While not everybody agrees that web content management should be the hub of digital experience management implementations, there should be no doubt it is an essential core component. Certainly the WebCM / CustomerXM / DigitalXM, etc. vendors that started in web content management have an opinion, though there are many nuances in their positioning which are important to understand. Even more interesting is what they have all learned in the past few years while incorporating or integrating other technologies to help their customers build modern digital experiences for customers and employees. Vendor visions and expertise are at least as important as those of analysts, consultants, integrators, agencies, and even your peers.
C7. Building Next Generation Web Content Management & Delivery Digital Experiences – A Panel Discussion
Wednesday, December, 4: 2:00 p.m. – 3:20 p.m.
You probably need to attend every session in the conference to even learn all the questions to ask before embarking on a next generation digital experience strategy and design. In this session a panel of competing vendors will discuss what they see as the critical components and challenges based on their customer’s experiences and feedback, and on their own vision of what is possible. Vendors have lots of valuable experience and information and this is your chance to hear from knowledgeable representatives minus the PowerPoint pitch.
Moderator: Melissa Webster, Program VP, Content & Digital Media Technologies, IDC Panelists: Arjé Cahn, CTO, Hippo Robert Bredlau, COO, e-Spirit Ron Person, Sr. Consultant, Business Optimization Services, Sitecore Russ Danner, Vice President, Products, Crafter Software Loni Stark, Director of Product, Solution & Industry Marketing, Adobe
There are many reasons to be excited about the Internet of Things, a content channel is not usually considered one of them. In fact, the mere suggestion of a need to support one more digital channel is enough to cause many execs to consider a career change, never mind n additional channels, and n is the future.
Many internet things don’t and won’t need to prepare content for direct human consumption, but many will – cars and watches and glasses are just the beginning. The variety of form factors, display technologies, and application requirements will present challenges in user experience design, content strategies, content management and data integration. The session we are spotlighting today will focus on the user experience design challenges, of which there are many.
T7. Have You Talked To Your Refrigerator Today? Content and User Experience Design for the Internet of Smart Things
Wednesday, December, 4: 2:00 p.m. – 3:20 p.m. – The Westin Boston Waterfront
The web is dead. Or is it evolving into the Internet of things? If so, how can we harness the emergence of smart and app-enabled devices, appliances, homes, cars and offices into the digital gene pool? Four senior executives in experience planning and strategy, technology, creative and user experience will provide a point of view on the Internet of smart things and answer key questions, including the following, using real world examples:
How can your smart washing machine, refrigerator and dishwasher be mated with intelligent apps, CRM, and dynamic content management systems to create real-time marketing and ecommerce experiences?
What happens to content strategy and management as app-enabled “playthings” become essential to your work and family life?
What do we do as video baby monitors become digital caretaking, developmental tracking, medical monitoring, and product ordering parent-bots?
What is the optimal customer experience for using voice to simultaneously integrate and operate your car, your mechanic, your GPS, your iPod, your radio, your tablet and your smartphone?
What best practices are needed for creative designers, content strategists, marketers, and user experience designers to create engaging Internet of smart things experiences?
Moderator: Doug Bolin, Associate Director, User Experience Design, Digitas
Panelists: Michael Vessella, Vice President, Director, Experience Design, Digitas Michael Daitch, Vice President, Group Creative Director, Digitas Adam Buhler, Vice President, Creative Technology / Labs / Mobile, Digitas
Many of you will have already seen the program for the upcoming Gilbane Conference, which is organized into four tracks. But with 38 conference sessions and workshops, 90 107 speakers, and the variety of overlapping and related topics associated with content, marketing, and digital experience, it can be challenge choosing which sessions to attend. So in addition to our formal tracks, which are the best place to start, below we have created some informal suggestions for “virtual tracks” based on specific topics. These are meant to help you create your own custom program, but you will still need to check the conference schedule to make sure individual sessions don’t conflict.
Note that the Keynote sessions are not included below since they touch on a wide range of topics and are designed for all attendees.
Formal tracks
See the conference program for details on our formal tracks: Keynotes Track C: Content, Marketing, and the Customer Experience Track E: Content, Collaboration, and Employee Engagement Track T: Re-imagining the Future: Technology and the Postdigital Experience Track P: Digital Strategies for Publishing and Media.
