The Gilbane Advisor archives by date

How to submit a speaking proposal

Review the conference and track descriptions below.

Read the Speaker Guidelines. If you have questions not answered in the guidelines email us at speaking@gilbane.com. Don’t worry too much about which track you suggest for your proposal, unless it is for a post-conference workshop.

And…

The deadline for proposals is June 2, 2017

Conference Description

The Gilbane Digital Content Conference is focused on content and digital experience technologies and strategies for marketing, publishing, and the workplace. We help marketers, IT, business, and content managers integrate content strategies and computing technologies to produce superior customer experiences for all stakeholders.

Track Descriptions

The conference tracks are organized primarily by role/function as described below. We encourage proposals on all relevant topics.

Track C: Content, Marketing, and Customer Experience

Focused on… how to overcome challenges and implement successful strategies and practices to reach, engage, and retain customers with superior content and digital experiences.

Designed for… marketers, marketing technologists, social marketers, content strategists, web content managers, content marketers, content creators and designers, business and technology strategists focused on customer experience and digital marketing.

Track E: Content, Collaboration, and Digital Workplace Experience

Focused on… tools and practices for building agile, information rich, collaborative, and distributed digital workplaces to meet the demands of modern organizations and the changing workforce.

Designed for… content, information, technical, and business managers focused on collaboration, knowledge sharing, intranets, enterprise search, social, and internal, field, and backend content applications.

Track T: Technologies for Content, Marketing, and Digital Experience

Focused on… what you need to know about evolving, and potentially disrupting, content and digital experience technologies for marketing and the workplace.

Designed for… technology strategists and executives focused on near-term and future software for creating, managing, and delivering compelling digital experiences across platforms, channels, and form factors.

Track P: Re-imagining Digital Strategies for Publishing and Media

Focused on… the business and technical challenges facing information, publishing, and media organizations creating, managing, and delivering content across the growing number of competing platforms and channels.

Designed for… publishing and information product managers, marketers, technologists, strategists, and executives focused on digital transformation, new channels and business models, and managing digital assets.

What to do about the chatbot crisis

It’s never been clear that messaging apps had a future as platforms. It is also a stretch to think of voice as a platform, at least in any general purpose sense. In either case it seems like a misuse of ‘platform’. Messaging and chat systems will continue to proliferate because they are relatively simple communication tools with simple interfaces, and because there will always be heavy competition for control of the final short distance to eyes and ears. Even with only 3-4 major platforms, countless use cases, devices, and integrations guarantee severe user experience challenges. (Cartoon by XKCD)

And that’s before adding chatbots to the mix. As amazing as the progress of machine learning is, no none knows when, or perhaps if, a general purpose AI will be available, and the better a general purpose AI gets the more unpredictable and less understandable it will be. John Brandon takes you through his enlightening experience using multiple chatbots daily. Read More

The second coming of IT

It is easy to forget that the center of gravity for commercial computing and software innovation used to be in, mostly large, businesses focused on solving purely business information technology problems. Consumer applications only trickled out slowly after personal computers had been around for awhile. This was mostly due to cost, and capability, not necessarily lack of imagination. Sam Lessin makes the case that for many of the same reasons, businesses will again be the first to benefit at scale from machine learning and AI. Read More

The first decade of augmented reality

This article by Benedict Evans has something in common with the two articles recommended above — that while there are amazing technologies promising profound business and consumer benefits, we are still in the early stages learning what they can do and how to build products and use them. Evans is one of best at asking original questions, 38 in this this post. A sample…

It does seem to me, though, that the more you think about AR as placing objects and data into the world around you, the more that this becomes an AI question as much as a physical interface question. What should I see as I walk up to you in particular? LinkedIn or Tinder? When should I see that new message – should it be shown to me now or later? Do I stand outside a restaurant and say ‘Hey Foursquare, is this any good?’ or does the device’s OS do that automatically? How is this brokered – by the OS, the services that you’ve added or by a single ‘Google Brain’ in the cloud? Read More

Why distribution still matters in the internet age

Abhishek Madhavan cautions about taking the “distribution is free in the digital age” mantra too literally, or out of context. Distribution of physical products is not free, and last mile physical distribution is a critical, sometimes the most important, component of customer experience. Building a digital business that does not include a way to control the cost and physical distribution experience is risky business. Read More

5 data assumptions that marketers should avoid

Brand managers, striving to maximize spend and performance, have an opportunity to embrace advanced marketing analytics and positively impact collaboration, real-time decision-making, and revenue. This starts by removing the perceived barriers to entry for working with data. Read More

Also…

Very cool machine learning aid for those of us drawing-challenged… Fast Drawing for Everyone via Google

A more thoughtful take on the issue than most… We Need More Alternatives to Facebook via Technology Review

It’s complicated. Danny Sullivan digs in… A deep look at Google’s biggest-ever search quality crisis via Search Engine Land

You Don’t Get AMP, it’s more than one thing. via 153.io

A unique and useful resource… Global 5000 Database Update — Q1 2017 via theglobal5000.com

Gilbane Digital Content Conference

Mark your calendar! Call for papers coming soon.

Conference: November 28–29, 2017
Workshops: November 30
Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel, Boston, MA

Frank Gilbane’s Gilbane Advisor curates content for content, computing, and digital experience professionals. See previous issues. Subscribe to email or feed. Contact.

Month: April 2017

Gilbane Digital Content Conference 2017 – Call for Speakers