New Grocery in town! Why you should care

New Grocery in town!  Why you should care When my finance tells me to come with her to the grocery store, my reaction is just short of a 2 year-olds temper tantrum.  I’m not the best person to ... read more

Capturing Success

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We learn a lot from others mistakes.  Many of the best practices established in the document capture space have been the result of something gone wrong, and finding a solution to prevent it.  Howev... read more

If you have OCD you love Taxonomy!

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Taxonomies are not fun, unless you have OCD.  But they are far better than folders, and an opportunity for organizations to unify the categorization of their content.  In my last blog post “Folders... read more

Why Folders are the new "F" word

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Why are folders the new F word?  It’s not because I promote disorganization.  Quite the opposite.  Folders only give you the perception of organization.  Real organization happens with meta-data.  ... read more

Build or Buy Capture Technology

Document capture technology is rather unique.  I’m referring specifically to document imaging.  Unlike enterprise content management (ECM), it’s not generally worth the effort to even considering b... read more

If you must print

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I print approximately 6 pages a year now, I don’t own a fax machine, and I scan like crazy.  This is not the norm, but hopefully the trend.  What I’ve noticed recently in projects is that I now not... read more

The Why

It’s not that I particularly love document imaging, content capture, or even ECM technologies.  The reason I’m so vested in market education is to bring the future closer.  It’s really all about ge... read more

You can capture but can you organize

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When I was just a document imaging jockey I thought everything started with a scan and ended with high quality electronic files or data streams exported.  I soon realized that getting people to sca... read more

The Nasty Image Challenge

Occasionally,  my OCR nerdiness is satisfied with something other than just explaining how the technology works.  The first line of the email that kicks it off usually reads, “I have the nastiest i... read more

Capture: get over yourself

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Document capture is not cool.  It’s not modern, and frankly the amount of effort needed to be successful is just aggravating.  But document capture is necessary and extremely valuable.  The more we... read more

Scanner rage!

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I’ve been known to have a little bit of a temper with inanimate objects, such as sloppy sandwiches, chairs that stub my toes and document scanners that don’t scan correctly.  What they all have in ... read more

It’s all in there: tricky meta-data

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Technology governance is a funny thing.  Its goal is rigidity, with just the right dash of flexibility.  Its goal is also to provide just enough information at the right time.  Storing content with... read more

The Odd Couple: Relationship between Born Digital and Paper Documents

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There are two primary drivers for document capture, paper reduction is the most mentioned, but more often organizations want to link paper business process with digital ones.  Today most companies ... read more

Become a better technology shopper

The more advanced a technology becomes, and the greater the benefit it can provide an organization, the harder it is to shop for it.  Sellers of enterprise capture software know what it takes to de... read more

Mobile capture: the hype, the truth, the future

There is no surprise that the capture world is talking a lot about mobile capture.  Mobile capture is a way to boost the energy level and excitement around a technology that has clear business valu... read more

Hand-print or Handwriting, HUGE difference!

Here is another roll-up your sleeves down and dirty post.  When it comes to forms processing and data capture working with documents that have hand-print vs. handwriting is a huge difference.  Hand... read more

My sacrifice to the “Cloud” gods

The “Cloud” is not new, nor is it news.  However, I fear the terrible things that might come to me if I don’t sacrifice an article or two to the “Cloud” gods.  No the “Cloud” is not new; it’s been ... read more

Technology Configuration Trap

My last post was about putting guidelines around the fine-tuning of recognition accuracy.  This post, similarly, is about the risks of being overwhelmed by product features and configuration. I... read more

When enough is enough – ROI of imaging accuracy improvement

The prospect of 100% accurate OCR results is a good driver when it comes to implementing the technology, most of the time.  As an advocate, and promoter of ways to increase OCR accuracy I too somet... read more

Twas the night I lost documents

Twas the night I lost documents             ‘Twas the night I lost documents, when all through the house; Not a piece of paper was findable, not even those for my sp... read more

