That’s Content, Globalization, or Brand manager …
As convergence of these three business practices starts to accelerate, it’s increasingly likely that the roles are Content and/or Globalization and/or Brand management. Convergence is a key theme on our globalization log and at our upcoming Gilbane Boston 2007.
If you’re involved in these practices at your company, take the Poll of the Week on Globalization and Brand Management .
If you’re just getting up to speed on their convergence, register for the June 26 webinar on web CMS and eMarketing. Websites are integral to every enterprise’s business. Learn how to transform your content management system into a global lead generation machine.
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At last week’s conference in Washington (where Tony Byrne did a great job with the program), we had a lively discussion in the opening keynote panel after I made a disparaging comment about “Web 2.0”. Of course I was referring to the term not to the various technologies or concepts that the term may or may not include depending on who is attempting to define it as a “thing-in-itself”. But somehow I wasn’t clear about that and, judging by the reaction, there appeared to be a generational-like difference of opinion, which was complicated by this classic problem of confusing a name with an object. In any case it was fun, and the debate carried on through some of the other conference sessions. I also brought up “Enterprise 2.0” which I’ve discussed before, but for some reason couldn’t remember Andrew McAfee’s name when I was recommending further reading, so here is his blog.
For those of you attending the Enterprise 2.0 conference next week, or who are local, there will be a debate between Andrew and Tom Davenport, who have different opinions on Enterprise 2.0. The debate itself is open to the public even if not registered for the conference. Here is more info. We are media sponsors of the conference and have a special discount available. Just register and use discount code MLQTEB16 when you register.
Also keep in mind our own annual Boston conference in November where we’ll be continuing our coverage of “enterprise social software” technologies.
When we launched this blog in January, we had high hopes for creating an interactive community that encourages participation. We still do. Since interactivity breeds interactivity…
Welcome to our inaugural “Poll of the Week.” This week’s topic? Globalization and brand management.
4 questions,
30 seconds,
Promise.
On Wednesday, June 13 at 1:00 EST, Senior Analyst Bill Trippe will be doing a Webinar with Medtronic and the XMetal folks at JustSystems.
While documentation is a necessary deliverable for all companies, its value and contribution to bottom-line business results is often underestimated and overlooked. For Medtronic, one of the world’s most innovative medical device manufacturers, documentation is much more than a checkbox on a product release timeline – it is a direct link to customer satisfaction and patient well-being. Medtronic’s Rob Kimm will discuss Medtronic’s approach to delivering a better customer experience while also ensuring compliance with regulations that impact technical documentation.
Prior to using DITA, Medtronic had a decentralized, heterogeneous environment that slowed production and resulted in redundant workflows. Seven project deliverables were developed in 5 different tools, and the mutually-exclusive tools allowed for little to no ability to achieve true reuse of common content. They now can reuse common content across deliverable types, which has led to great efficiency, accuracy, and consistency.
To register for the Webinar, please visit here.
Business managers serving on WCM product-selection teams or attending technology conferences sometimes ask for definitions of “Web services” and “service-oriented architecture (SOA).” They say they are confused by their IT teams’ usage of the terms as though they were synonymous, and that when the managers themselves use the terms interchangeably, they get corrected. Why does this happen?
Web services, a technology standard, and SOA, an architectural design methodology, are highly complementary. Yet they are distinct. “Web services” refers to technologies that allow enterprise applications of all kinds (WCM, CRM ERP, BI, etc.) to communicate with each other. Common forms of Web services include application programming interfaces (APIs), which are connectors written by software vendors that allow for a standard way of communicating with their applications. Vendors often publish or sell these APIs as a straightforward means of connecting. Another common – and more generic – example of a Web service is any message, often in XML format, exchanged between a client (a Web browser, for example) and a server (your bank’s database) using the SOAP protocol. There are variations on these two themes, but the important concept to remember about Web services is that, simply put, they allow for a standard means of communication between software applications which may or may not rely upon transmission over the Web. Web services very frequently communicate only over corporate networks.
SOA, on the other hand, is not a technology. Rather, it is a way of designing connections between objects (application code components), applications, and other technology infrastructure. Like the frame of a building with respect to its windows and floors, SOA only defines the relationships between technology components, not their composition. SOA’s goals are to achieve self-sufficiency for each component – i.e. that each component will perform one complete task or “service” – and for each component to offer its “service” to all of the others. It stands to reason then, that Web services and SOA often fit together well because SOA provides a framework within which discrete components can interact with each other, and Web services provide a standard way of building the components.
Today was spent trying to sift through four distinct piles of paper, a backlog of email messages, and managing my calendar. My goal was first to get rid of documents and articles that are too old or irrelevant to “deal with.” The remainder I intended to catalog in my database, file in the appropriate electronic folder, or place in a new pile as a “to-do list.” This final pile plus my email “In Box” would then be systematically assigned to a spot in my calendar for the next six weeks. I did have deadlines to meet, but they depended on other people sending me content, which never came. So I kept sifting and organizing. As you can guess, the day that began with lofty intentions of getting to the bottom of the piles so that I could prioritize my real work is ending, instead, with this blog entry. It is not the one I began for this week four days ago.
