Fivesite, the UK Company of website designers, released a new version of its unique content management system (CMS). Named Fivesuite, the CMS simplifies the process of administering and running a website. Fivesite’s goal in developing their CMS was to create a product analogous to Microsoft Windows. The majority of computer users are very familiar with Windows, so a product working along the same lines would be easy to learn. Additionally, the company’s web designers have also ensured that the CMS complies with all Web 2.0 and 3.0 standards. This helps users add the latest web technologies to their site, and also increases a site’s accessibility and aesthetic appeal. Since every business has a unique set of needs and requirements, Fivesuite is personalized to be customized for each client. This means they are no longer limited by options they need but don’t have, or vice versa. Similar to programs or applications found in Windows, Fivesuite offers “objects” for various functions. One example is the Free Style Editor Object, which allows users to change and modify pages. The CMS also allows managers to assign varying levels of privileges to users. Authorized users can even change the design and layout of pages, without any HTML or stylesheet scripting. http://www.fivesite.co.uk/
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As we start to delve into some of the interim results of our survey of book publishing professionals, there is a great deal of good data to mull over. While the results are preliminary (and we welcome your participation here), some trends are emerging.
One interesting set of data points surround how publishers are viewing XML, how extensively they work with it, and what technologies they are using to support the management of the XML. Among those using XML, it’s significant that only about half have invested in some kind of storage mechanism specifically for XML, including both relational databases and dedicated XML repositories such as Mark Logic server.
While that overall number might or might not be so striking, I am struck by what some publishers feel is a barrier to adopting an XML repository, namely, the “Challenge of building XML knowledge, skills, or awareness.” This trumped more traditional barriers to technology adoption such as cost and the maturity of the technology and would seem, on balance, to be a solvable problem.
Across Systems, supplier of independent linguistic supply chain technology, partners with Gilbane Group in a Webinar on the integration of content management system technology with translation management on Thursday, June 24 at 10 am PDT/1:00 pm EDT. The one-hour Webinar, entitled “The Integration Calculus: CMS + TMS = Turbo-accelerated Creation of Multilingual Product Documentation,” will include a case study presentation by Frank Erven, a language technology consultant and technical writer from Voith Turbo, a leading German industrial manufacturer serving paper, energy, mobility, and service markets. In 2006 Voith’s translation needs had grown by almost 80 percent. The company recognized the quality threat and risk of delay imposed by the volume increase; the need for a professional translation management system that could save time and improve the quality of documents became obvious. In this webinar, Voith shares its formula for success with multilingual product content creation and delivery. By integrating its content management system, Schema ST4, with Across Systems‘ translation management technology, the company now initiates and controls workflows automatically. Furthermore, the company was able to gain a continuous process from source text creation to multilingual document output, which saves it as much as 55 percent over its previous costs. The session will be moderated by Mary Laplante, vice president and lead analyst of Gilbane Group. Attendees to the Webinar will learn how content management, translation management, and smart content drive customer satisfaction. Register at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/922916738
Two excellent postings by executives in the search industry give depth to the importance of Dassault Système’s acquisition of Exalead. If this were simply a ho-hum failure in a very crowded marketplace, Dave Kellogg of Mark Logic Corporation and Jean Ferré of Sinequa would not care.
Instead they are picking up important signals. Industry segments as important as search evolve and its appropriate applications in enterprises are still being discovered and proven. Search may change, as could the label, but whatever it is called it is still something that will be done in enterprises.
This analyst has praise for the industry players who continue to persevere, working to get the packaging, usability, usefulness and business purposes positioned effectively. Jean Ferré is absolutely correct; the nature of the deal underscores the importance of the industry and the vision of the acquirers.
As we segue from a number of conferences featuring search (Search Engines, Enterprise Search Summit, Gilbane) to broader enterprise technologies (Enterprise 2.0) and semantic technologies (SemTech), it is important for enterprises to examine the interplay among product offerings. Getting the mix of software tools just right is probably more important than any one industry-labeled class of software, or any one product. Everybody’s software has to play nice in the sandbox to get us to the next level of adoption and productivity.
