Persuasive Content

Last week I was proud to be voted onto the board at CM Pros, to join a pretty new board under the presidency of Scott Liewehr to take this respected community of practice organisation forward. It's something we've been talking about for six months or so and  one look at the industry heavy weights that have been there before gives me an idea of the responsibility ahead for all of us and these are exciting and challenging times for both membership organisations and the discipline of content management. [ 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 ]

It was recently reported in New Media Age, picked up by the Hubspot blog that Coca-Cola were moving their campaign sites from "traditional" websites to social media platforms and they are not alone, Pepsi recently created a stir as they announced a move from big budget Super Bowl ads to investing in their social media community. So what does this mean for "traditional" web content management? [ read more ]

Last week I attended the Gilbane Conference in Boston and have finally found a few minutes to blog about it, we exhibited and I was invited to speak in a couple of sessions and as I'd been contributing to the 'back channel' through Twitter (#gilbaneboston) I thought I'd expand on some of the those thoughts. First observation is a personal one - this was the first event  that I'd been to where there were a lot of people that know me through this blog or twitter - and initially it was slightly unnerving having people leap straight into conversation with me and thank you to everyone that did. Then there was the flip side - of scanning the room (or the bar!) feeling that "I'm sure I know that guy/girl" and then trying to spot who was who from their twitter avatars, scrolling through hundreds of Twitter profiles on my Blackberry (and of colleagues joining in). The place was packed with people I follow and that follow me, Tweetdeck had sprung to life. I'm not naturally a stroll up to everyone and say "Hi" kind of chap - so I didn't speak to all of them - but it was a pleasure to meet the ones I finally did. [ read more ]

Today we embarked on an interesting social media challenge, a few folks that I've started to hang out with virtually (and more recently in the pub) agreed to meet at a designated time in a Google Wave and set about writing a blog post - in an hour. There was no pre-determined title, no prep, just a blank bit of virtual paper and half a dozen scribblers… [ read more ]

I smiled at this the other day -"Software Developers: The New Rock Stars of Marketing" - it comes from the article  'Out of the Box' published a few weeks ago in the UK Financial Times, that talks about the role of technology in marketing in the new media age. The smile is because this is pinned up on the kitchen noticeboard in our Bristol office and that phrase is highlighted (can someone explain why developers always sit nearest the kitchen?). So has the geek inherited the earth? Well, marketing anyway... [ read more ]

CMS bloggers of the world have been double dared again, not this time by @kasthomas, but by Julian Wraith (@julianwraith)- who in this post wants the CMS community to gaze into our crystal balls and speculate on the future of Content Management.I think the Future of Content Management is about people. Is that too predictable, does this mean I am going to wang on about ease of use? [ read more ]

A couple of weeks ago Alterian aquired Techrigy who specialize in Social Media Monitoring and whilst its obviously exciting to be part of an organisation that is confidently aquiring and growing - it's even better when it's an absolutely gem that has everyone talking. So, I thought I'd better jot down a few thought on this - what does Social Media Monitoring mean for Web Content Management? [ read more ]

When reading and talking about Social Media I see a lot of conversations about Personal Brand. Discussion about strategies, building and maintaining your 'PB', of who you should try to be, who defines your PB (is it you, your audience, your company?), when, in real life, whisper it quietly, the aspiration for most people I talk to is, "Not wanting to looking like a total c**k". [ read more ]

Had a few interesting experiences with commenting on blogs recently that got me thinking about blog comments and its still pretty patchy how we are approaching it. They are the essential lifeblood of audience engagement, especially for bloggers as they take the experience from a click statistic to a conversation. [ read more ]