Recent News

News

Presentation Slide Decks Being Added To Site

If you would like to see the slide decks from the conference, we’re in the process of adding them to the site. To see if a slide deck is present, navigate to the event program page and click on the links for each of the presentations that interest you. Once the page opens, scroll down past the session title and description. If there’s a slide deck available, it will appear in your web browser just below the description. These slide decks are hosted on SlideShare (think: YouTube for slide decks) and allow you to view the deck in your browser, forward it to others, comment on it, embed it your website, social network or blog, and print and download the files.

Should you desire to see a slide deck that is not currently on the site, email me at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and I’ll see if I can get a copy of the slide deck to you.

Puzzle-Solving Is Problem-Solving: Figuring Out Content Conundrums

Joe Gollner likes solving puzzles. In fact, he often draws on his passion for history and philosophy to help him with the paradigms for modern-day conundrums. “That’s probably why I work so much,” admits Joe, “though it doesn’t feel like work to me. I love to figure out things that initially baffle me.”

The push for increasing complex ways of process content is nothing new to Gollner. He has worked on projects with millions of pages of content that have to be manipulated in quite granular and exacting ways. His quest is to help systems process content in “intelligent” ways. This means using content to its full potential, combining contexts to allow users to extract its inherent knowledge. His paper on The Emergence of Intelligent Content is a look inside the nature and history of content technologies that has led us to where we are today.

His pleasure at solving this dilemma is apparent; he isn’t satisfied because of the technological solution, but because it solves a user experience problem and a business problem. “Content is so important that we can no longer afford to treat it like a cottage industry,” says Joe. “Corporations are starting to realize that we need to apply the same care and discipline to them as we do with the rest of our corporate assets.”

Gollner presents Beyond Publishing: Exploring What We Are Really Doing With Web Content and a workshop on Engineering Web Content: A Workshop in Two Parts at Web Content Chicago 2009.

Catching Up To The Speed of Social Media

Toni Morrison once said that “People will not remember what you say, but they will always remember how you made them feel.” Jeremy Epstein adds, “…and now they can tell all their friends how you made them feel - very, very quickly.”

Certainly, the rise of social media has made our world seem more immediate. Waiting for someone to tell us something through email is so, well, last year. The sharing of information happens in real time now, through sites like Twitter, Facebook or MySpace, through RSS blog feeds and community. We get information via the Web and on our phones, through posts, text messages, and text-to-voice technologies.

The speed that we employ to take in information also contributes to the speed with which we make up our minds about people, events, and ideas. Skim a blog and decide if their philosophy fits yours. Visit a social networking page and determine whether the person should be your “friend”. Visit a Twitter page and decide if you should click Follow.

How do you manage your personal brand in this time of instant decisions? We may not know how all the pieces fit together, but Jeremy Epstein does. In fact, he addresses the issue head on, in his Igniting the Revolution blog, in a post called What you can expect from my twitterfeed.

Epstein talks more about this topic in his presentation, Marketing Survival Strategies for the Attention(less) Economy, at Web Content 2009.

Where Wikis Meet Content Is Where The Magic Happens

Wiki evangelist Stewart Mader may love the technology, but what he really loves is the productivity that the technology can bring about when properly implemented. The idea that wikis help organizations share information may be the primary reason that they want to adopt a wiki, but the side benefits - reduction in email and meetings, development of planned and spontaneous communities, and idea hatcheries - can be teased out when the implementation is done with due thought and care.

In addition to Mader’s wiki consulting blog, where he provides a wealth of information on the topic of enterprise wikis, he has provided the following resources:

21 Days of Wiki Adoption
Stewart Mader’s blog at WikiConsulting.com

Stewart Mader presents Six Degrees of Collaboration at Web Content 2009.

