’ve been working on content management systems (CMS), credit card payment systems (PCI), human resources systems, and customer relationship management systems (CRM). Most of them require a centralized server (either in the cloud or on an enterprise server), a thick client in some cases, and a series of technical requirements to make things secure. All these systems are trying to achieve a common goal – sharing information securely to allow collaboration.

In the CMS world (like EMC Documentum, Alfresco, and Xerox DocuShare) use SSL encryption to secure the transmission of the content. There are options in these systems to encrypt the content, but the content is still stored on the system. Eventually someone, such as a site administrator or content administrator, has access to the content and can potentially view the content. For instance, with a human resources management system, it is always a challenge for a manager to store employee information because the site administrator (usually not the manager) would have access to all the information.

In the credit card payment world, PCI compliance is strictly enforced - no customer credit card information can be stored. Every transaction in the payment system masks the credit card number, leaving only the last 4 digits, and ensures no one can get access to the credit card number. This is definitely a good solution for credit cards, but unfortunately it doesn’t work well if you want to share a secure word file with your insurance agent. It will not be human readable if we mask your presentation (well, unless your agent is a machine).

The common practice some users utilize nowadays is to zip up the content and encrypt the zip with a password. This makes transmission and storage secure, but the user still needs to send out the password (usually via email or IM), which is frankly the least secure of all. Or the user uploads the zip and encrypt content into the centralize system, such as Microsoft SharePoint. This approach involves multiple steps, and a user usually gives up using such a system to share information, switching back in few months with their favorite and most comfortable approach: email with attachments.

After more thought, we believe the most secure way is never store your content anywhere outside of your control. You only give specific people permission to your content and as long as you have secure transmission, the result is full control of your information - always.

A couple of colleagues and I have developed the best solution - Content Circles. We never store your content in the cloud and you have full control over who can access your content all the time. Your machine is source for sharing the files with other members of the circle. Sending large files or attachments is not an issue, because unlike email, the content is never stored on any server including the mail server. Content Circles also has connectors which help you to download, update, or publish existing content easily.

Agree or disagree? Please don’t hesitate to write a comment.

Over seventeen months ago, we started Content Circles with a singular mission – To revolutionize the way people collaborate and manage content across companies.

It seemed silly to us that after spending millions of dollars setting up secure enterprise content management (ECM) systems, firms would provide nothing more than e-mail to their employees for collaboration with their extended teams. As we all know, e-mail is neither secure nor adequate for the purpose.

Addressing this extended team collaboration problem with a web-based content management solution, like many others have done recently, is fairly easy to do. However, we do not believe it is either economical or practical to ask any firm to entrust all of its documents, including confidential documents, to an outside service provider.

So, we chose a "distributed" content management approach to solve the extended team collaboration problem. Distributed content refers to documents that reside not only on enterprise servers, but also to documents which reside on individual computers within an enterprise and to documents that reside in other enterprises. Content Circles simply enables cross-company collaboration among trusted peers by providing access to distributed content in a controlled and auditable manner without ever having to store that content on its own servers!

The end result, as you are certain to experience, is a very easy to use, secure, scalable and cost-effective "Collaborative Content Management" solution that works the way you and your team members work – anytime, anywhere, right on your desktops! Please try it and you will start wondering how you ever got along without it.