Recently in Gilbane Boston 2006 Category

The recording from our December 13th webinar, "How Sun takes Brands and Solutions to the Global Marketplace" is now available here.

Many thanks to Kristen Harris, .Sun Content Management Engineering Manager, for an excellent discussion of Sun Microsystems' Starlight Platform for content and translation management. The companion case study is available here.

Our informal poll during the webinar on the most significant business drivers for providing localized content to customers yielded some interesting results:

Brand management and presence in emerging markets (examples given were India and China) were primary drivers for the audience. It's not surprising to see emerging markets in the number 2 position since the U.S. market is essentially saturated for many industries. It's also validating to note brand management in the number 1 position. Much of our webinar discussion focused the value of content within the global customer experience. Clearly, that's not a "foreign concept" for companies focused on improving multinational revenue profiles. The significance of consistent and contextual content was front and center for this audience, as it should be.

I had the pleasure of moderating the Content Globalization Workflows session at last week's Gilbane Boston conference. Although we were the last session on the last day, the room was filled with interactive participants with very specific issues and questions. The underlying theme? The act of translation is not the "stress-buster" for globalization projects. It's the process. Managing it, understanding it, aligning it, integrating it -- you name it. Globalization has process-centric red flags from the get-go.

The good news is that globalization as a recognized enterprise business practice continues to gain traction. In fact, our audience cited "global, simultaneous product shipments" as one of the most distinct and well-understood business drivers at the executive and cross-departmental levels. Even better, there are achievable, significant cost savings to be had. The description of a first-year, $2.4 million savings realized by GE Healthcare was impressive, to say the least. Many thanks to Jeanette Eichholz, a Leader in the Global Ultrasound User Documentation group, for sharing her story.

The Gilbane Group is working to keep the subject of globalization in the spotlight as a key issue for 2007 to help organizations understand that cost savings is actually only the cusp of the benefits. Rapid market reach, consistent brand management, and increased customer satisfaction are equally viable, and more importantly, quantifiable.

To that end, join us for our December 13th webinar, "How Sun Takes Brands and Solutions to the Global Marketplace." Sponsored by Interwoven and SDL International, understanding Sun's success factors will be a valuable learning experience for any organization with globalization on the agenda.

Date: 13th December, 2006
Time: 8:30 Pacific, 11:30 Eastern, 16:30 GMT, 17:30 Central Europe
Duration: 1 hour
Register here.

There's still time to add your voice to our survey on Content Globalization.

Thursday's Content Globalization Workflows panel includes speakers from Idiom Technologies, LISA (Localization Industry Standards Association), LinguaLinx, and General Electric.

Topics to be covered include: globalization business drivers, the impact of market consolidation, achieving process management and project management, defining "unified globalization management," and best practices. Hope to see you there!

There is a post over on our events blog listing the top questions from the survey we are conducting for the "Future of Content Management" debate on Wednesday morning at the conference this week. The full results so far are published here.

You may have noticed we haven't posted here as much about Gilbane Boston as we have about our previous events. That's because we now have a special Events Blog. Although we will still mention important announcements here, we plan to keep posts on this blog focused on analysis and industry discussions, which may include opinions on conference sessions etc. The Events Blog, on the other hand, is set-up so that any of our conference team can post anything, including our event announcements, press releases, deadlines, discount offers, and all other promotional news. Other useful permanent event links are our Conference Overview page, and our Speaker Submission and Guidelines page. See the latest post on Gilbane Boston at http://gilbane.com/eventsblog/.

In preparation for our panel on Content Globalization Workflows on Thursday November 30th at our Boston conference, we have created a survey to gauge how organizations are dealing with increasing market demand for localized content.

We hope to see you at this session. But whether you join us or not, contribute to it by answering our survey questions. We'll publish the results in a blog entry after the conference, including the results from our audience survey. Give us your input and you'll be eligible to win a free conference pass for one of our future conferences!

Here is a short URL to the survey you can share with others: http://tinyurl.com/yjy694

Here's what we'd like to know:
1. Which issue is your most pressing business driver for providing localized content to your customers?
2. Who is responsible for purchasing translation software in your organization?
3. What is the most difficult challenge within your localization processes?
4. Do you have one or more content/document management systems in house?
5. Do you have one or more translation management systems in house?
6. If you do not have a translation management system in house, who do you work with to manage your translation processes?
7. If you have both a content/document and a translation management system in house, are they integrated?
8. If the systems are integrated, select the most appropriate description of the integration.

In preparation for our opening keynote at our Boston conference in a couple of weeks, we have created a survey to help fuel the debate on the future of content management. The list below is what we are starting with. Of course we won't have time to address all these questions. That is why we want you to tell us which of them are the most interesting to you. To vote, simply go to the online survey. There is also a spot on the survey where you can add questions we haven't listed. One lucky voter will win a free conference pass to one of our future events. By the way, you don't have to attend the event to vote, and we, and others, will be blogging about the results of the questions.

