Gilbane SF Keynote: Engaging Beyond the Enterprise

The Gilbane conference is about content management, of course. But this year, it’s apparently also all about the people. Frank Gilbane made a quick appearance this morning to acknowledge the people. The facts: This year‘s audience represents 16 different countries and a variety of different industries; a melting pot of people.

Kicking us off from this new angle as the first keynote speaker was Kumar Vora, vice president and general manager of Enterprise, Adobe (news, site).

Adobe Livecycle, Adobe’s integrated server solution that blends data capture, information assurance, document output, process management and content services, was the product of choice. But rather than diving straight into the hoo-has and doo-dads and razzle dazzle of the solution, Vora started with a bit of advice to get us into the right mindset: “The center of the universe has to be the person you are serving, not the content you are managing.”

Understandably, we weren’t immediately convinced. Vora continued by explaining that the typical way of looking at a customer, in a 360 degree view as if they are “inside a formaldehyde jar,” isn’t what we should be doing. Instead, he suggested we “look at a 360 view of the enterprise from the vantage point of the customer.”

Why? According to Vora, the enterprise is seeing that the line between web content management and website management is quickly blurring, and what better way to address the intertwining of all of the related processes than to make one single solution that gets the job done with user experience on the highest pedestal?

The second piece of advice he gave began with a question a colleague of his had asked him recently: "When is everyone going to wake up and get into content management?”

Now we’re talkin’.

Vora explained that if you want to improve said user experience, you have to focus on content management, because it’s everywhere. This is the part where we danced around and threw mini parties in our heads.

Vora used media, business processes, social trends and the growing desire to collaborate, collaborate, collaborate as examples of the facets of our Web lives that are backed by content management — virtually all of them. “Content management is implicit in the things that we do,” Vora said. “It’s a part of the fabric.” According to Adobe, Livecycle addresses this. Although, Vora also made a point to say, “We’re not taking over content management. We’re just nibbling at the edges a bit.”

Some final points of advice on Adobe’s end for addressing our changing landscape:

• Consider the impact of people’s desire to collaborate
• Understand how generational shifts are impacting your business
• Identify areas for collaborating beyond your enterprise
• Where practical, enable your customers to participate

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Tags: adobe, events, gilbane, gilbanesf, livecycle, web cms

The Gilbane conference is about content management, of course. But this year, it’s apparently also all about the people. Frank Gilbane made a quick appearance this morning to acknowledge the people. The facts: This year‘s audience represents 16 different countries and a variety of different industries; a melting pot of people.

Kicking us off from this new angle as the first keynote speaker was Kumar Vora, vice president and general manager of Enterprise, Adobe (news, site).