Content Management Matters ™

The very last panel I attended at the Gilbane Conference in San Francisco was also one that I had the privilege of moderating. Our topic was the big hot topic of the conference: how to integrate social networking features into the enterprise and whether or not they can co-exist happily with a content management system. Specifically in our panel's case, we talked about Facebook's utility. The net takeaway from our panel was -- it's all about the platform; Facebook matters because of its ability to integrate outside applications.

After navigating the murky lands of translation and globalizing content, I attended a panel at Gilbane that was a detailed look at XML and its importance in content management. The overall message I left with at the end was that XML was "tremendous technology" and as one panelist put it, "the most important integration tool in software today".

Yesterday I attended a panel on everyone's favorite topic: how to bring Social Computing concepts into the enterprise moderated by Geoffrey Bock, a lead analyst for the Gilbane Group. Panelists included Ross Mayfield, Founder, SocialText; David Hersh, CEO, Jive Software, Ed Cuoco, Co-founder, Spathe and Rusty Williams, SVP Product Planning, Mzinga.

Next up on our coverage of the Gilbane Conference in San Francisco was the "mini keynote" for the "Web Content Management" track which was a panel discussion with some big names in the WCM space, moderated by Tony White, a Lead Analyst for the Gilbane Group.

The panelists present were Yogesh Gupta, President and CEO of FatWire; Erik Aeyelts Averink, of SDL Tridion; Bjarne Hansen, President, Sitecore USA; David Graham, CIO, Vignette and Jim Howard, CEO of CrownPeak. The first round of the panel consisted of each panelist discussing what they thought were the most pressing issues when picking a potential Web CMS provider.

The Gilbane Group has delivered a new report on the use of Social Media in the Enterprise. The report, called Collaboration and Social Media 2008- Taking Stock of Today's Experiences and Tomorrow's Opportunities includes a survey of medium and large American organizations, case studies and a vendor catalog.

What we learn from reading the report is that social media applications are slowly supplementing the existing collaboration technologies -- email, websites and shared workspaces -- within organizations today and that vertical social media solutions are emerging to help them work smarter.

Much like The Simpsons' Troy McClure, you may know that group called Gilbane from the myriad of conferences and fact-filled newsletters which they've so graciously provided to those of us who are content management practitioners.

Not content to bask in the glow of their triumphs, Gilbane has added yet another blog to their notable stable -- XML Technologies & Content Strategies is here to cast the light on our XML foibles.

Gilbane San Francisco 2008, the annual West Coast shindig for Web CMS and myriad other geekage, is currently accepting proposals for panels and presentations. Your stable of appropriate topics may include:

• Web CMS
• Enterprise wikis, collaboration, blogging (erg)
• Content globalization and localization
• "Enterprise 2.0," enterprise search, or semantic technologies
• Enterprise CMS
• Digital rights management
• Publishing technology

(Guys, please don't make this a Twitter-fest.)

Your deadline is January 15, 2008. Hurry and submit a proposal.

The conference will take place at Westin Market Hotel, San Francisco, from June 17-19. Marketh thy calendars.

Global CMS and infrastructure purveyor Day Software has announced plans to air its suite of Web 2.0 offerings at Gilbane Boston from 27-29 November.

You can catch it all at the Westin Copley, where the Gilbane Boston conference has oft been held.

Trying to work out how to bring innovation to the archaic practice of document imaging?

Prick your ears up for this webinar sponsored by KnowledgeLake. It takes place on Thursday November 8, 12 PM CCT.

Listen in as Bill Trippe of Gilbane and Bob Bueltmann of KnowledgeLake discuss the practical aspects of SharePoint, enterprise CMS and various platform strategies. The event is sponsored by KnowledgeLake.

Register with them. When you do, you'll receive a white paper on SharePoint and the "platform approach" to document imaging solutions, courtesy of the smart folk at Gilbane.

Some time ago Forrester pointed out that the biggest obstacle to "realizing ROI with (Enterprise) web CMS projects" is the failure of users to adopt the product and integrate it into their daily work lives.

Does that sound surprising? Probably not.

Here's the real surprise: we can guide users to more productive behavior. Gilbane Group promises to show us how.

But to get there, prepare to think long and hard about web usability; in particular, how it can bring users what they want.

Mary Laplante of The Gilbane Group will discuss state-of-the-art content practices for technical publications during a free, interactive one-hour webinar.

The event, sponsored by Idiom Technologies and EMC, will feature interviews by Bill Rabkin, Globalization Evangelist at Idiom and EMC Senior Product Marketing Manager Greg Dierickse.

How does one organization manage the business development, content-building and IT challenges associated with managing multiple Web properties without falling flat on its face in a pool of lawsuits and unnecessary expenses?

There isn't really an easy answer, but it helps to get guidance from eagle-eye analysts and organizations who've been there and succeeded. The Gilbane Group and Oracle join forces to bring forth Multiple Web Sites: Driving You Crazy, or Driving Your Business?, a webcast for addressing business challenges in deploying and managing multiple websites.