Full Program View

XML is the foundation of any dynamic content delivery application. The basic principles of XML—structuring content to enable reliable automated processing, separating content from presentation, and imbuing content with semantics to convey additional levels of meaning—are all required to make true dynamic delivery a reality.

However, many sites that attempt to be “data-driven” to provide dynamic and personalized content run into a number of challenges, even when using XML as the data format. They run into scalability problems when the XML is stored in relational databases or file systems, which are inefficient at serving high volumes of XML content. In addition, developers often rely on proprietary or cumbersome programming models, with complex procedural logic that is hard to develop and maintain. Because of the development difficulty, many sites rely on static Web forms that users find difficult to interact with. Most sites also limit users to a few well-defined search choices, again because of the difficulty in building interactive Web applications and concerns about the performance of unconstrained queries. It can also be challenging to capture “user feedback”—things like comments, ratings, and votes. This user generated content can result in a very high volume of small content fragments that need to be efficiently captured and easily associated with their related objects, something that’s hard to do when Web pages are actually temporal, dynamic views.

To address these challenges, a number of XML processing standards are emerging as the preferred approaches for architecting a dynamic site to be both scalable and maintainable. These standards include: XQuery, the powerful language for querying collections of XML data; XProc, a pipeline language for describing operations to be performed on XML documents; XForms, for specifying forms-based interfaces and processing; and Process Data Module (PDM), a specification from the S1000D standard for defining interactive processing structures for non-linear tasks. The value of these standards is that they provide a declarative model for application development that adapts better to changing needs than programming in traditional procedural languages. And, because they are expressed in XML syntax, they open up additional opportunities for automating the development process; for example, using XQuery to compose XForms instances for highly personalized interaction with end users.

This session is targeted at Web development professionals who are looking for a better way to architect their sites, leveraging the latest standards to lower risk, reduce development and maintenance costs, and bring their sites to production faster. By attending this session, they will learn:

Which XML processing standards are important for architecting dynamic delivery sites
How these standards help to reduce development effort and improve site functionality
Best practices for creating and managing the XML content that drives dynamic sites, including user-generated content

The session will include examples of actual deployments that illustrate the use of these standards and practices.

Building a Scalable XML-based Dynamic Delivery Architecture: Standards and Best Practices

View more OpenOffice presentations from jssilver.

Who Put the Video in My Content? ...Or How to Become a Video and Rich Media Superhero

Speaker: Todd O’Neill
Time: 1:00 PM - 1:50 PM Date: June 15

Your customers often need super deeds and don’t know where to turn. They may not realize that under your mild mannered exterior lies a Rich Media Superhero.

This session will help you discover the super powers you already have. They are often hidden until a wise mentor shows you how to control them. Learn how to speak the language of rich media creation, how to channel your existing skills and how to load your utility belt to defeat any deadline or project constraint.

Often, it’s just a matter of translating the language of your home planet into the language of rich media. We’ll reveal the vocabulary of rich media so you can communicate more effectively with peers, contractors and vendors.

Through a discussion of rich media creation processes you’ll discover your hidden super powers; what mortals call “transferable skills.” Many of the activities that you do every day have an equivalent activity in the mortal world. Planning and budgeting a project will take on a new energy as you learn how to channel those powers in the rich media world. And you’ll find out about new powers like scripts, storyboards and breakdowns. There may be no limit to your abilities!

Many superheroes rely on a full utility belt of hardware and software to aid them in their search for truth, justice and effective training and documentation. After this session you’ll know how to load your utility belt so you can be a champion. Cameras, editing software, Flash and media streaming can be like a child’s playthings in your capable hands.

Often the most powerful ability is the simplest one. So, we’ll start with a focus on the basics. But if the attendees are ready we’ll discuss stronger super powers.

The question you must answer is: “Are you ready to learn more about your rich media super powers?”

Wait! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s you, Rich Media Superhero!

[Workshop] Engineering Web Content: A Workshop in Two Parts

Speaker: Joe Gollner
Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM Date: June 15

Content engineering is the application of a rigorous discipline to the task of understanding web content and designing applications that can help people create, manage, share, publish and use that content. In the era of universal connectivity and business globalization, the introduction of efficiency and effectiveness into the tools and techniques used to manage and publish content is long overdue. To be more provocative, the traditional content management and publishing technologies have been largely unsuccessful by any measure. Similarly, the methodologies that have historically been used, if they can be called that, have been woefully deficient.

Among the sources of excitement at this point in time is the emergence of technologies under the loose banner of Web 2.0 that offer new hope that a new level of success can be achieved. But capitalizing on this opportunity will also depend on the adequacy of the some of the underlying technologies, on the affordability of migrating content into more useful forms, on the effectiveness of the delivery strategies employed, and on the completeness of the methodologies being leveraged. Built on over 20 years of innovation in handling electronic content, content engineering, as a framework, set outs proven approaches to designing web content solutions, migrating content assets and exploiting patterns of continuous innovation.

