Really Strategies Blog

"Journalism is the act. Newspapers are the artifact."

The past week was flush with conversation (ie, Tweets and blog comments) about Clay Shirky's rousing blog post Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable.

Read it. Read it in its entirety.

One comment on the post from Mark Bertils that won't leave my head is "Journalism is the act. Newspapers are the artifact."

I make a habit of looking up known definitions in the dictionary (and I do mean digital not the heavy tome I have here at my desk) because I find additional thought-provoking but commonly-known information. While reading the definitions of newspaper and newsprint I am reminded that the essence of the newspaper business is timeliness. Why were evening editions so popular in the 1950s and early 60s? For the same reasons that Twitter and RSS newsfeeds are so popular now. Timeliness.

I do lament the demise of print and I don't like seeing my Google news alerts on this topic competing with my spam folder in terms of volume. But I am heartened by the fact that journalism, reporting, writing, editing, authoring, these beautiful professions whose fundamental job is the exchange of thoughts from one mind to another, are not going away.

Strategies for successful XML content management initiatives

With a mandate to implement XML, and content management across your organization, how do you develop a strategies for a successful initiative?  And what are the pitfalls that detract from success?

In a large organization, does it make sense to centralize the effort?  For example, should you begin with alignment on XML formats and metadata across the organization, and then proceed to an across the board CMS implementation?  Or should you begin with alignment on a CMS technology?  Does it make sense to have one division or group pilot an effort so the organization as a whole can learn from the experience?  And then roll out to other divisions?  Or does it make sense to let all groups move forward at their own pace?

The answer, of course, is, it depends.  It depend on where your organization is at the moment, its culture, and your ROI period and expectations.  But, perhaps more importantly, it depends on the capabilities of the relevant technologies out there - how fast they can be deployed; how flexible they are once they are deployed;  how fast they are changing in the marketplace.  If you're implementation is expected to be rigid, or the tools you have require a certain level of rigidity, then it might be best to go top down and align the organization as a whole, then implement as a whole or in a unified manner.  But if you are expecting to be flexible, and your technology, formats, etc. can be flexibly configured, perhaps bottom up is the better route.

RSuite CMS places itself in the flexible category, which allows the flexibility of any of the possible implementation approaches. 

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?

RSuite conference - business takeaway

Ed and I have both discussed different aspects of the RSuite User Conference, here and here.  Here now are some key business points that I saw demonstrated at the conference and that are particularly related to our current RSuite CMS 3.0 release:

RSuite is a very flexible tool.  Not only can it fit a large and diverse number of publishing needs, as demonstrated by our installed base, but it is very easy to adjust implementations after they have been rolled out.  Configuration is big, custom coding of general purpose functionality is not generally required. 

This means faster deployment of RSuite, which means shorter return on investment.  It also means low ongoing costs for making significant adjustments to the system as business needs change.

Existing and growing asset management features mean that businesses can consider the option of one RSuite implementation rather than a CMS and a separate DAMS.  And though I don't think it came out as clearly at the conference, RSuite's ability to act in several ways as a WebCMS also allow businesses to consider further options in reducing the number of systems they have to manage.  Finally, the new CS3 Connector will provide several additional possibilities as we grow the system. 

Basically, RSuite might be considered a new type of CMS that is really content centric rather than content *type* specific - perhaps it is better called a UCMS - or Unified Content Management System.  As we branch outward, this means that businesses may not need a separate system for every content type or distribution channel, meaning less overhead and maintenance overall.

RSuite was designed by (very) smart developers who care passionately about fast and easy implementations.  I can't overemphasize this.  Why is this good for businesses looking at RSuite?  All developers worth their salt, truly despise coding the same thing over and over again, a major hassle with older tools.  So it follows that many innovations in RSuite are about making easier implementations and allowing changes with configuration rather than coding.  Each release has come closer to that objective up to 3.0, which, I think, has achieved much of that goal.  Further refinements will just make things easier. 

At the conference, we had a couple of examples of 4 month implementations (including analysis).  This time taken should go lower with 3.0 - how far, we're not quite sure yet, but it should be significant.  And a more iterative approach should allow implementations to roll out even faster (but that's another post).

Finally, RSuite is a very developer friendly tool.  With RSuite, developers' time will be well spent concentrating on specific integrations and customizations to meet your specific business needs, rather than building and maintaining generic functionality or building general APIs.  They will also appreciate the elegant way that they can add functionality to the system - some real power will be in their hands to provide your organization with what it needs to succeed.

"XML is like air"

I overheard a co-worker saying "XML is like air" the other day. After an initial chuckle, I find myself thinking about this statement a lot. While I agree that XML is ubiquitous I know there are many authors, editors, and production editors who still think XML is mysterious and something for the IT people.
O'Reilly Media's Start With XML project is a must read for anyone who is not breathing XML. You'll find out why you should care about XML and discover ways to implement XML upstream in your environment.

