One of the observations we’ve made regarding the current state of content management is the strong reliance on two tools to manage your company’s files be they on a WAN/LAN or in the cloud; the ability to create and name file folders and the name of files themselves. I don’t have to tell you how limiting those tools can be. Our only option for decades we’ve all become somewhat numb to the pain.
We think there is a huge opportunity to improve both management and access to content. In many ways, the existing file folder and file name means of storing and retrieving files have pitted the needs of centralized control and file management versus the ease of finding what you’re looking for.
AVAIL is providing a new alternative, a way to separate where a file is stored from how it is retrieved. A way to reduce your dependency on those cumbersome folder and file names for retrieving content.
Optionality
One of the themes we’ve developed over the past couple of years during the development of AVAIL is optionality. Optionality should be a good thing. Given optionality, you take advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself.
Optionality is present in several ways at the core of how AVAIL has been designed. If you’ve used AVAIL or sat through any of our webinars you’ll hear us talk about the importance of context in retrieving content. That’s a form of optionality that lets the publisher and consumer of content in AVAIL get to the same content in different ways mirroring the way you’re thinking about it at the time.
With the new 3.0 release of AVAIL, you’ll find a couple of additional features that play on this theme as well. We’re extending the ability to contribute to the management of content in a Channel in AVAIL beyond the firm-wide Publisher/Consumer role definition. Now, the owner of a Channel can allow anyone they’ve shared that Channel with the ability to contribute via a new “Can Edit” setting that is controlled per user. This means a Publisher of a Channel can invite select others to add or remove content and tags from a Channel without having to make that person a firm-wide Publisher. Optionality.
Another update in 3.0 is initial moves toward providing each individual control over how they organize and consume Channels and content. You’ll see this manifested in a redesigned Channels panel that now provides each desktop the ability to “Pin” the Channels they consume most. Additional features that let everyone customize their experience while letting you maintain administrative oversight and control will continue to make AVAIL more powerful and customizable to fulfill different needs and workflow preferences. Optionality is a good thing.