This workshop will be modularized into two parts with part one focusing on the acquisition and enrichment of web content and part two focusing on the delivery of highly personalized and highly intelligent content to a wide range of “consumers”. Both parts of the workshop will leverage real-world case studies to illustrate concepts and to showcase what has been attempted before, for better or for worse.

Adding Light to a Successful Brand: A Brightfuse Case Study

Speaker: Liz Harvey
Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM Date: June 16

How big a role did marketing play in propelling CareerBuilder from a virtual unknown to industry leader in just five years? How is CareerBuilder using social networking to strengthen their brand?

Liz Harvey, Sr. Director of Consumer Products for CareerBuilder will discuss the sales and marketing strategies that CareerBuilder.com continues to use as they outpace their industry as well as what changes have been made to their 2009 strategies in response to the economic downturn.

For CareerBuilder, maintaining the leadership position has taken on many different faces. Whether it is improving user experience, continuing to invest in technology that efficiently and effectively connects companies with their next great hires, and/or thinking outside the box, CareerBuilder continues to stay ahead of the competition through forward thinking.

In 2007, CareerBuilder identified a need for its clients to have a stronger presence amongst social networking sites and quickly did something about it by forming a partnership with Facebook which enabled its clients to gain access to the more than 100 million Facebook users. Through ads posted on Facebook, CareerBuilder clients interact and encourage users to interact with their brands and ultimately apply for their open positions. CareerBuilder identified the power of social networking and decided to take it one step further and gave birth to BrightFuse.com.

CareerBuilder launched BrightFuse in February 2008 to give professionals a tool with which they could network and interact easily with other professionals. The overall goal of BrightFuse is to help people as they move through their careers, not just when they are between positions. In this economy, networking can be the one tool that finds a job seeker’s next great opportunity. But, networking can be tricky and sometimes intimidating. BrightFuse is meant to be a resource and CareerBuilder strives to make it just that.

This discussion will use real examples from CareerBuilder, what we learned, expose the pitfalls, and describe best practices as we worked to move the site into the future.

Just Put That In The Zip Code Field…: The Ins and Outs of Content Modeling

Speaker: Deane Barker
Time: 1:00 PM - 1:50 PM Date: June 16

One of the things I’ve always been interested in that I find most critical to content management implementations, is the ability (or inability) of a CMS to accurately model your content. Systems vary widely in their ability to accurately reflect the real-world content that they’re intended to manage.

For example:

How well does a CMS allow you to structure content? Does it have any ability to manage different content types? Through configuration, or through custom module development?
Can it structure content at all, or is everything an amorphous “page”? What are some common datatypes you might use to model content? What datatypes are offered by various systems?
Can a system automatically generate input forms for your content? Can it validate these input forms? How usable are the forms?
How well does a system allow you relate content to other content, and in what ways?
Can you content pick up properties or attributes from context? Does the content object’s “place” in the content structure of the site allow you to derive information about it?
Can a system allow you to easily compose content from separate component content objects?
Can a system let you have repeating properties? Can you create “subcontent” to represent parent-child relationships between content objects?

Time spent on content modeling advance of a project is recouped many times over during the course of the project.

However, the real time-savings comes after implementations when you begin to modify the system. Model your content poorly and you can paint yourself into a corner when you find that 20,000 pages haven’t been structured in such a way that you can find all press releases issued in
October 2004 that mention your discontinued product line.

This session will discuss the theories and best practices behind structuring and modeling your content, an overview of how different CM systems handle this, and best practices to “future proof” your content and maximize its utility both now and into the future.

This session is non-technical – there will be no code samples or information on programming. It will be as practical as possible, full of real-world examples of content modeling problems, anecdotes about what has worked and what hasn’t, and a highly visual analysis of how different content management systems allow you to model content.

Just Put That In The Zip Code Field…: The Ins and Outs of Content Modeling

View more documents from Scott Abel.

Building Social Media, Personalization and Relevancy into Open-Source Websites using eZ Publish

Speaker: Bård Farstad
Time: 2:00 PM - 2:50 PM Date: June 16

In this talk you will learn how to combine social features for your website with personalization and automatic relevancy, to make your site more “sticky”. We will review examples of ways to invite your visitors to contribute content while at the same time create more targeted information for your visitors as well.Examples on how you can convert these often debated features into revenue, or reaching the overall goal with the website will be provided. Case studies are based on the examples done in eZ Publish CMS, but the principles apply to any platform.