Why a CMS? why now?

Maybe you've got a gut feeling that it's time to buy a content management system.  Maybe you've  gotten a demo of one and gotten general buy-in from the team.  Now it's time to justify it financially. 

The first thing to keep in mind is that a CMS is a tool.  It is a tool that serves two purposes, so there are two angles that can be taken for justification.

First, and easiest, if most mundane, a CMS serves to wring out non-creative tasks from content development.  Think about how much time is wasted in content production: routing, tracking, moving, backing up, converting from one format to another, cutting and pasting, rekeying, etc., etc.  All of this takes time and an efficient publishing operation will reduce this work to a minimum by using a contemporary CMS so that more resources can be put into making the best content available.  If you produce a lot of content, then these numbers may surprise you once you pull them together. 

Ordinarily, publishers won't want to rock the boat with this stuff, it just causes angst and is hard for management to relate to hot topics in expanding market presence, competing with other publishing organizations, etc.  However, many publishers are feeling angst anyway, and have no choice at this point.  Profitability is a serious issue as is well known.  But more compelling, publishers are now feeling the weight of these non-productive tasks now that electronic distribution of content has expanded so dramatically - and along with it, manual production tasks.  Content must be agile, and this won't happen if production staff or offshore vendors have to touch every piece, every time.

Second, and much, much more interesting, a good CMS can put some forms of content distribution in reach that were never in reach before. In this sense, a CMS can be part of a new initiative to compete in the publishing market. For example, a traditional publisher may want to slice and dice their content to form specialized publications for niche customer segments.  A licensee might be willing to pay for certain topics of content, if it can be delivered in usable form.  In many cases, this was never seriously considered because it was never financially possible before - there would have been too much manual and editorial labor in finding and organizing appropirate content, and producing it in appropriate forms.  But today, with a native XML CMS like RSuite, this is financially possible.  And the first publishers to execute well will be able to create specialized demand and win customers.

Maybe you pay for your new CMS through ordinary savings, but take advantage of it by using it to develop new publication types.  Whatever your strategy, the technology is here, is now, and for the new generation of systems, particularly RSuite CMS installed on a Mark Logic repository, the technology actually works well enough to be cost effective.  We know this because our customers are starting to report savings and interesting new revenue stories to us.  All we can say, then, is: go for it!

What is a Project Manager?

People define project management about as many different ways as they define Web 2.0 or content management systems. 

In my opinion, skilled project managers don’t simply monitor and report on projects, they drive them.  They actively participate in the projects they manage.

They don’t just collect issues and risks, they proactively seek them out attempting first to avoid them, but ultimately to resolve issues and mitigate risks. 

They are tightly aligned to the business and executive sponsors of a project and take care to understand the context in which their project operates.

They are the project’s advocate to all constituencies including, as called upon to do so, multiple levels of decision makers.

While they act under the guidance of a business sponsor, they should function as an extension of that sponsor.

Their job may include varying degrees of coordination and administration, but that is not the core of what they do.  The core of what they do is managing, driving, and communicating - strategically as well as tactically.

At Really Strategies, a project manager is a senior person with senior responsibilities.  That’s the only thing that works with our clients.

Thoughts?

Some conference recaps and digressions

It's already halfway through December and I have not yet made time to recap some conferences.  Here you are briefly with a few points from the conferences and some digressions.

ProPub Summit 2007
Participated in some panel discussions here.  Adobe, MEI, Softcare, and even Snap were well represented.  Publishing was also well represented in the participants, from tech to non-tech. 

The critical mass of publishers showed just how successful K4 has been over the years.  A few years ago, the word on the street was: "K4?  That's the publishing system that actually works."   While it has always had competitive features, particularly on the end user side, some creative implementations in the field show just how it is moving to the next level.

For example, Business Week (one of the panel discussions) has combined print and web editorial staffs and they both use the same Adobe/K4 platform.  See this case study for details. Along with the other benefits, this is a great way to start cultural transformation that can lead to print editorial finally comprehending and following downstream requirements.  Their actions (or inactions) in following content development policies can have a big impact on:

• the value of downstream content (with the application of metadata)
• the length of time it takes content to get online
• and on the staff side, the late hours put in by processing staff downstream

One more important point that I did my best to make at the conference: Scripting should be in your future.  The power of JavaScript and Adobe InDesign/InCopy (and K4) in the right hands (and solving the right problems) is amazing.  And while Adobe does a great job fitting in your feature requests, they can't do everything for everyone on every release.  This is where scripting comes in: build it yourself.

And finally, I should specially mention that MEI again did a really solid and particularly thoughtful job as host. 

Gilbane 2007
I was only able to briefly get to the floor show this year but also saw the opening keynote - so I can't comment very fully on the show.   

