Really Strategies Blog

Really Strategies Acquires SaaS XML Content Managment Platform DocZone.com

I am pleased to announce that Really Strategies has acquired SaaS XML content management platform DocZone.com. You can read the press release here.  This is an exciting day for the team at Really Strategies for several reasons:

1. DocZone.com is known for its DITA-based SaaS content management solution with a Fortune 500 client base.

2. Our combined teams have the most experienced content management engineering team of any product vendor.

3. We are now better positioned to serve publishers and technical publishers on a global basis.

4. We now serve over 100 publishing companies, media companies, and technical publishing organizations. 

5. DocZone and RSuite provide the market with a wealth of deployment options (SaaS, hosted, deployed, or build your own (using RSuite Engine).  We feel this breadth of solution offerings is unique and is what differentiates us from the competition.

We are excited by the addition of DocZone.com and look to continue building on our past successes.

Really Strategies and RSuite at AAUP Annual Meeting

If you're heading into Philadelphia for the AAUP Annual Meeting this weekend, stop by table #27. We'll be there talking about

• RSuite---a content management system for publishers
• XML for publishing professionals---a 1-day workshop our consulting team offers
• DITA for publishers---a new community project

We're also giving away free iPod Shuffles to the first 15 people who complete our content questionnaire.

Society for Scholarly Publishing Annual Meeting

This week several of us from Really Strategies attended the SSP Annual Meeting.  I was there until the "bitter" end when Richard Newman (AMA) and I did a skit to introduce the SSP IN Meeting.

The spirit was upbeat.  The rooms were full.  And, the Twitter activity was healthy.  We just needed more power outlets.

The event was covered extensively on the SSP Blog, The Scholarly Kitchen.

• Now On the Horizon: Start-up and Apps That Can Change Your World
• E-reading in Academia
• Recharging the Batteries
• Publishing for the Google Generation
• Adam Bly's Keynote

If you didn't go this year, we hope to see you in San Fransisco for SSP 2010!

Tweeting about Twitter

Image via CrunchBase

Last week the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) hosted a panel, moderated by Barry Graubart, Vice President Product Strategy at Alacra, entitled Why Twitter Matters.

What better way could there be to read about a panel on Twitter than using Twitter itself?!

So, go to Twitter Search and search for #SIIA.  Then just page back to the entries from last week. 

You'll see links to blog posts and video, comments and notes from the audience as the panel was occurring, questions from the in-person and webcast audience, and some follow up posts. 

It will be like you were there.

In fact, the next time you're unable to attend a conference go search for it on Twitter.  You may find that you can monitor interesting sessions real time and even get someone in the audience to ask a question for you.

Here's part of the SIIA Twitter panel message stream.

Visit RSuite at the Mark Logic User Conference

RSuite is a proud sponsor of the 2009 Mark Logic User Conference. The agenda is packed with a series of outstanding speakers. A lush reception at the end of the first day will highlight Mark Logic's partners. RSuite will be on display during the reception and Lisa Bos and Barry Bealer will be there to answer your questions. The first 10 people who stop by the RSuite table will receive a free iPod Shuffle.

All readers of this blog can use the code RLST when they register. The conference rate is $395 if you register before April. Cost is $695 as of 4/1.

Mark Logic customers' United Airlines and Jet Blue are offering a discount on travel to the event. More information on that can be found here.

"Barbarians at the gate?" NFAIS Conference

I was highly interested with the title of the upcoming 51st Annual NFAIS Conference.  Quoting from the brochure: "Barbarians at the gate?  The impact of digital natives and emerging technologies on the future of information services"  Essentially the gist of the subsequent write-up is that those who were born in the digital era and have almost exclusively known digital communications, are getting ready to storm the world and start driving the information technology revolution from inside companies and organizations (presumably the way they have with consumer communications). 

How perfect.  This is what all of us in the publishing technology community have been waiting for and have started to see out there in the last few years.  It means that it is less and less important for the publishing technology revolution to be driven by the visionary technical whizzes.  Less problematic to convincing companies to adopt more and more advanced digital workflows and systems.  As the 'digital natives' come into their own, demand for better systems is beginning to drive things.  What a great thing to happen in publishing technology!  Of course this process proceeds differently in different publishing verticals, with more scientifically oriented (e.g. technical) companies already there.  But now we can expect the non-science oriented publishing to come aboard. Magazine and book publishers should be coming around, and goodness knows, we have been waiting for this moment in educational publishing - the slowest of publishing verticals to change. 

