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We've been adding content about mobile app development and publishing for a couple of years. We will be adding a full track threaded through the entire conference to our next event, but this year's Gilbane Boston has quite a few sessions covering aspects of mobile development and content management relevant to Web, marketing/business, IT strategists, and developers.

In fact, we have a sort of a stealth mobile track - stealth, because the sessions are spread out across other tracks. To make it easier to plan schedules for those of you specifically interested in doing more with smartphones and tablets, below are five sessions that are the most directly relevant to mobile. There are other sessions that also cover mobile topics, so be sure to check the overall conference at-a-glance schedule and session descriptions. 

Stealth Mobile Track:

T1: Mobile Development: App, Mobile Web, or Hybrid? 

Wednesday, November 30, 1:30 - 2:30

You know mobile is becoming the dominant channel, but of course it is actually multiple channels - multiple devices with multiple APIs, form factors, interfaces and capabilities. Do you optimize for each device? Do you try and build a mobile web application? Do you mix it up with a little bit of both? This session will help you understand the pros and cons of different approaches.

Moderator: Jon Marks, Co-founder, Kaldor Product Development Group

Jon Marks, Co-founder, Kaldor Product Development Group

Introduction

Ashley Streb, 
Vice President, Technology, Brightcove

Hybrid Position

Stefan Andreasen, 
CTO Kapow

Browser Position

Philip Ramsey
, Manager, Technical Design, BNA 

App Position   
  

P2. iPad Publishing and UI Design

Wednesday, November 30, 2:40 - 4:00

With smartphones and tablets exploding in usage, publishers are racing to deliver content to new types of users who are expecting rich, interactive experiences. Yet publishers are often dependent on third parties who can create these apps for them. This session delves into how some of the standard publishing apps work, and how developers create some of the more advanced features that users are demanding.

Moderator: Ned May, Vice President & Lead Analyst, Outsell

Jim Nasr
, CEO, Armedia

Best Practices for Developing Content Rich Applications for the iPad

Michael Mahoney, 
Senior User Experience Specialist, Microlink

Information as Design 
  

T3. Is HTML5 the Future - If so, When? 

Wednesday, November 30, 4:00 - 5:00

HTML5 enjoys widespread partial support. That is, the major browsers support some HTML5 functionality, and Mozilla, Google, Microsoft, and Apple support it politically. HTML5 promises lots of important new capabilities, but it is an ongoing development is scheduled to become a W3C recommendation in 2014. Many organizations are already using HTML5 for app development, but should they? Is it too soon?

Moderator: Richard Rubin, Principal Consultant, Professional Services, Innodata Isogen

Lubor Ptacek
, VP, Strategic Marketing & GM, Microsoft Solutions Group, Open Text

Phillip Hyun, 
CTO, EndPlay
  

E5. Thinking Beyond the Website - Mobile and Other Channels Deserve Your Attention Too

Thursday, December 1, 9:40 - 10:40

As phones and other mobile devices get "smarter", so must marketers get smarter about their multi-channel strategies. It used to be acceptable for brands to focus on their desktop browser experience, and then, at some point, dumb them down by removing flash, videos, and all the other extras so that prospective customers could view the website on their phones. But this strategy is no longer viable. The Splinternet Age brings not only smart phones, but also tablets, mobile applications, social sites, and wifi-ready televisions just to name a few. As more and more consumers seek to experience your brand through these mediums, having a strong multi-channel strategy is essential.

Moderator: Scott Liewehr, Senior Consultant, Web Content Management, Outsell's Gilbane Services



Arje Cahn
, CTO, Hippo 

Tom Wentworth, 
CMO, Ektron

New Reality - Mobile First

Michael Assad
, Co-founder & CEO, Agility

Content Management for Digital Marketing: Thinking Beyond the Website
 

The day before the main conference we also have a pre-conference workshop covering important issues for mobile customer engagement:

Workshop B: Integrating Website and Mobile Strategy for Consistent Customer Engagement
Wednesday, November 29, 9:00 - 12:00

You’ve heard all the talk about web engagement management. You’ve read about web and content optimization for contextual consumption. You may even have preached to others about the rise of mobile-, social-, and personal-ization. We suppose you could even be doing some of these successfully, but we doubt it. These are just a few a few of the sexiest, most contemporary practices that everyone likes to talk about but no one is really doing… but they should. 

In this workshop, renowned author and digital marketing expert Robert Rose teams up with industry analyst and web content management expert Scott Liewehr to teach you how to realize true web engagement across web and mobile channels for your organization. Robert and Scott will teach attendees how to integrate content optimization into the marketing process by pragmatically focusing on three of the primary aspects of web engagement: testing, targeting and contextual design. The workshop walk attendees through a step-by-step approach to each practice, focusing on both the marketing process implications as well as the implementation and operationalization aspects. Web engagement management is more process than technology, so while you may not be able to buy it in a box, you can learn an awful lot about how to implement it in three entertaining, fun-filled and educational hours.