First, the most ironic moment of the day came from the last pile in which I turned over an article that must have made an impression in 1997, from Newsweek it was entitled Drowning in Data. I knew I shouldn’t digress, again, but reading it confirmed what I already knew. We all have been “drowning in data” since at least 1997 and for all the same reasons we were back then, Internet publishing, email, voice mail, and faxes (well not so much anymore). It has the same effect as it did ten years ago on “info-stressed” professionals; it makes us all want to go slower so we can think about what is being thrown at us. Yes, that is why I was isolated trying to bring order to the info-glut on my desks. The article mentioned that “the average worker in a large corporation sent and received an astounding 177 messages a day…”
That is the perfect segue to my next observation. In the course of the day, while looking for emails needed to meet deadlines, I emptied over 300 messages from my Junk Mailbox, over 400 from my Deleted Mailbox, and that left me with just 76 in my In Mailbox, which I will begin acting on when I finish this blog entry. (Well, may-be after dinner.) What happened today that caused six different search vendors to send invitations to Webinars or analyst briefings? Oh well, when I finally get around to filling out my calendar for the next six weeks I will probably find out that some, if not all, conflict with appointments I already have. So, may-be I should finish the calendar before responding to the emails.
In the opening of this story I mentioned four distinct piles; I lied. As one document was replaced by another, I discovered that there was no unifying theme for any one pile. So much for categorization, but I did find some important papers that required immediate action, which I took.
Finally, I uncovered an article from http://techweb.cmp.com/iw in 1996. The Information Week archives don’t go back that far but the title was Library on an Intranet. It described a Web-based system for organizing corporate information by Sequent Computer Systems. I know why I saved it; because I had developed and was marketing corporate library systems to run over company networks back in 1980. I did find a reference to the Sequent structured system for organizing and navigating corporate content. You will find it at: http://www.infoloom.com/gcaconfs/WEB/seattle96/lmd.HTM#N136. It is a very interesting read.
What a ride we have had trying to corral this info-glut electronically for over 30 years. From citation searching using command languages in the 1970s, to navigation and structured searching in library systems in the 1980s and 90s, to Web-based navigation coupled with full-text searching in the mid-90s; it never ends. And I am still trying to structure my paper piles into a searchable collection of content.
May-be browsing the piles isn’t such a bad idea after-all. I never would have found those articles using “search” search.
Postscript: This really happened. When I finished this blog entry and went to place the “Drowning…” article on a pile I never got to, there on the top was an article from Information Week, April 9, 2007, entitled “Too Much Information.” I really didn’t need to read the lecturing subtitle: Feeling overwhelmed? You need a comprehensive strategy, not a butterfly net, to deal with data overload. I can assure you, I wasn’t waving butterfly nets all day.
On Wednesday, June 13 at 1:00 Eastern Time, we will be doing a Webinar with Medtronic and the XMetal folks at JustSystems.
While documentation is a necessary deliverable for all companies, its value and contribution to bottom-line business results is often underestimated and overlooked. For Medtronic, one of the world’s most innovative medical device manufacturers, documentation is much more than a checkbox on a product release timeline—it is a direct link to customer satisfaction and patient well-being. Medtronic’s Rob Kimm will discuss Medtronic’s approach to delivering a better customer experience while also ensuring compliance with regulations that impact technical documentation.
Prior to using DITA, Medtronic had a decentralized, heterogeneous environment that slowed production and resulted in redundant workflows. Seven project deliverables were developed in 5 different tools, and the mutually-exclusive tools allowed for little to no ability to achieve true reuse of common content. They now can reuse common content across deliverable types, which has led to great efficiency, accuracy, and consistency.
To register for the Webinar, please visit here.
The title of this blog entry is the title of HP’s press release on the same topic. On May 30th in New York Hewlett-Packard announced “Print 2.0” at the company’s annual Imaging and Printing Conference.
According to the press material: “Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president of the company’s Imaging and Printing Group, described how HP will seek to capture a significant share of the 53 trillion digital pages estimated to be printed in 2010 alone – an opportunity valued at more than $296 billion.
“Joshi identified three key areas of focus of the Print 2.0 strategy:
● Make it easier to print from websites, such as blogs and travel sites, and bring new printing capabilities to online properties;
● Extend the company’s digital content creation and publishing platforms – for example, Snapfish and Logoworks – across customer segments spanning from consumers to enterprises; and
● Deliver a digital printing platform that increases print speeds and lowers the cost of printing for high-volume commercial markets.”
There might be something a little different in HP’s strategy here. I’m still not sure. There was a ton of video recorded at the event, and it’s easily accessible on HP’s site. I didn’t start with the videos of the executive presentations, but instead with the presentation by John Battelle. Battelle has had a unique (and eventful) relationship to both print and electronic media, making him a uniquely fascinating speaker on where publishing is headed. The third video, of his Q&A session, is particularly revealing of his unique perspective on the evolving relationship of print to electronic media.
After watching Battelle, I’m willing to spend more time here, even listening to the executive presentations. HP may be onto something.
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