The Economist has been running a conference largely focused on Big Data for three years. I wasn’t able to make it this year, but the program looks like it is still an excellent event for executives to get their hands around the strategic value, and the reality, of existing big data initiatives from a trusted source. Last month’s conference, The Economist’s Ideas Economy: Information Forum 2013, included an 11 minute introduction to a panel on what large companies are currently doing and on how boardrooms are looking at big data today that is almost perfect for circulating to c-suites. The presenter is Paul Barth, managing partner at NewVantage Partners.
We have our own set of speaker guidelines that are specific to our event that we ask all speakers to read. But last week there were two Harvard Business Review posts that provide some of the best advice you can find anywhere on giving a great presentation or moderating an engaging panel. These are must reads for anyone who cares about presentation or moderating skills, and strongly recommended for Gilbane Conference speakers. Even if you are already a speaking pro, each post is likely to give you at least one new idea. See:
Please review the conference and track topics below and submit your speaking proposal.
Conference description
Businesses and organizations of all kinds are struggling to keep up with the dramatic changes and challenges caused by current and near-term future potential of digital technologies. These challenges are enterprise-wide because everybody from customers to employees to partners expects an integrated and compelling digital experience that just works.
Accomplishing an engaging digital experience requires creating and managing compelling content, but also includes measuring how effective the content is, building interfaces that are consistent yet appropriate for multiple mobile channels, and integrating with e-commerce and enterprise systems. None of this should be news, but putting all the technologies and practices together is still largely uncharted or experimental territory for enterprises. Well-informed decisions on digital experience strategies require proactive dialog with experienced peers and industry experts.
At Gilbane conferences we bring together industry experts, content managers, marketers, marketing technologists, technology and executive strategists to share experiences and debate what the most effective approaches and technologies are, and how to implement them. Our theme this year is Manage – Measure – Mobilize, and we have tracks focused on the customer digital experience, employee digital experience, future technologies for digital experiences, and a track on digital strategies for publishers and information providers where we expand our theme to include Monetize.
Main conference tracks
Track C: Content, Marketing, and the Customer Experience
Designed for marketers, marketing technologists, growth hackers, content managers, strategists and technologists focused on customers and digital marketing.
Topics include:
Web content management
Customer experience management & engagement
Digital and postdigital marketing
Inbound & content marketing
Marketing automation
Measuring and analytics: Web, mobile, social, big data
Growth hacking strategies
Mobile challenges & channel priorities
Marketing technologist best practices
Responsive design
Localization & multilingual content management
Content strategies
Cross-channel marketing
E-commerce integration
Search engine strategies
Track E: Content, Collaboration, and Employee Engagement
Designed for content, information, technical, and business managers focused on enterprise social, collaboration, intranet, portal, knowledge, and backend content applications.
Topics include:
Collaboration and the social enterprise
Collaboration tools & social platforms
Enterprise social metrics
Community building & knowledge sharing
Content management & intranet strategies
Enterprise mobile strategies
Content and information integration
Enterprise search and information access
Semantic technologies
Taxonomies, metadata, tagging
Track T: Re-imagining the Future: Technology and the Postdigital Experience
Designed for technology strategists, IT, and executives focused on the future of content and either internal or external digital experiences.
Topics include:
Hybrid cloud content management
Natural language technologies
Haptic and gesture interfaces
Big data platforms and tools
Big data analytics
Visualization
The future of the open web and walled gardens
New mobile operating systems
Beyond desktops
Distributed data, distributed apps – mixing up code and data
Internet of things and digital experiences
Wearable content
Track P: Digital Strategies for Publishing and Media
Designed for publishing and information product managers, marketers, technologists, and business or channel managers focused on the transition to digital products.
Topics include:
Designing for digital products
Business models and monetization
Mixing owned, earned, and bought content
Ad technologies and strategies
App development strategies
HTML5 or no?
Multi-channel publishing
Ebook readers vs tablets
Tablets vs smartphones
Mobile publishing workflows
Matching content to platforms and devices
Submit your speaking proposal. [red]The deadline is June 30th 2013![/red]
Before we get to the spending mentioned in the title, there is some important background to cover. In an email to the Presidential Innovation Fellows program mailing list yesterday and a blog post with Small Business Administration Administrator Karen G. Mills last week, White House CTO Todd Park reported on the progress of a pilot program, RFP-EZ, to make federal government RFPs accessible to small businesses.
In addition to making it easier for small businesses to win federal contracts, a key goal is to save the government money since small business bids are typically lower than larger organizations’. Another significant benefit is that it makes it easier for agencies to purchase from innovative small businesses (since more are bidding). In the technology space especially, small businesses provide the lion’s share of innovation.