Here is a short URL to the survey you can share with others: http://tinyurl.com/uo3f8

1. What are the top 3 technologies that must be considered in any content management strategies in the next 12-24 months?
2. How will the new SharePoint Server's CM capability affect the CM market?
3. Are search "platforms" going to replace CMSs as the primary user entrance to content repositories?
4. Is there such a thing as "Web 2.0", is there a Content Management 2.0"? If so, what are they?
5. How will Blog and Wiki tools be used in enterprise content applications? How are they being used today?
6. Does social software tagging or "folksonomy" have a role to play in enterprise content applications?
7. What is the number one advantage, and the number one disadvantage of each of the approaches represented on the panel (ECM suite, CM application, infrastructure CM, hosted CM, open source CM)?
8. How is widespread adoption of RSS/Atom going to affect content delivery? And what does this mean to enterprise content management or publishing strategies?
9. If we had this same panel next year, which of the companies on the panel would not be here? Why?
10. Which other technologies associated with Vista and Office 2007 are important for enterprise content or publishing applications?
11. Are there authoring tools on the horizon that are both user-friendly and capable of authoring for both electronic and print output?
12. How will Oracle's acquisition of Stellent change Oracle's approach to CM solutions and their relationship with their CM partners?
13. What is the future of software as a service, and is it appropriate for enterprise content applications like content management, authoring, etc.?
14. How are translation and localization requirements affecting content management strategies and what changes in technology and strategic direction can we expect in next year or two?
15. Is there any breakthrough search technology on the horizon that will affect intranet or extranet applications in the next 18 months?
16. How will the tension between content control and collaboration be resolved? Or will it?
17. Are there any breakthrough classification or metadata tagging technologies on the horizon that will significantly impact content management strategies?
18. Is there a future for stand-alone BPM products? Or will they be integrated into ECM and other enterprise applications?
19. What infrastructure technololgies might we see in the next 18 months that will affect enterprise content applications?

Cast your vote!

I bet that question made a lot of you cringe and start down a guilt spiral of rationalizations about why your web site isn't really quite what you wish it was. If you have a bad web site, it's because your organization is producing a bad web site. And no one who is visiting your site cares why. They don't care about the bickering between marketing and IT over web site control. They don't care about the 18-month argument about who gets a link on the homepage, or about the 30 years of history which makes it "impossible" for all the various programs and offices in your organization to cooperate in order to create the integrated web presence that your site visitors long for. They don't care. But, everyday they are clicking away on your site, frustrated, trying to do business with your organization and trying to get information from your organization. And your organization continues to dither. By rationalizing low quality, you are prioritizing your organization's bad habits over your customer's and constituent's needs.

For a business or an organization with a clearly articulated mission, the intent and purpose of its web site(s) should be obvious--expressed most clearly as a high quality web product. The mission should also be front and center for those producing the organization's web site(s)- expressed as a coherent set of strategic policies and tactical standards for web site product development. But, we all know this is seldom the case. Web site quality is frequently at the mercy of some set of ill-thought-out, status quo web production processes and a lack of strategic oversight by senior management. All this for what is most likely the first point of contact for individuals interacting with your organization.

Leonor is quoted extensively in "The Rocket Science of Technology Procurement," a piece on fallout from a recent bid process at NASA. Leonor addresses a few of the larger issues associated with acquisition, such as the trade-off between going with existing solutions versus introducing new technology. On the one hand, incumbents have established relationships and "processes [that are] deeply entrenched in a buyer's infrastructure." On the other hand, alternative solutions can bring new and different capabilities that enable true innovation in addition to improved efficiencies.

Leonor also points out that while choices may be made jointly by business and IT, the two groups are not always in agreement. A timely observation, as more and more suppliers of content technologies add new features that make it possible for business users to bypass IT and control content themselves.

Strategies for dealing effectively with the tensions surrounding technology acquisition will be one of the topics that we'll cover during the analyst debate on Wed, Nov 29, at Gilbane Boston 2006. Add a comment to this entry with acquisition issues you'd like our panel of experts to address, or send mail to mary@gilbane.com.

As analysts and consultants, we see the phrase "web customer experience" everywhere -- in vendor briefings, supplier positioning statements, service offerings from integrators, RFPs issued by enterprise adopters. With such ubiquitous use, just what does "web customer experience" mean these days?

We all have web experiences when buying music, paying bills, booking travel, accessing our corporate intranets. We all have stories about experiences that are good, bad, and just plain ugly. What separates the experiences that satisfy from those that don't?

On October 12, we address this issue in a web event on content relevancy as the core requirement for good online experiences. In a panel discussion format, Jeff Ernst (FatWire), Bryant Shea (Molecular), and Paul Sonderegger (Endeca) talk about what it takes to serve up relevant content that satisfies customers while meeting the needs of the business. You can register here.

We're also exploring content relevancy in a Gilbane Boston session entitled "Creating High-Value Customer Experience" on Thursday, November 30.

Whether you're attending the webinar or the conference, we invite your questions and comments on good online experiences and the role of content. Send mail to mary@gilbane.com or post a comment to this entry.