Hovering Over The Back Button

Alright, hands up who didn’t approach the Adobe acquisition of Omniture with some puzzlement and surprise?  Well, now it’s making sense as these proud parents arrange the wedding of their blushing analytics bride to a handsome CMS beau that should deliver the web engagement off-spring that they crave. [ read more ]

I was in a briefing call today by a large software vendor, it wasn't a one to one briefing there were a few of us on the call - I am not going to say who they were and if you know I'd rather you didn't either. I am sure the point I am going to make can be applied to lots of briefings and is no way a reflection of quality of their product, services or makes them evil people. I just saw a slide, that for the good of product marketing, analysts relations and mankind - must be shared and well, I guess shamed. [ read more ]

Last week was my first Gilbane conference as a Gilbane analyst, having in previous years only served variously as vendor booth bunny, guest speaker or panellist  and it was great to focus on meeting folks, listening to some great sessions and participating as a moderator and speaker.  Two and a half packed days, that stretched long into the evening  felt like a week and my new resolve to keep my blog posts short, could be tested - but I'm going to stick to a couple of key things... honest. [ read more ]

In the discussion of what ECM is, we've seen a few analogies lately of comparing ECM (Enterprise Content Management) with ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)- me included. Most of this discussion is around the 'E' (such as this by Jon Marks) but I thought I'd have a look at the M. Management. Yes, yes.. I know there is no 'M' in ERP - but bear with me.. [ read more ]

Jon Marks (@mcboof) has set a challenge to vendors on his blog - to prioritize various elements of what makes a great CMS product, to choose between Editors, Performance, Features, Developers and producing Websites. I know, I'm not a vendor any more - but I started writing a comment and once it got longer than his original post, I thought hang on...

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Last week it was reported in the UK press that journalists for a local newspaper are going to strike over the implementation of a Content Management System. I found this really interesting and it sparked a Twitter conversation with the most learned of my fellow content management professionals - Philippe Parker (@proops) and Zahoor Hussain (@izahoor) and I started to feel that 140 chars wasn't cutting it and was inspired to blog. [ read more ]

As you probably know, last week I left Alterian, a marketing platform vendor (who just over 18 months ago acquired my previous WCM vendor employer Mediasurface) for The Gilbane Group. Whilst, I'm accustomed to change, in the last twenty two years (OK, I started young and didn't get an education!) I've only worked for five different employers (and the first eight years was as a public servant) - every year has thrown up new opportunities and change. (I've written a little bit about the start of my career here). But this is different, I am really excited about making a significant, possibly life changing move - having spent the last 15 years representing a vendor - I'm leaving the tribes and just maybe becoming a real boy. [ read more ]

As a fresh new broom sweeps through my professional life as I transition from years of vendor representation to that of an analyst - I've changed the title of my blog  (and the URL). I'll obviously write more on my move - but more importantly - changing the name of my blog? Why 'Hovering Over The Back Button'? [ read more ]

The perennial "what is a CMS" debate broke out this week, with a fairly innocuous tweet from Dirk Shaw, "I am sorry but wordpress is hardly a web content management system." that many of our CMS community waded into and included this post on CMS Myth arguing in favour and just about everyone arguing against... and crikey I might  not be standing next to my on-line friends on this - now Dirk knows what he's talking about, as a Vignette alumnus and blogger, maybe the key to the phrase he used is the word 'hardly' - could I suggest we should say 'barely''? [ read more ]

I think we can safely say that the last two week have been quite lively for Alterian Content Manager, as after an incubation with partners, customers and analysts we took our product strategy and roadmap to the social web. I've tweeted, interviewed, commented, posted and now (finally) blogged our message to the CMS community – I say “we took” but @janusboye certainly had a hand in igniting it. [ read more ]