When Serving Clients Also Serves The Brand

Any career coach will tell you that only twenty percent of jobs ever get listed on job boards. An executive career coach will tell you that the higher you are on the corporate ladder, the fewer the positions that get posted. The network kicks in, as corporations look to fill their vacancies with someone they know and trust. In a flat world, the network is no longer the old boys’ network or even a local network. Networks are global, and the concept of six degrees of separation is more like three degrees now.

Young professionals entering the workforce have known no other system but the professional network. However, executives coming back on the job market after an extended period of time may have a harder time adjusting to the new reality. For those who are acclimatizing to job-hunting in a flat world, they can count on career professionals to help guide them. The Career Hub site, with articles such as the one from Liz Harvey, What’s Next in Resumes, is one of the many resources on the Web that provide a perspective from the point of view of potential employers.

Liz Harvey presents Adding Light to a Successful Brand: A Brightfuse Case Study at Web Content 2009, enlightening her audience about the site that helps professionals expand their networks.

Putting the Cool Factor into User Experience

David S. Platt, author of Why Software Sucks…And What You Can Do About It, begins with a few principles, the first one being: Know Thy User, For He Is Not Thee. While this seems like a no-brainer to us when we build interfaces for specialty purposes - we know that a website created to primary appeal to, say software developers - or real estate agents, or rocket scientists, or any one of the many audiences we could choose, there often comes a point when assumptions creep in about how “everyone” will use a site.

It’s a humbling experience, then, watching users of a generation or two younger put a website through its paces. The expectations for the Millenial generation are quite different than the generations that precede them. Generation M grew up with technology, and they expect it to “just work”. The patience, or lack of it, when something goes wrong, sends them immediately to find satisfaction on another site. And they are confident that there is another site, one that works better. Aside from having good usability, they expect the site to be engaging and entertaining. Reading is a “blah blah” exercise, and they expect that whatever is being offered will fit into the way they interact with technology.

Joern Bodemann presents the results of usability research showing how user expectation is matched to software design and content delivery, in his presentation, Usability Matters ... Or, Why On Earth Did They Design It That Way?, at Web Content 2009 Chicago.

Let Me Get to Know You: Delivering Personalized, Relevant Content

When organizations think of content management, there are a lot of business benefits associated with it. Content re-use, ease of managing translations, improving content accuracy, delivering to multiple sites, or sharing between multiple sites are some of the most common reasons cited. The mention of the marketing benefits - boosting user confidence and customer loyalty by delivering more personalized content, more reliably, rarely gets identified. Yet it’s the benefits of delivering highly-relevant content to site visitors where the greatest marketing benefit is derived.

Bård Farstad understands the benefits of bringing content management to the table as a personalization engine. He brings his expertise to Web Content 2009 Chicago with his presentation on Building Social Media, Personalization and Relevancy into Open-Source Websites using eZ Publish.

When Spreading a Virus is a Good Thing

It’s not such a radical idea to treat your content like the common cold. Your content has lots of viral potential, and your job is to make sure that it is virulent enough to take hold and spread throughout the communities where you want it to known. Whether it’s a clever video that sells the MP3, a catchy ad campaign that keeps your brand in mind, or a helpful article that drives content to your site, viral content is the first step toward promoting your product or service to users in a way that makes people want to share it with others.

However, just as a cold manifests itself differently in different people, so will different content resonate with multiple user groups. You need to be able to create content that is relevant to individuals. That could mean delivering product content of a particular size or color, or articles specific to an individual’s profile, or multiple permutations and combinations of content to engage and delight your audience.

Derek Olson, VP of Foraker Design, has discussed this emerging delivery of viral content, and explains why the ability to engage in viral marketing via intelligent content is a hallmark of a successful campaign. Olson presents The Anatomy of a Personalization System: Three Case Studies at Web Content 2009 Chicago.

Lights, Camera, Action: The World of Corporate Videos

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the corporate video was a sign of success, and being included was a sign of prestige. These videos were completely scripted and highly staged, and the company representatives were stiff and smiling. The videos were sent out to re-assure customers of the company’s viability, to show off the company’s facility, or perhaps to strengthen brand. By the late 1980s, the big decision was whether to follow the tried-and-true respectable formulas, or whether to try an edgy, playful format being tried by a company called Apple.

