Engagement – the new CMS buzzword bus?

June 11th, 2009

Suddenly, everyone in the content management world has jumped off the Web 2.0 buzzword bus and jumped on the one marked ‘Engagement’. What does this mean? Where are we really going?

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Ian Engagement

Engaging through Content or just Filing it?

May 11th, 2009

More thoughts on Vignette and OpenText.

The news of OpenText planning to gobble up Vignette and the recent Interwoven acquisition by Autonomy sees a new chapter for these grandees of content management and I think is further evidence in the shifts that have been occurring in this market around Enterprise Content Management and what organisations really want to do. Read more…

Ian Observations, Persuasive Content, Technology

OpenText to Buy Vignette

May 6th, 2009

Good grief, is it true, did I just type that? So it was Interwoven now it’s Vignette as the grandees of our industry slip into new ownership and possible away.  

It’s really too early to comment and as a vendor in the same space, rather than as a partner or analyst, it’s probably not my place to contribute the insightful commentary that existing customers or prospects need right now. I suggest you stroll over to Jon Mark’s blog  and I am sure folks like CMS Watch and Forrester will have something cooking for us in a minute… But, someone suggested I comment and as a shocked Vignette alumnus, I am…

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Ian Observations, Technology

The Social Web - Be yourself… or find someone who is.

April 20th, 2009

I recently read one of the many great blog posts out there that give advice on how companies approach the social web, in this article Kevin Gibbons lays down some basics – have a purpose, write well, be transparent and to basically be nice to your audience.

I made a comment, a suggestion to ‘be yourself’ and then I had a bit of think about it and published this article on our company blog. The theme of which was to either be yourself and come across as a real person, or to find those voices within your organisation that do represent you, your brand, your company to your audience.

I then discovered a nice article on ‘Humanizing Your Brand’ - of how to maintain and sustain those personal on-line brand relationships - which is a nice read if you are contemplating a social web strategy.

Ian Observations

A Meme Challenge - 10 things about me

April 15th, 2009

Kas Thomas has been at it again, this time throwing down a personal meme gauntlet, by sharing 10 things about himself and tagging his blogroll to do the same, but I carelessly tweeted about it and soon him and Irina Guseva tagged me and having been double dared - now I am in.  So… here are 10 things about me… Read more…

Ian Observations

Alterian CMS Meme Response

March 23rd, 2009

At the beginning of last week a CMS ‘meme’ broke out, where CMS vendor bloggers were challenged to reveal something about their products functionality and then tag other vendors to do similar. Day kicked this off from their developer site using a set of questions posted by Kas Thomas at CMS Watch, In this post, I make a belated Alterian contribution. Read more…

Ian Observations, Technology

Build It and they will Build It and they will Build It and they…

March 17th, 2009

Inspired by a blog post by Ron Miller, where he comments on an article by Clay Johnson, that states that Content Management Systems just don’t work and you should seriously consider building one yourself. Really? Clearly with my background this got my attention…

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Ian Observations

“Look! It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive…”

March 9th, 2009

Is your website is a living thing? While I am sure you wouldn’t cast your website in the role of a monster, this classic line from the 1931 Frankenstein film captures that moment, when your website bursts into activity, that blip on your website statistics graph. 

“Look! It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive…”

Of course your website is not a monster – it’s a beautiful thing, someone in the web team has given you a puppy.

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Ian Persuasive Content

Don’t Forget the Reader

February 19th, 2009

So much for the content and our audience - what about the reader? It’s easy to get advice on the content, the tools you should use, the right title, how to leverage the social web, SEO to drive traffic to your site.. etc etc. But… a visitor is not a reader, web analytics will tell you how many people arrived at the site, but statistics say that 2/10 visitors won’t get much further than that catchy title of yours. In this post, I think about the reader - the one that hangs in there and wants to read your content.

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Ian Persuasive Content, Web Design, Writing Content

The Green Content Management Machine

February 13th, 2009

Having been quoted in EContent magazine, discussing the positive impact of CMS on Green Computing strategies, I thought I’d develop this into a fuller blog post. - How do Content Management Systems help with today’s green IT strategies?  In a break to my recent focus on my experience with the Social Web…. it’s back the the CMS. 

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Ian Technology