Here is one analyst cheering the champions of search and looking for continued growth in the industry…but not so big it fails.
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.
Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend Gilbane SF. The conference brought together some of the top content management people from the U.S. and internationally. Overall, one of the things I really enjoyed about the conference was the mix of people on each of the panels — you had analysts, developers and content creators responsible for developing content and building web sites.
I focused on my time on the Customers and Engagement Track and also went to a few sessions in the Content Technology Track. As expected, there was a lot of talk of Web 2.0 and how to implement social into your content management strategy. There were also several sessions examining return on investment (ROI) for implementation.
Keynotes:
- Jeremiah Owyang from the Altimeter Group kicked off the two day conference with a presentation titled “Your Corporate Website Can be Relevant Again”. His slides and video of his keynote are now available online. Jeremiah laid out an 8-step plan on how corporate websites can evolve into social websites that integrate the social experience into their web site. The best part of his presentation, which you can see on the slides is the real-world examples of sites along each step of the integration process.
- Jeremiah was followed by Daniel Rasmus who spoke on The Future of Collaboration. My notes from his session are available. My key takeway from Daniel’s presentation was the importance of building a collaborative process within your organization. Everyday policies, such as how workplaces are designed, are all an important part of the social culture of an organization. In simple things, like meeting planning and design, everyone should have a voice. He also spoke a bit about millenials and how to create a work environment that is both supportive of millenials, but also encourages them to knowledge share about things that they know about. [Slides]
Customers and Engagement Track:
- Audience Engagement Frameworks Case Studies: Gert-Jan Schikker from Voetbal International presented on how a leading sports magazine in Holland has incorporated social into its online presence and seen a large increase in traffic and engagement. They’ve not only added social, but they also created mobile platforms, added video and worked with their advertisers and online storefront to create custom experiences based on user data.Michael Fisher from Alterian and Steven Alessi of American Greetings Interactive gave a joint presentation about work they did around the Super Bowl. Alterian used its platform to create a campaign to show 46 different brands the value of monitoring customer sentiment. American Greetings talked about the work they have done to make the online card giving experience more interactive and allow brands to connect to consumers in a positive way. As Michael put it, the key is measurement. If you’re not measuring, there’s no way to know if you’re being successful.
- How to Mold the Customer Experience: My favorite panel of the entire two days was moderated by Ian Truscott and had Melissa Casburn (ISITE Design) and Randy Woods (non-linear creations) speaking about creating a customer experience on your web site. The thing that made this presentation great was that Melissa and Randy had obviously worked together to build the presentation and incorporate examples from both of their work. The presentation was all about how to research your customers and build personas based on customer research and then use those personas to shape the experience on your web site. The approach to building personas is a great idea as it allows you to use aggregate data. Melissa and Randy also provided some useful information on how to get started with a limited budget and use crowdsourcing to help with the process.
- WCM as the Digital Marketing Hub: Ian Truscott and Robert Rose gave the final panel of the two days. Being the final panel is not an enviable position as people have been sitting around for two days, but Ian and Robert brought a lot of energy and humor that kept things interesting. Ian set things up by talking about the opportunity of working with customers on your web site. They are coming to your web site because they are looking for information. You have a chance to engage with them, but it’s a brief opportunity and you need to make the most of it. Ian shared an awesome anecdote about a small town men’s suit shop business owner and how he knows how to ask the right questions to provide a custom experience for each person that walks in the door.Robert followed Ian and gave some great real-world examples about how web content management relates to online marketing. Back in the early days of web development, the process was owned by the IT / Tech departments, but your corporate website is really a marketing tool. Marketers need to have the ability to be creative and be able to try things (either A/B testing or multivariate testing) without having to go through a long and involved process. Robert gave a list of things that people could start doing immediately to help separate the marketing process from the technology process.
More detailed notes from these sessions and the others I attended can be found on my blog.
My thanks to Gilbane San Francisco and Robert Rose, who gave me one of his speaker passes to the conference. I’m already looking forward to attending Gilbane Boston later this year.