Now, the corporate video is coming back with a vengeance, but the ground rules have changed. The creation of the videos can start with as little as a hand-held video camera. Distribution has been simplified, and YouTube is a definite consideration. But that’s just the technology. When it comes to scripting, branding, and other messaging-related aspects, sound communication principles are still important to make sure that the video is effective.

Todd O’Neill knows all too well the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of corporate video production. He understands how video, whether it be for instruction, persuasion, or entertainment, can be of benefit to organizations and particularly to their users.

He shares his insights and outrages on his DoingMedia blog, meant for the “intentional, accidental, occasional and future media producer.” O’Neill also presents Who Put the Video in My Content? ...Or How to Become a Video and Rich Media Superhero at Web Content 2009 Chicago.

Serving Up Content to an Audience Used to Personalization

A restaurant wouldn’t serve a single dish to its entire clientele; that wouldn’t be considered a very smart move. Similarly, not every customer (or potential customer) should receive a single message from your organization. To be effective, the message needs to be tailored. The way to do this on a large scale is through content that is “intelligent”: it has the smarts to automate the messaging process so that the right message reaches each customer type.

The idea of intelligent content is possible with the help of structure, and the queen of structured content is Ann Rockley. On the Rockley Group blog, the possibilities created by structured content and its automation is explored, as well as the frustrations for users when it goes wrong.

Ann’s presentation, Personalization: A Multi-Dimensional Approach, at Web Content 2009 Chicago is not a session to be missed.

In Search of the Potion to Create Content Magic

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.

New Media Needs New Presentation: The Need for Authentic Voice

Amongst the mass of technologists discussing the pros and cons of the technologies and metrics, Joe Pulizzi talks about the substance rather than the vehicle: content. In his role of Chief Content Officer for Junta 42, he understands the value of content, that it is an asset that serves as the “good stuff” of marketing campaigns. Without the content, the technology has nothing to deliver. Customers and prospects will be drawn in by the quality and usefulness of the content, not the potential of the technology behind the scenes.

Joe discusses how content marketing plays out on a business and personal level in this interview for Business Networking Advice. In this phase of Web 2.0, when corporations are jumping on the social media bandwagon, he warns that matching old marketing techniques with new technologies doesn’t come across as authentic. He will be making a very authentic presentation at Web Content 2009, with Please Stop Talking about Yourself: Is Your Web Content Killing Your Brand and What to Do About It?

Tough Content Talk for Tough Economic Times

When the tough get content, it’s not con-tent’ as in contentment. In a depressed economy, discontent is the mood of the day. No, the tough get con’-tent, as in “content is king”.

Robert Rose, the VP of Strategic Planning for CrownPeak, gives his prescription for online marketing success in a tough economy in a video presentation, available from the CrownPeak website.

First, figure out who is visiting. The website remains the key, and using it as an online marketing platform is the goal. To do this, you need to figure out who is coming to your site. After all, visitors are just visitors unless they convert into customers.

Then, feed high-quality content into your site frequently, on a regular basis. Spend money on creating quality content, not just on cool technologies. You want to be sure that your content is optimized, targeted toward the right market, and measured for effectiveness. Rose cautions against personalization, noting that unless you are amongst the publishing giants, hiding your content behind a firewall will work against you.

Finally, Rose warns that you need to keep a look-out for the next big thing; if you don’t experiment and fail occasionally, you’re not pushing yourself.

Rose presents at Web Content 2009 Chicago about some of the New “No Rules” Of Online Marketing: How Social Media and Content Marketing Changes Everything You Know - And Nothing You Do.

Getting the Scoop on Cloud Computing

To cloud or not to cloud, that is the question. There is a fair amount of debate about cloud computing these days, as organizations try to decide whether to take advantage of online tools and move their data to remote servers, or to keep control by using traditional software on dedicated internal servers. There is likely no definitive answer, as business requirements vary wildly from organization to organization.