 Attendees will also receive Robert's brand new book, co-authored with Joe Pulizzi: Managing Content Marketing: The Real-World Guide for Creating Passionate Subscribers to Your Brand. 

Instructors: Scott Liewehr, Lead Analyst WCM, Outsell Gilbane, and Rob Rose, Chief Troublemaker, Big Blue Moose 

Register for the conference, workshop, or both (speaking of mobile ... note a Conference Plus registration includes the Workshop also includes a new Kindle Fire tablet.

We are going to have fun with the keynotes this year with our new rapid-fire format. You won't want to miss any of it so be sure to get their early enough for a good seat. Also, please remember that after seven years at the Westin at Copley Place we have moved to a roomier spot at the Westin Waterfront at 425 Summer Street. You could easily lose 45 minutes by showing up at the wrong hotel!

K1. Opening Keynotes: Big Ideas - Bold Statements
Wednesday, November 30, 8:30 - 10:00 & 11:00 - 12:00

Our keynotes are designed to inspire, provoke, and provide perspective on the big issues, trends, and shifting foundation of technologies, digital strategies, and channels for communication and engagement. Our keynote sessions this year will use a rapid-fire format. Each speaker will focus on describing a single big idea or making a bold statement that will help us think a little differently about our use or expectations of content and content technologies. Presentations are limited to 10-15 minutes with 5 minutes for Q&A. Use of slides will be minimal.

Moderator: Frank Gilbane

Christos M. Cotsakos, Ph.D.
Founding Chairman, CEO & President, EndPlay
Christer Johnson 
Partner, North American BAO Advanced Analytics Leader, IBM Global Business Services
Georgiana Cohen 
Manager, Web Content and Strategy, Tufts University & Co-founder, Meet Content
Maureen Chew 
Chief Applications Officer, Information Technology Division, Commonwealth of MA
Stephen Powers 
Principal Analyst & Research Director, Forrester Research
Tony Byrne
Founder, Real Story Group & CMS Watch
Scott Liewehr 
Lead Analyst, Web Content Management, Outsell Gilbane Services & President, Content Management Professionals Assoc.

Registration information

The program for our annual Boston event is about 98% complete. We have a great keynote line-up with more to come, 30 additional conference sessions, 6 pre-conference workshops, and 12 product labs. Other useful links are sponsors & exhibitors, speakers, registration, and hotel. Note that we moved from the Westin Copley to the Waterfront Westin this year to be in the new Boston Innovation District and fast-growing Seaport / Fort Point Channel neighborhoods.

I hadn't planned this post on trends but ended-up creating a list for a colleague who was helping a client, and I was definitely overdue to post something. These are in no particular order, and there is a lot more to say about each of them. There are other trends of course, but these are especially relevant to our coverage of content technologies and to Outsell/Gilbane clients.

• Marketing and IT continue to learn how to work together as marketing assumes a bigger role in control of digital technology for all customer engagement.
• Content strategy gets more respect.
• Mobile confusion reigns - which platforms, which formats, apps vs. mobile web and which apps make sense, what workflows, etc. 
• "Extreme multi-channel" publishing reality hits. You thought web plus print was a challenge?
• Enterprise applications start including mobile and don't look back.
• "Apps" approach to software distribution expands beyond mobile.
• The line between pads and notebooks blurs in both user interface and function.
• Spending on digital channels continues to grow ahead of curve.
• Enterprise social platform growth stagnates, consumer social platforms continue to grow, but with little direct application to enterprise beyond feature or UI ideas.
• Business model experimentation accelerates in content businesses.

Last week I was pleased to have my second paper published here at Gilbane "Content and the Next-Generation PortalExperience" that you can now register for and download (for free) from the Beacon area of our website.

For many organizations, access to back office services is becoming an essential part of the experience they need to provide their website visitors.Their external websites form the front line of customer service and their Intranets play a vital role in employee engagement as the expectations rise for both audiences on what they can do over the web. In the paper I discuss how a portal infrastructure can be a natural fit for providing this blend of relevant services and content and there is an opportunity for organizations to shift their portal infrastructure from internal workhorse to a contemporary services interface.

The downside, as many organizations have discovered is that a portal implementation can come at the cost of the primary fuel of web engagement - good quality, fresh, relevant content. In the paper I look at the reasons for behind that and suggest a possible solution of adding a contemporary web content management system.

Like any enterprise integration, the fusing together of a portal platform and a WCM has it's own risks, principally that the resulting solution does nothing to improve the lot of the content author as it has the potential to expose these business users to multiple interfaces and complex processes. In the paper I go on to take a look at how to avoid and mitigate these risks, with the advice on some key attributes organizations need to look for when selecting the WCM system.

