June 2008 - Posts

• CMS Myth at Alfresco Road Show

  Today I attended the Alfreso road show here in Dallas.  This was a small (about 40 people) half day presentation intended to show off Alfresco and how it has been implemented at a number of larger clients.  Alfresco and their partners did a great job presenting and answering any and all questions.  The one case study that stood out for me was a community site built for the search engine company Endeca.  The solution put in place was a mix of Alfresco, Liferay Portal, Liferay Forums, Wordpress, Endeca search (how could they use anything else really) and Red Hat directory server.  The interesting thing is that WordPress, Liferay and Alfresco can all be placed into the CMS category, but here they all are working together in one site.  This case study really represented for me the challenge that will be facing organizations trying to find just one system that will meet all their content publishing needs as the CMS market continues to evolve.  Posted Jun 27 2008, 12:05 AM by George with no comments Filed under: Events, CMS, Vendors, Alfresco, WordPress, Liferay

• Go Beyond Feature List When Seeking CMS

  Here at the CMS Myth we make a point to climb our soapbox and espouse a pragmatic approach to dealing with the content management issue (Here’s a quick hit: CMS is a software tool; content management is a discipline – recognize the difference!) So it was refreshing at Web Content 2008 in Chicago this week to hear advice, cut from the same Myth cloth, provided in generous portions to the web, content, marketing and tech pros all trying to crack a similar nut. Among the preachers: Jarrod Gingras, analyst at CMS Watch, whose comments on how to craft an RFP ring true. Among his points: De-prioritize the feature checkbox. Vendors typically provide “no real explanation in a checkbox about what went into meeting that requirement,” he says. Instead of crafting an exhaustive checklist of features, write the story of how things run today with your website processes. Construct a complete and colorful narrative about who does what, when and how inside your organization to make stuff happen online, in all its ugly glory. What’s the current process to get information published? Who touches it along the way? Why do things get bogged down? Name names. Provide the painful details. Tell the story. From that approach emerges the picture of what’s not working and what a CMS vendor needs to solve. Instead of a vendor firing a feature list back at you, demand vital details of how they would help you improve things, following along with your narrative.  Pragmatic advice is always good. To which we would add one more bit for any organization that gets its news, as it were, from the RFP document: Pick up the phone and have a clear conversation with a vendor or service provider about what you’re seeking. Thirty-minutes on the phone will do wonders to clear the fog from a 100 page RFP.   Posted Jun 19 2008, 09:50 PM by David with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Events, strategic planning, RFP, Planning, CMS, conference, Vendors

• Does it Matter Which CMS Product You Choose?

  After a half-hour of softball questions to five vendors in the State of WCM session at Gilbane, moderator Tony White decided to use the vendors own logic against them. Moments before, the vendors had conceeded that one could likely succeed with any one of their products. They contended that planning and requirements had more to do with success than specific product features. By that logic, Tony asked if indeed it even mattered what CMS product a customer selects in the first place? It was an absurd and interesting question all in one for a fragmented industry that fails to clearly articulate key product differentiation. It also took the vendors off autopilot for a bit. Yogesh Gupta, President and CEO of FatWire clearly stated that of course it matters. He then flipped the tables and said in fact it was Fatwire who is careful in which customers it selects. "I can't have unhappy customers," he said. I would have loved to have seen a follow up for each vendor to give an example of where they are not a good fit for customers (beyond the obvious infrastructure reasons). Vignette CIO David Graham restated the importance of internal preparation and ensuring a cultural fit. I wish he would have elaborated on what cultural fit means.  I've found in our own consulting that there are a host of intangibles around culture that are hard to quantify, but can make or break an implementation (plotting a future myth post on this). Tony was able to sneak in another jab in saying customers complained that the "products are different but the messaging is the same." Hard to disagree looking at the 50+ vendors exhibiting all with similar signage. CrownPeak CEO Jim Howard drew distinction between open source and commercial products. He praised open source on one hand while saying CrownPeak's business has been partly driven by replacing failed open source deployments. "Commercial products thrive on complexity" Jim contends . They cater to customers looking for that shinny object.   Sitecore USA President Bjarne Hansen said of course vendor selection matters - if not for the infrastructure alone.  Folks running Java likely won't want a .NET CMS and vice versa. Can't disagree there. The conversation was pretty much dwindling at this point and Tony cut in once again to suggest perhaps it's a moot point since ‘you'll never finish your CMS implementation anyway' - they go on forever. On that cheery note - it was time for lunch. Good stuff. Posted Jun 19 2008, 07:10 AM by Jeff with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Gilbane SF, Vendors