In an article for smallbiztechnology.com magazine, Jonathan Sapir discusses the pros and cons of cloud computing and helps organizations understand the advantages and mechanics, using metaphors that any business owner can relate to.

Sapir presents Situational Applications: Cost Effective Solutions to Immediate Business Challenges at Web Content 2009.

How Social Media and Content Marketing Changes Everything You Know - And Nothing You Do

Feeling 2.Overwhelmed?? You’re not alone, says Robert Rose, Vice President of Marketing and Strategy for CrownPeak. Rose says it’s no surprise there’s confusion surrounding Web 2.0 technologies but he has some ideas how you can harness the power of social media and make it work for you.

“We’re being told that we need to (by tomorrow) develop a blog and a wiki, produce podcasts, provide mechanisms to rate our content and create the new mashup of digg/YouTube/delicious.com and wrap it all in Ajax,” Rose says. “Unfortunately, rushing to implement these new technologies without acknowledging the fact that they should actually serve some marketing function is a bad idea.”

“Really, says Rose, “While content marketing and social media changes everything we know, it should change nothing we do. It’s still about targeting, positioning, segmentation and satisfying human needs.”

At Web Content 2009 Chicago, Rose presents The New “No Rules” Of Online Marketing: How Social Media and Content Marketing Changes Everything You Know - And Nothing You Do. During this featured presentation, Rose will unwrap the hype, define the challenges, and discuss the realities of what new technology really means for digital marketers.

Attend this session to learn:

Who are you in a Web 2.0 world
What marketing on a social media powered Internet looks like
What social media and content marketing really can do for you
What impact social media, Web 2.0 and content marketing will have on your business?
And, more importantly, what you should be doing before you even think about the technology that powers these technologies

Call for Presentations Opens January 27, 2009

We’re looking for great presentations from outstanding speakers on topics that address the needs of our audience and that align nicely with the theme of the conference—“Delivering Personalized Dynamic Web Content”. Specifically, we’re looking for sessions that teach attendees something useful—something they can use when they return to the office. To be considered, follow the guidance provided below and use our online submission form to submit your presentation abstract starting January 27. The call closes, February 6, 2009.

What you’ll need to submit
Before you start the submission process, make sure you have everything required. Incomplete submissions WILL NOT be considered.

Complete contact information for the presenter
150 word or fewer professional biography
Color headshot photograph (1MB or less; no smaller than 150 pixels x 150 pixels and no larger than 800 pixels x 600 pixels)
Relevant and descriptive presentation title (and subtitle, if applicable)
100 word or fewer brief session abstract designed that summarizes what the session is about and what attendees can expect to learn (to be used in print program)
300-500 word detailed session abstract that describes in detail what the session is about and specifically what attendees will learn (to be used on the event website and in email marketing campaigns)
Indicate whether is laptop computer is required of the attendees and what level of knowledge the audience is expected to have (is the session appropriate for all audiences, intermediate or advanced?)

What we’re looking for

Presentations should focus on teaching something very granular (e.g. Delivering Dynamic Personalized Content on Demand) and involve some audience interaction
Case Studies should focus on how an organization solved a particular problem and should be presented by individuals that work for the organization, not for software vendors; they should also provide guidance (good practices, lessons learned, strategies for success) to those attendees who may be interested in exploring a similar solution in the future
Workshops should explore subjects in more detail (Building an Online Community, Creating a Video Blog, Developing a Wiki) and involve various types of audience interaction (sharing stories, working in teams, creating a deliverable, using software)

What we’re NOT looking for
We’re not looking for product pitches disguised as presentations, nor are we looking for PowerPoint preachers who read their slides. We don’t mind if a presentation has a marketing component to it, but we do not want this to be the focus of any presentation, case study, or workshop.

Questions?
If you’ve got questions not answered here, let us know.