Deeds

Earlier this year I rebranded the website CMS Report to this site, socPub. The website's new identity has allowed me, article contributors, and our readers to explore topics well outside the norm of conversations surrounding content management systems. Although we're going through a bit of growing pains with establishing a new identity under socPub, I'm fully committed to this new website. The change has been good for me and I'm once again inspired to write on topics that interest me.

Yesterday, I was the victim of an April Fool's prank. When you have a young teenager in the house, I suppose it's inevitably going to happen. I walked into my office and found Teletubbies on the screen. If there is a children's show I have to pick as my least favorite it is the Teletubbies. To make things worse, as the IT expert at both home and work I couldn't figure out how to get the video off my screen.

Well played my son. To be honest, this is the first of your April Fool's pranks that I didn't see coming. Now that I'm aware you're getting smarter and more devious, I'll be better prepared for you next year. 

I don't think I want to do this anymore...

After three or four decades of being immersed in the digital lifestyle and blogging on a continual basis for 15 years, I found myself puking at the idea of spending more time in front of the computer outside of work. It's not that I don't still like technology and content management, but I didn't recognize until it was too late that the lack of topic diversity would eventually lead me to digital burnout. To fix this, I seriously tried not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. In the end that's exactly what I did.

Over the years, I've told people that CMS Report is a side business. While I would never become rich from this blog, I've been lucky enough to have been able to put a little extra cash in my wallet from this website's ad revenue. In truth, what has actually sustained CMS Report is not money but my passion for information systems. I absolutely love this magical process where people, hardware, software, and infrastructure come together to improve the business or organization. A decade ago, I could find no better example of information systems in the real world than the content management system. I decided to write about CMSs and created a blog and website to host those articles. After spending ten years as this site's founder, editor, and primary writer I've decided it is time for me to move on to some new challenges.

Last week, we started a conversation on The ez Publish Show hosted by Netgen's Ivo Lukač. The we included Ivo, Digital Clarity's Marianne Kay and myself. The odd question that started the conversation: Did modern CMSs sacrifice good editor experience (EX) for improving customer experience?

I'm not sure how well we answered the question, but the show was an acknowledgement that while CXM may get a lot of attention these days in the CMS world, there is still plenty of room for improving the EX too. I'll let the video speak for itself, but if you prefer an overview, then you can checkout Ivo's re-cap.

I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to put out a plug for my review of the Magnolia CMS on CMS-Connected last February. This was probably one of the easiest shows I've done in the sense that the Internet connection was good and the rest of the show seemed to complement my own segment well. My thanks to Boris Kraft, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer for Magnolia, for briefing me well about their product and spending some extra time with me during the demo.

This week, CMS Report celebrates our eight year anniversary. No one is more surprised than me.

If you have some free time this Thursday then you might want to tune into the CMS Connected's live webcast. As a periodic guest, I will be reviewing the Magnolia CMS platform in the show's Vendor Spotlight segment. Magnolia is an open source java-based content management system that is used in more than 100 countries across the world, by governments and leading FORTUNE 500 enterprise.

Showtime is set for Thursday, February 27th at 11:30 AM CST. If you plan on watching the webcast live, be sure and register for show at CMS-Connected.com.

The primary focus of the show will be on the shift to "Big Data".

In September's CMS-Connected show, I once again had the privilege of being a guest reviewer for their "CMS In the Spotlight" segment. This time around I reviewed e-Spirit's FirstSpirit CMS. Never heard of it? Honestly, I hadn't either until CMS-Connected Producer Gary Eisenstein assigned me the gig. Come to find out, FirstSpirit CMS helps run a number of international sites from companies like Bosch, KLM, Speedo, Sterling Jewelers, and Nintendo of Europe. While doing my homework, I walked away from the demo impressed with the amount of effort e-Spirit had done to improve usability for authors and editors.