In January 2002, GiantSteps president Bill Rosenblatt coined the term Enterprise Content Integration (ECI). ECI is a new approach to content management at the enterprise level of large, diversified content providers. It emphasizes integration of separate, heterogeneous systems over the traditional Digital Asset Management approach of building a single large repository containing all of the company's content.

ECI reflects the current reality of diversified content companies that have already built various types of content-storing systems, including databases and file servers, at business unit or departmental levels. Rather than tear these systems down and start all over again with an expensive, long-duration, and risky project, the ECI approach lets you build functionality on top of what you have that results in real business benefits and costs a fraction as much.

Several large media companies have embarked on ECI implementation projects, and various tools from vendors are available to assist media companies with ECI deployment.

GiantSteps features on Enterprise Content Integration:

• Original article: Enterprise Content Integration: Next Step Beyond DAM? The Seybold Report, v. 1, no. 20, January 21, 2002, pp. 10-14.
• White paper: Enterprise Content Integration and the Digital Object Identifier: A Business Case for Information Publishers.
• White paper: Integrating Content Management with Digital Rights Management: Imperatives and Opportunities for Digital Content Lifecycles.
• Video clip from Context Media's Publishing Industry event, New York, April 10, 2002: motivating ECI as an alternative to enterprise digital asset management (requires QuickTime).