Is XML the holy grail to getting the biggest benefit from your corporate content assets? Possibly not, but definitely the closest technology we have at the moment for structuring content. Making content portable to be able to combine and recombine it, and ultimately put it to use in ways that make sense in a particular business model is the motivator behind the explosive adoption of XML, and structured content in general. To be able to deliver dynamic content, which is a critical component of putting a personalized content strategy into place, having content in a structured form is a no-brainer.

Jerry Silver has been a proponent of structured content since the pre-XML days, when SGML was considered a powerful, if cumbersome, way to automate content processing to promote business processes. With many years of XML analysis and product management under his belt, his presentation at Web Content 2009 Chicago, Building a Scalable XML-based Dynamic Delivery Architecture: Standards and Best Practices, is sure to enlighten anyone wanting to know more about the architecture of data-driven sites.