Sue Anne Reed
http://www.sueannereed.com
Cross-posted on the Gilbane Press Releases and Announcements Blog
June 24, 1:00 pm ET
At last year’s Localization World conference in Berlin, we heard a terrific case study presentation by Voith, a German industrial manufacturer serving paper, energy, mobility, and service markets. The session was introduced by Daniel Nackovksi from Across Systems, Voith’s language technology partner. Nackovksi commented that while the integration of content management and translation management was critical to Voith’s content globalization strategy, the use of XML was the real key to the company’s accelerated creation of multilingual product content. Ah, music to our ears. We remember thinking what a great webinar the Voith story would make . . .
In this webinar, Voith share its formula for success with multilingual product content creation and delivery. Voith is one of the Europe’s largest family-owned businesses, with sales of EUR 5.1 billion. Voith machines produce more than one-third of the world’s paper, and its generators and turbines generate more than 30% of the electric energy generated worldwide by hydro power. Learn how content management, translation management, and smart content drive customer satisfaction for Voith and its customers.
Integration Calculus: CMS + TMS = Turbo-Accelerated Creation of Multiingual Product Documentation
Register now. Moderated by Gilbane. Sponsored by Across.
Speaking of Localization World Berlin, at this year’s conference (June 8-9) we’re moderating a panel entitled Collision or Convergence? Managing the Intersection of Content Management and Translation Management Systems. CMS/TMS integration is on Gilbane’s content globalization 2010 Heat Map. The Voith webinar and the Localization World panel explain why and provide guidance on making making it work within global enterprises.
Perhaps it is the season when everything seems especially fecund, or perhaps I can’t resist abusing the lyrics of late, great Robbie Burns, but there is no “perhaps” about electronic book publishing’s astonishing pace of growth.
The Gilbane Group (a division of Outsell, Inc.), together with research partner BISG, is reaching out to the communities of book publishing professionals. We invite you to participate in Web-based survey, a central research mechanism for our upcoming study A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential Processes to Re-Invent Publishing. The study will be published in June 2010, and all participants in this survey will have full access to the full-length study through The Gilbane Group website.
At the just concluded 2010 BEA—Book Expo America—our research partner on our upcoming study, A Blueprint for Book Publishing Transformation: Seven Essential Processes to Re-Invent Publishing, delivered some facts and figures in a session there. Kelly Gallagher, VP of Publishing Services at RR Bowker and BISG Reasearch Committee Chair, presented new research from The Book Industry Study Group on consumer attitudes toward eBook reading. According to the research, eBook sales went from 1.5% of all book sales in Q1 2009 to 5% in Q1 2010, with 33% of eBook buyers entering the market in the last six months. The survey was of eBook reading and purchase behavior from print book readers who recently purchased either an eBook reader or an eBook.
Outsell, Inc., our parent company, has also just published news about ebook market growth in education publishing. From the press release: “Outsell estimates the total global market for K-12 and post-secondary textbooks was $15.2 billion in 2009 and will reach $16.6 billion by 2012, representing a modest [compound annual growth rate] CAGR of 2.6 percent. Digital textbook products will fuel the market growth, with a CAGR of 25 percent, while revenues from print textbooks will decline by 1 percent.”
The Outsell report provides case studies of eight publishers’ innovations, including Pearson, Elsevier, Cambridge University Press, Macmillan, Flat World Knowledge, Cengage Learning, Chegg, and CourseSmart. It also provides potential market scenarios over the next 10 years and their likelihood of occurring, and strategies for publishers to “reclaim” revenues lost during a print-only era. To purchase the report, please visit Outsell, Inc. or click here.
Speaking in links, a reminder to all that we’re in the middle of collecting data from our ongoing survey of book publishing professionals, so if you’re one and you haven’t taken the 10-minutes to complete the Blueprint survey, click here. We seek to gain a clearer picture of ebook and related digital publishing efforts underway among the full spectrum of book publishers. Furthermore, the analyst team at The Gilbane Group seeks to identify a number of “pain points” or barriers encountered by book publishers when it comes to their developing or expanding digital publishing programs, including areas such as royalties, digital format choices, digital print decisions, and distribution problems.
So, it is Spring! Take a survey!
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