Persuasive Content

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 ]

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 ]

As part of preparation for a presentation he gave yesterday at Jboye '09 - a few days ago Jon Marks set a challenge to his Twitter community; to give him examples of where Web Content Management fails. I admit I am not at the JBoye event, so I have missed seeing Jon in action - but as a blogger on this sort of thing, let alone as a WCM vendor it would be rude to ignore the wealth of great points this process threw up. As Jon crowd sourced his presentation content, seemingly every element of a CMS procurement and project got a mention. [ read more ]

I admit I am a big Google advocate, I have spent a fair amount of time at their cool European HQ In London, at partner events and I even coded the first shipped iteration of our Google Search Appliance Connector (thankfully now looked after by proper developers!). Also, I admit I've only spent a few hours with Google's latest offerings, SideWiki and Wave, but I have the feeling of being in a privileged walled garden, rather than on the crest of a mainstream wave. Why does is it feel like that? [ 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 ]

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 ]

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? Folks seem to have merely scribbled out yesterday’s out of favour term ‘Web 2.0’ and inked in ‘Engagement’ and are using it as a label for community building; social media web tools – like blogs, wikis and comments. [ read more ]