Marjorie Scardino at SIIA: Doom and Gloom - or not?

"Education will be THE force that drives economic and political determination around the world."

Marjorie Scardino, CEO of Pearson, opened the SIIA Information Industry Summit yesterday by highlighting our opportunity to teach tomorrow's workforce "21st century skills". 

What are 21st century skills?  (Marjorie referenced a report from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills)

• manage information
• communicate effectively
• work flexibly and in groups
• deal with complex issues
• exercise imagination

When discussing more of the hard skills, Marjorie focused on critical thinking, math, and science. 

What are your thoughts?  What should we be developing in ourselves and teaching our children?

Start With XML Conference

Attended the Start with XML conference on Tuesday and am happy to report it was excellent!  This bodes well for the next O'Reilly conference - Tools of Change, where we will have a booth and where our own Lisa Bos will be speaking.

There were a lot of highlights for a single day.  The morning keynote by David Young, Chairman & CEO of Hachette Book Group USA was an engaging overview of why to start with XML. (All presentations are on the Start with XML conference site, though some may miss something without the talk).

Several presentations by top production leaders were also interesting.  In particular, I'd like to point out the accomplishments of Rebecca Goldthwaite's team at Cengage Learning in developing standardized design that does not appear standardized(!).  Amazing that so many strikingly different appearances can be auto-generated from XML and layout templates.  It just goes to show that their design teams 'get it' and more importantly, that design teams in general can remain highly creative in the world of XML.  Take this to heart people!

But the presentations were all very good.  If I start mentioning all the good ones, then I'll be mentioning everyone.  I think this may indicate a watershed year - the number of people who have quality knowledge of the business, technology and people issues in developing an XML workflow is potentially reaching critical mass.  Perhaps we are ready to move forward in publishing after all.  If Start with XML is any indication, then the larger Tools of Change conference will be a watershed event this year.  It's a very exciting time.

RSuite CS3 Connector in today's publishing environment

Really Strategies is hosting a short online presentation that demonstrates how RSuite CMS integrates with some of Adobe's tools. Publishers recognize that it's critical for editors and designers to work within the comfort zone of a familiar application but it's equally important to maintain valid XML and manage content effectively. RSuite's CS3 Connector offers the ability to browse and open XML or InCopy documents in RSuite directly from the Adobe application.

Join us online and we'll demonstrate how

• publishers maintain XML through the entire publishing process
• RSuite enables version control directly from InCopy
• teams develop workflows around InCopy and InDesign documents in RSuite

Event Details
Event: 30-minute online presentation
Topic: RSuite CS3 Connector in today's publishing environment
Presenter: Mike Edson, Really Strategies, Inc.
Date: December 9, 2008 | 11:00 am EST

Email me to reserve your space and receive login instructions.

Investing in RSuite CMS: A four month ROI

I’ve been involved in technology well over 20 years now and in the information industry just over a decade. In that time I’ve seen my share of project successes and failures, but one thing I have never seen until now is a publisher actually get the ROI they were expecting out of their technology investment within the first year of implementation.

Blood-Horse Publications, a Kentucky-based publisher that is the definitive resource for thoroughbred information, licensed RSuite CMS in 2007. At our recent user conference, Luther Andal, Director of Technology for Blood-Horse, provided the following summary of their investment in RSuite:

• Evaluated (through a proof of concept) and launched RSuite CMS in less than 16 weeks
• Recognized significant revenue from the data feeds and editorial content that was aggregated by RSuite in an automated fashion, which in turn populated a subscription-based website and created and distributed a daily PDF product
• Reallocated two IT staff because of the efficiencies gained (saving over $100,000 of annual production costs)
• Realized an ROI in 4 months

That is pretty impressive if I say so myself. In these days of year-long projects that go off the track (I’m thinking train track here, not horse track), it is refreshing to see a publisher with a success story by keeping the project scope tight to meet a true business need. As a best practice that we promote, keeping the scope focused on meeting specific business objectives allows for the best possible success. Just ask Blood-Horse Publications who is now enjoying the capabilities of RSuite CMS as a core technology to their publishing operation.

Stay tuned for more RSuite success stories.