The keynote, on what's current and what's coming showed the great breadth of the subject area at this conference - with veteran industry representatives promoting user experience/interface, open source systems, Web 2.0, and contextual content.  (game: please match with 1.IBM,  2.Alfresco, 3.Adobe, 4.Oracle) Wow - if we could do a good mash up all of these ideas, then we would really have something.  (Mash up being the jargon of the moment).

There is an amazing array of content management systems vendors represented at Gilbane, including WebCMSes and other variations on a theme.  If you're shopping around, this conference is a great place to get a look (but note here).  I discussed this at the show with a colleague - asking why this market has always had so many players.  When will it ever consolidate?  The consensus is that CMS market is still in the early market stage - as it has been for a while. 

But why is this?   Maybe it's that home grown systems keep coming out of the woodwork and it is still very easy to get in the market place.  Or maybe CMS terminology is just too fragmented to understand.:)  Maybe the typical customer doesn't yet understand how to implement these systems to gain value in their operations, particularly if they got into it too early and/or have inflexible operations. Maybe, until recently, not enough systems have been able to provide a clear and compelling value proposition. 

I tend to look at it from a different angle.  The real hindrance to market maturity in my mind, is that there still tends to be a break down between company strategy and a compelling business case for a CMS.  This may be because up until recently, a CMS didn't really seem to fit most strategic moves.  If you have a strategy for increasing market share, then how does a CMS help?  This has started to change though, with some changes in the market and some evolving thinking.  In any case, being able to make this linkage work, with solid analysis, will compel successful implementations.  When successes reach critical mass, and real leaders become apparent, the market will finally mature - and consolidate.

Why do CMS vendors exhibit at tradeshows?

I must confess out of the gate that I do not believe exhibiting at tradeshows is worth the money. I have been skeptical for years even prior to launching RSuite CMS. In the twelve plus years that I have been in the publishing and information industry with three different companies, I have never heard of a hot sales lead coming from a tradeshow.

Here’s what I do hear from my colleagues in the industry who exhibit regularly:

• If we don’t exhibit, people will think we are not doing well or we are out of business
• We have to exhibit to get a speaking slot at the show
• We committed to the event organizer for several years

Not one mention of actually getting a sales lead.

I am not here to tell you that Really Strategies will never exhibit to demonstrate our RSuite product, but we need to pick and choose very carefully. Just as publishers and other information companies want a quick return on investment when they purchase a CMS, a CMS vendor wants a quick return on investment from exhibiting at a tradeshow. Based on my unscientific study of the many vendors we work with in the industry, a return on investment from exhibiting at a tradeshow is becoming less likely.

So what should a CMS product vendor do? Should we risk not appearing like a viable company and spending our marketing dollars on other creative ways to build our brand or should we exhibit at every industry tradeshow at $5,000 per show with very limited success?

Software sales are not about booth traffic and cool giveaways anymore, it’s about networking and partnering. With all due respect to my friends in the industry who run tradeshows, let’s come up with a creative way to help CMS product vendors instead of offering an exhibition comprising of a 10 x 10 booth with one table, two chairs, a trash can, and a $700 internet connection. Oh, did I mention the black curtain you get behind the booth?

Put paid content in context

There has been quite a bit of buzz around the decision of the NY Times to remove their subscription barrier and make their content free.  Many expect the Wall Street Journal, one of the first and most successful paid newspaper sites online, to follow. Even in the non-newspaper world of scientific publishing, Elsevier rolled out their new free, ad-supported oncology site, www.OncologySTAT.com.

Underlying some of these discussions is the somewhat broad pronouncement that paid content is over.  Publishers need to make their content free and determine other ways to make money from it.

While it is true that the trends are certainly shifting that way, a post from Joe Espisito on Yale University Library's Liblicense discussion list caught my eye by putting the decision from the NY Times in perspective.  Although I don't totally follow Joe's economic mathematics (he questions how much advertising is out there to support this expanding model) because I mean, all of those hundreds of cable television stations still find advertisers, I think there is some truth in his statement that offering free content by using advertising for revenue "may work for the Times or South Park, and Elsevier has a shot with its new portal, but the fate of most advertising-supported businesses is oblivion.  Only the strong, the huge, and the totally distinctive survive."  (The "totally distinctive" in the last sentence is really the key...)

Although we may look to the NY Times and the WSJ to see which way the paid content winds are blowing, we should not blindly follow their actions.  Not all publishers are leading national news sites that can attract millions of eyeballs.  Every publisher needs to look at their own situation to determine the balance between charging for content or offering it for free while looking for other revenue opportunities, including advertising.  I don't want to dismiss the trend or the need to find new ways to monetize content beyond subscriptions.  It's not an easy challenge to solve. But although it is certainly worthwhile to monitor the actions of the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and Elsevier, they should only be inputs into the decision making process, not a final stake in every publisher's plans for paid content.