I hope you enjoy the paper and I'd very much like to hear your feedback - either here or you can find me on Twitter (@iantruscott)

The paper is now available from the Beacon area of our website and from e-Spirit, who sponsored the paper. You can also register for a webinar that e-Spirit will be hosting on 10th February 2011 during which I will be talking through the main points of the paper.  

LinkedIn today announced Signal, a new feature (currently in beta) that lets members see an activity stream that combines LinkedIn status updates and Twitter posts from other members who have opted-in to the feature. LinkedIn has licensed the Twitter firehose to incorporate all of its members' tweets into the site, not just tweets with the #in hashtag embedded, as is current practice.

While it is hard to imagine anyone other than corporate and independent talent recruiters will make LinkedIn their primary Twitter client, Signal does have an element that is worthy of emulation by other social networks and enterprise social software providers that incorporate an activity stream (and which of those does not these days!) That feature is role-specific filters.

I wrote previously in this post about the importance of providing filters with which individuals can narrow their activity stream. I also noted that the key is to understand which filters are needed by which roles in an organization. LinkedIn apparently gets this, judging by the screenshot pictured below.

Notice the left-hand column, labeled "Filter by". LinkedIn has most likely researched a sample of its members to determine which filters would be most useful to them. Given that recruiters are the most frequent users of LinkedIn, the set of filters displayed in the screenshot makes sense. They allow recruiters to see tweets and LinkedIn status updates pertaining to LinkedIn members in specific industries, companies, and geographic regions. Additionally, the Signal stream can be filtered by strength of connection in the LinkedIn network and by post date.

The activity stream of every enterprise social software suite (ESS) should offer such role-based filters, instead of the generic ones they currently employ. Typical ESS filtering parameters include individuals, groups or communities, and workspaces. Some vendors offer the ability to filter by status as a collaborator on an object, such as a specific document or sales opportunity. A few ESS providers allow individuals to create custom filters for their activity stream. While all of these filters are helpful, they do not go far enough in helping individuals narrow the activity stream to view updates needed in a specific work context.

The next logical step will be to create standard sets of role-based filters that can be further customized by the individuals using them. Just as LinkedIn has created a filter set that is useful to recruiters, ESS providers and deploying organizations must work together to create valuable filter sets for employees performing specific jobs and tasks. Doing so will result in increased productivity from, and effectiveness of, any organization's greatest asset – it's people.

I am delighted that I’ve just completed my first solo paper here as an analyst: Looking Outside the CMS Box for Enterprise Website Governance. I say solo, but I ought to start by saying I’m grateful for having had a great deal of support from Mary Laplante as my reform from vendor to analyst continues. 

This paper has allowed me to pick at a subject that I’ve long had in the back of my mind, both in terms of CMS product strategy and of what we, as content management professionals, need to be cognizant of as we get swept up in engaging web experiences – that of corporate content governance. 

When I write and talk about web engagement or the web experience, I often refer to the first impression – that your website meets all of your audience, prospects, customers or citizens. They don’t all see your shiny headquarters building, meet the friendly receptionist or see that you have todays copy of The Times on the coffee table – but they do see your website. 

Mistakes such as a misspelling, an outdated page or a brand inconsistency all reflect badly on your attention to detail. This tarnishes the professionalism of your services, the reliability of your products, and attention you will pay to meeting consumer needs.

Of course, when those lapses are related to compliance issues (such as regulatory requirements and accessibility standards), they can be even more damaging, often resulting in financial penalties and a serious impact on your reputation.

I see this governance as the foundation for any content driven business application, but in this paper we focus on website governance and aim to answer the following questions:

• What are the critical content governance risks and issues facing the organization? 
• Is your CMS implementation meeting these challenges? 
• What solutions are available to address governance needs that are not addressed by CMS? 

The paper is  now available for download from our Beacon library page and from Magus, who sponsored it.

Magus are also presenting business seminars on website governance and compliance  on October 12 in Washington, DC, and October 14 in New York. My colleague Scott Liewehr will be presenting at those events, drawing on the analysis in the Beacon as part of that seminar program. You can learn more about those events and register on the Magus website.

Given the popularity of the presentations / topics at our recent San Francisco conference we are organizing the Boston conference around the same theme (Customers, Collaboration, Content) and tracks (Customers & Engagement, Colleagues & Collaboration, Content Technology, Content Publishing).

You can find out more about what we covered in SF from the GilbaneSF-Tweetstream, from Sue Anne's post below, from the videos before and during the conference, and elsewhere.

See detailed instructions for submitting proposals, and send speaking proposals to speaking@gilbane.com. No sales or marketing presentations please.

The deadline for proposals is June 14, 2010.

The term Cloud Content Management has begun to appear with increasing frequency in the last few months. But what does it mean? And how is it different from Enterprise Content Management (ECM)?