So how is this program doing so far? From Park and Mills post:
Applying agile development principles, the Fellows team designed RFP-EZ over a six-month period, publishing the platform’s code openly on GitHub. The team then launched the pilot by posting five relatively simple website development and database contract offerings, four of which were also announced via the standard government portal, FedBizOps. On a per-project basis, bids received through RFP-EZ were consistently lower than those received through FedBizOps—19% to 41% lower, and over 30% lower on average. Bids made through RFP-EZ also showed less overall variation. In addition, during the pilot period, RFP-EZ attracted more than 270 businesses that until now had never approached the world of Federal contracting.
Ok, now for the spending. First of all, note that the OMB says the total 2014 Federal IT budget is $77 billion. If you haven’t seen it yet the OMB IT Dashboard yet it is worth a look, and you can download a spreadsheet that has details on spending by agency and project. Park and Mills also said in their post that:
According to Office of Management and Budget’s IT Dashboard, the Federal Government will spend more than $1.4 billion on Web Infrastructure and Web Content Management Systems in FY 2014. Based on 2011 and 2012 results, we can expect about half of these projects to be under the $150,000 “Simplified Acquisition Threshold” that would make them eligible for contracting through RFP-EZ.
This may not seem like a lot at first glance, but at $150,000 each it would mean 4,666 web content management systems or web infrastructure projects it would be fairly easy for small vendors and consultants to bid on in 2014.
Presumably the numbers came from the OMB IT spending spreadsheet, but since software category definitions are fluid, to say the least, doing your own analysis would be a good idea. While our community knows that, for example, “web content management” can include or be a component of a collection of digital marketing tools for engagement or experience management, marketing automation, etc. we can’t assume all federal budgeteers do – or did when the budgets were developed.
All of this is excellent news for a substantial number of the vendors, integrators, and consultants who participate in the Gilbane Conference. It is also great news for federal government conference attendees who can more realistically do business with smaller companies who have the latest technology.
To participate in the RFP-EZ program sign-up using the very simple web form.
It’s no secret that marketing continues to increase spending on technology, which raises the question of which technologies they are spending on. The answer is “lots” – the marketing technology landscape has become much larger, more varied, and more complex. One sign is the evolution of some web content management systems to solutions for web experience management, web engagement management, digital experience management, etc., which involves integrating with marketing automation, predictive analytics, social and many other marketing tools and back end systems.
Not all this is new. In 1999 more advanced businesses were already integrating e-commerce, web analytics, personalization, and marketing automation, but it was much harder then and there were far fewer options. I hesitate to say it is easier now, but it is in many ways – the technology is much better and we have much more experience with it. What is certainly not easier is navigating the technology landscape which is extremely dynamic, and contains categories with too many vendors. Both CMOs and CIOs need a marketing technologist function in some form, and would certainly benefit from input from analysts, and a <plug> vendor and analyst neutral conference </plug>. The illustration below may be scary, but should be very useful. Thanks to Scott Brinker for first pointing this landscape out. Scott also has his own similar graphic.
Some of you may have heard there is some exciting news with regard to The Gilbane Conference.
We have entered into a partnership with Information Today, Inc. to organize and manage future conferences in this 12-year-old series. As you may know, Information Today is the publisher of KMWorld and EContent magazines along with a host of other publications and websites. Information Today also organizes the KMWorld and Enterprise Search Summit conferences, so they are on familiar ground with respect to web content management, content marketing, social media, and many other related technologies.
Information Today also publishes CRM magazine and produces the CRM Evolution conference and exhibition, which will enable us to reach out to marketers and other customer-focused professionals.
We believe the synergies between The Gilbane Conference and Information Today will assist us in producing even better and more innovative conferences in the years to come.
The resources of a larger enterprise and the personal care and attention you’ve come to know at The Gilbane Conference are what you can expect this fall.
The next Gilbane Conference will be at the Westin Boston Waterfront, December 3 – 5, 2013. We will be announcing the Boston venue and dates in the next week or two and See the new Gilbane Conference website for more information where we will be posting additional details very soon. If you are not already on our mailing list for advance information you can signup using the quick form below.
Our theme this year is Content and the Digital Experience: Manage, Measure, Mobilize, Monetize, and we’ll be continuing our vendor and analyst neutral coverage of content, marketing, and digital experience technologies for enhancing both customer and employee engagement and collaboration.
We look forward to seeing you in Boston this fall.