Avoiding the document imaging Mulligan

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One of the worst things that can happen in an imaging environment is the need to re-image documents.  But it happens.  It can happen because of dramatic advances in the technology being used, becau... read more

Image Gatekeeper: document classification

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Document classification occurs at some level in all advanced capture solutions.  It’s a process that is often ignored.  In fixed forms processing ever page has to be classified (often referred to a... read more

I OCR Wine Labels

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I have used OCR for some strange things, but this weekend I was posed with a new one.  My Fiancée’s mom owns one of the local wineries.  I often help with various administrative tasks, because as I... read more

Document imaging for healthcare

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Like distributed capture, and SharePoint; document imaging in the healthcare / insurance space is one of those trends that is always at the top of the interest list, but not very mature.  The deman... read more

What IT should know when preparing for OCR

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Every now and then, you have to roll up your sleeves and get down to business.  This post is that, targeted at IT managers tasked with implementing high performance OCR environments. A properly arc... read more

When ECM is bad for document imaging

When you spend 10 years living and breathing document imaging you become distributed when your niece calls your document scanner a printer, or you’re forced by a large bank to send a fax.  However,... read more

Campaigning characters – Reality of OCR engine voting

OCR Engine voting is one of those things that just seem to make sense.  “Seems” being the key word.  Engine voting is touted as the process of taking two separate OCR engines and comparing their re... read more

Document Imaging, SharePoint, Yes you can!

You may have seen already the new Toolkit from AIIM titled “Document Imaging in SharePoint”.  If you haven’t, then as soon as you finish this post you know where to go.  I’m not just excited about ... read more

I’m an Invoice not a rock star

Every year in the document imaging space there is a new central topic of interest.  It usually changes substantial from distributed capture, to SharePoint, to BCR ( Business Card Recognition ).  Ho... read more

Modern OCR has game

I’ve classified two generations of OCR. Generation one, I call old  OCR, and the current generation. Generation one OCR engines did not think too much about what they did.  Give it an image, and it... read more

Windows just see’s better

I get asked a lot on twitter, “what is the best OCR for Linux?”, usually there is “free” in there somewhere as well.  The fact is, although of the top 4 commercial OCR engines, 3 have Linux version... read more

A Document by any other type

Would be recognized incorrectly.  How much effort have you put into your document classification processes?  Be it manual, or automated, fast, and accurate document classification is the first step... read more

Exceptions Happen!

If your project requires zero exceptions, run for the hills.  No deployment of even basic imaging technology is without exceptions.  If by chance your deployment is free of exceptions, you have don... read more

How accurate is your understanding of “accuracy”

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Your first job is to start using document recognition technology, your second, is to make it as accurate as possible.  Problem is, you very likely purchased technology, and assumed some level of ac... read more

Sure your form looks good, but does it recognize

Here you are getting mad at your paper forms for such poor recognition, not knowing it's probably your fault.  It’s easy to design a fixed handprinted form that looks pretty, but takes a little mor... read more

Oh yeah, there are two types of OCR

I forget only long enough until someone reminds me.  It usually goes like this.  I discuss OCR on some online forum, or via some method of search someone seeking OCR topics finds an article of mine... read more

That ROI was not where I last left it

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For large companies, it’s the only way to get executive sponsorship, for mid-sized business it’s a way to win praise, and for small business it’s the way to grow.  ROI.  ROI is a huge driver in IT ... read more

Integrations: easy as right-click, “new folder”

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When it comes to enterprise technology, let’s face it, the more complicated the better.  Complicated enterprise technology is job security, ensures premium software prices for vendors, and keeps th... read more

They're scanned images, not flowers

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Of course you want your scanned images to look as pretty as possible on the screen, but who’s to say what the OCR engines agree with your conditions for beauty.  This blog post, perhaps a slap in t... read more

Meet Chris – Document Imaging Guy

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No, document imaging is not the sexiest topic, but I have to own my involvement in it.  I did not expect that I would be one of the leading experts in document imaging and recognition technologies,... read more