• Content Marketing: Become the Media

  It’s the Web 2.0 Era where transparency and ‘non-selling’ rules the day – call it the era of ‘Un-marketing’ – so what’s a marketer to do? For more and more successful companies, killing them with content (good content!) is the answer. Today at Web Content 2008 here in Chicago, Joe Pulizzi at Junta 42 (prior profession: B2B/trade publishing) provided a call-to-arms to marketers to get on the “content marketing” bandwagon, or risk getting left behind by the competition. The marketing recipe of the past was: create brand awareness, use mass media, interrupt your customer, repeat. Not anymore. OK, so what is content marketing? It may be easier to tell you what it isn’t. It’s NOT sending more product messages into the market. It’s not hitting customers over the head with how great your product or service is. It IS communicating directly with fresh, relevant content that creates a conversation and provides value to your customers --- information that will help them do their jobs or live their lives better, or content that informs them of what’s happening in their industry. Says Pulizzi, “You are a media company whether you know it or not. Think like a publisher. You are all publishers.” This content can take all sorts of forms: • Blog • White Papers • eBooks • Case studies • Content microsites • Digital magazines • Community forums • Podcasts • Video portals But really, who’s doing it right on the web? www.WillitBlend.com: Blendtec (yes, they make blenders) built this site to humorously answer the question “Will it blend?” – they throw all kinds of items into the hopper (say, an iPhone), flip the switch, and put the video up on their site. The content is compelling enough to drive up sales 500% in 18 months. www.HomeMadeSimple.com: It may look like a ‘home’ site (kitchen, décor, living, etc) but it’s run by consumer products giant P&G. Great content has attracted more than a million opt-in subscribers – a community that P&G has turned into a primary customer research channel. www.MillerWelds.com: B2B welding supplier Miller owns the welding publishing channel and the largest online community of welders thanks to this self-developed website.   Posted Jun 18 2008, 07:20 PM by David with no comments Filed under: Content, Web Content 2008, content marketing, B2B

• Gilbane SF: Let the Games Begin

  Gilbane San Franscisco if off and running and the CMS Myth will be there to cover the action. I'm speaking tomorrow morning on CMS Success Strategies. Until then, i'll be taking in the sessions, navigating the vendor hall and loading up on the free energy bars (nice touch!). Have any questions you want me to pose to a specific vendor or consultant? Let me know - there is a gaggle of em here including many of their top dogs. Posted Jun 18 2008, 05:00 PM by Jeff with no comments Filed under: Gilbane SF

• CMS Myth Making Stops in Chicago, San Francisco

  Call it the CMS Myth Road Trip to welcome summer and spread the gospel of CMS strategy while we’re at it. During the week of June 16, two ‘MythBusters’ from this blog will take the Myth cross-country to large gatherings of corporate content managers, e-marketing professionals, site managers, and others. For some, CMS is a dirty word; for others, it’s a saving grace. Regardless of which side of the equation you’re on, you can catch Jeff Cram on the WCM Strategies for Success panel at the Gilbane Conference on Content Management in San Francisco (Thursday, June 19, 8:30 am). Jeff’s focus: how to avoid CMS debacles. The day before, on June 18 at 10:15 am at the (sold-out!) Web Content 2008 Conference at the UBS Center in Chicago, I’ll speak to web pros on the core themes of this blog in a session called The CMS Myth: Why Web Content Management Projects Fail and What You Can Do About It. We haven’t yet divined why the organizers of Chicago’s Web Content 2008 decided to overlap with Gilbane San Francisco. But it goes without saying: if you’re planning to hit either of these events, let us know. Posted Jun 07 2008, 04:47 AM by David with no comments Filed under: Content, Speaking, Gilbane, CMS, conference, Web Content 2008, Strategies