Gilbane Group answers these questions in our latest Beacon, which it titled Cloud Content Management: Facilitating Controlled Sharing of Active Content. Here is how we briefly define Cloud Content Management and contrast it to ECM:

"Cloud Content Management is an emerging set of content sharing and management
practices and a supporting category of software built on an open, secure, cloud-based
platform. It is rapidly deployed and easily used to manage content, in any format, that is
actively shared among collaborators working both inside and across firewalls. Cloud
Content Management is complementary to Enterprise Content Management, which is more
focused on controlling access to static, unstructured content in TIFF, PDF, and office
productivity document formats as it is electronically captured, stored, distributed,
archived, and disposed."

The Gilbane Beacon explores the various facets of this definition and goes into much more detail as to how Cloud Content Management differs from, and complements, ECM. We urge you to download the Beacon (free registration required), read it, then return here to share comments.

Following my post last week on the need for additional filters in enterprise microblogging tools and activity streams, I participated in an interesting Twitter conversation on the subject of microblogging and complexity. The spontaneous conversation began when Greg Lowe, a well-respected Enterprise 2.0 evangelist at Alcatel-Lucent, asked:

"Can stand alone micro-blogging solutions survive when platform plays introduce the feature?"

I immediately replied:

"Yes, if they innovate faster"

Greg shot back:

"is microblogging autonomy about innovation, or simple elegance? More features usually leads to lower usability?"

And, later, he asked a complementary question:

"is there a risk of Microblogging becoming "too complicated"?"

Is Greg on to something here? Do more features usually lead to lower usability? Will functional innovation be the downfall of stand-alone microblogging solutions, or will it help them stay ahead of platform vendors as they incorporate microblogging into their offerings?

One of the commonly heard complaints about software in general, and enterprise software in particular, is that it is too complicated. There are too many features and functions, and how to make use of them is not intuitive. On the other hand, usability is a hallmark of Web 2.0 software, and, if we make it too complex, it is likely that some people will abandon it in favor of simpler tools, whatever those may be.

But that dichotomy does not tell the entire story. Based on anecdotal evidence (there is no published quantitative research available), early adopters of Web 2.0 software in the enterprise appear to value simplicity in software they use. However, as a colleague, Thomas Vander Wal, pointed out to me yesterday, that may not be true for later, mainstream adopters. Ease-of-use may be desirable in microblogging (or any other) software, but having adequate features to enable effective, efficient usage is also necessary to achieve significant adoption. Later adopters need to see that a tool can help them in a significant way before they will begin to use it; marginal utility does not sway them, even if the tool is highly usable.

Simple may not be sustainable. As I wrote last week in this post, as enterprise use of microblogging and activity streams has increased and matured, so has the need for filters. Individuals, workgroups, and communities want to direct micro-messages to specific recipients, and they need to filter their activity streams to increase their ability to make sense out of the raging river of incoming information. Those needs will only increase as more workers microblog and more information sources are integrated into activity streams.

In the public microblogging sphere, Twitter provides a solid example of the need to add functionality to a simple service as adoption grows in terms of registered users and use cases. As more individuals used Twitter, in ways that were never envisioned by its creators, the service responded by adding functionality such as search, re-tweeting, and lists. Each of these features added some degree of complexity to the service, but also improved its usability and value.

In the evolution of any software, there is a trade-off between simplicity and functionality that must be carefully managed. How does one do that? One way is to continuously solicit and accept user feedback. That allows the software provider and organizations deploying it to sense when they are nearing the point where functionality begins to overwhelm ease of use in a harmful manner. Another technique is to roll out new features in small doses at reasonable intervals. Some even advocate slipping new features in unannounced and letting users discover them for themselves. Hosted deployment of software (whether on-premise or off-site) makes this easier to do, since new features are automatically switched on for people using the software.

So back to the original question; can stand-alone microblogging solutions fend off the collaboration suite and platform vendors as they incorporate microblogging and activity streams in their offerings? My definitive answer is "yes", because there is still room for functionality to be added to microblogging before it becomes over-complicated.

Based on the historical evolution of other software types and categories, it is likely that the smaller vendors, who are  intensely focused on microblogging, will be the innovators, rather than the platform players. As long as vendors of stand-alone microblogging offerings continue to innovate quickly without confusing their customers, they will thrive. That said, a platform vendor could drive microblogging feature innovation if they so desired; think about what IBM has done with its Sametime instant messaging platform. However, I see no evidence of that happening in the microblogging sphere at this time.

The most plausible scenario is that at some point, small, focused vendors driving microblogging innovation (e.g. Socialcast, Yammer) will be acquired by larger vendors, who will integrate the acquired features into their collaboration suite or platform. My sense is that we are still 2-3 years away from that happening, because there is still room for value-producing innovation in microblogging.

What do you think?