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

The original intention for this site was for me to have a place where I could blog about my struggles with content management systems. I also wanted a place to point friends and colleagues to articles authored by content management gurus way smarter than me. I've often stated that CMSReport.com was founded not by what I knew but what I didn't know about content management. Unknowingly back then, I stumbled across a very large community of developers, site owners, consultants, analysts, vendors and marketers that also wanted to join into this conversation of "not knowing". Now here we sit with thousands of articles posted by over 350 different contributing authors. What an amazing experience CMS Report has brought to my professional and personal life.

I spent some time this week looking back at the most popular articles we posted on CMS Report. Interestingly, a number of the articles listed have very little to do with content management. As the site's editor, I consider this both the blessing and the curse of hosting a website focused on content management systems. Besides providing the "reader's choice", I also have provided my own list of favorite articles that has been posted here on CMSReport.com. When comparing the two lists, you will find the only article to make both lists is the one comparing Drupal and Joomla. In 2006, it was the first articles I had written received well by enough readers to suggest CMSReport.com might stick around a little longer than I had first anticipated.

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".

How has Big Data changed your world? This isn’t just an “old dogs, new tricks” shift. Big Data is a massive paradigm shift that opens new doors and creates new possibilities that are an order of magnitude different from what previous generations had at their fingertips. So, how does one embrace the Big Data paradigm shift?

As part of our discussion on Big Data they will welcoming Seth Earley into the studio. Seth is a 25 year veteran of the technology industry and currently heads a consulting firm of which is is the founder and CEO.

Also, joining the show will be regular co-hosts, Scott Liewehr and Butch Stearns. A first, I think, DCG Principal Analyst Jill Finger Gibson will also weighing in on some of our big news stories of the show.

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. 

On a personal note, I've heard a number of people praising my performance in this September show. I don't do well with praise so to tell you the truth I think I did just "average" for this one. I'll let you decide on this one. Embedded below is my segment from last month's CMS-Connected. Once you do watch this segment, be sure and check out the complete show at CMS-Connected. I especially encourage you to watch the segment with Sprout Content's very smart Dechay Eaton Watts.

Last week, John Coonen announced that I'll be joining him at The CMS Connection as the new Editor in Chief. In John's own words, I'm there to "zero in on the most intriguing and interesting people in the CMS world, to help you get unique perspectives, advice, 'insider' tips and insights to build your professional skills and make more valuable connections". In my own words, my role at The CMS Connection is to celebrate people.

I had the privileged of reviewing Liferay Portal for CMS-Connected's "In the Spotlight" segment. This is the first time, I've done a show with new co-host Butch Stearns. The end result is what I think is a great question and answer review of Liferay's products followed by Scott Liewehr's analyst perspective of Liferay the company. In the show, I talked about Liferay Portal and Liferay Social Office. I also had a chance to briefly mention Liferay Sync.

From an IT perspective I love the fact that Liferay Portal can serve multiple functions such as a WCM Platform, CMS, integration, collaboration, and social publishing. This ability to bend open source Liferay to meet your needs is what I've found excites most developers. As Scott later mentions Liferay's "be all" software strategy is also Liferay the company's biggest marketing challenge as they try to move up the CMS food chain. That differing perspective coming from IT, marketers, and analysts about a CMS is what I find I value most about CMS-Connected. The Liferay in the Spotlight segment begins about 46 minutes into the video.

Early this morning, I was one of two guests on the eZ Publish Show. The purpose of the episode was to discuss the future of content management system. I was joined by host Ivo Lukač of Netgen, and fellow guest Apoorv Durga from Real Story Group.

Honestly, I usually steer clear from discussions on the future of content management and any associated technology. It's not that I don't have the vision of what the future holds (such as social media impacting content management). The problem is when I look back at such predictions from the context of today, I'm embarrassed. Even with my better predictions, there is usually so much that I missed and didn't get right. So, I'm quite pleased that both Apoorv and I were conservative in our predictions on the future of content management. If you think you can do better in your predictions, and some of you can, please let me know what you think the future holds for content management systems. 

If there is any one thing I want people to get out of today's eZ Publish Show it is this: What is the future of content management systems? Answer: Solving the problems of today.

On my "to-do list" is a mention of the availability of my In the Spotlight segment online as well as the rest of the May 2013 CMS-Connected show. One of the nice things about participating on this show with hosts Tyler Pyburn and Scott Liewehr is the chance to get to spread my wings to new CMS territory. Specific to this show, I had the opportunity to review Bridgeline Digital's iAPPS Product Suite for the very first time. Once I had a chance to get a demo and do some homework, I found I was quite impressed with this content management platform. Those of you from medium to large size organizations will especially want to take a look at iAPPS. 

As I mentioned last month, the May show's focus was on organizational web governance. I know, for some governance can at first appear to be a very boring topic. However, this show had the amazing Lisa Welchman joining the conversation sharing her expert insight and commentary on governance. If you've never had a chance to witness Lisa speaking on stage to a large crowd, you're missing something. Do yourself a favor, watch the show just and get a small sampling of why Lisa is the thought leader in corporate Web strategy and governance.

At the 2013 CMS Expo Learning & Business Conference I have the privilege of moderating a panel focused on the Cloud. That's actually a broad topic, but I think it's a topic that is increasingly becoming well understood by the CMS community. Last year, I moderated a similar panel and, in my opinion, we spent way too much time trying to define the Cloud. This year, I'm hoping we're past the "what is it" phase and spend much more time talking about real problems, real benefits, and the challenges the content management industry may be facing by moving toward a Cloud solution.

Over the past few years we've seen the Cloud, like any new technology, move from hype to business reality. We're no longer asking how the cloud is defined. Instead we're asking, is the cloud for my business? We're also asking, how do I get there? This panel will look at how best to transition a business, organization, and development team to the cloud. Better yet, this panel is geared toward helping the audience better prepare for the challenges they will be facing once you are there.

I say this with confidence that these type of questions and discussion will be provided in the panel session because of the industry leaders that will be on this panel. I'm very fortunate as a moderator to have the following people joining the panel:

The recording video of the March 26th CMS-Connected show is now available online. CMS-Connected is a monthly webcast featuring news, trends and commentary related to the content management industry. In this particular show the focus was on mobile and social eCommerce with much of that discussion including Gabe Sumner from Sitefinity. I also participated as a guest on the show discussing my impressions of MODX  during the "In the Spotlight" segment. Hosts Tyler Pyburn and Scott Liewehr of course are present throughout the show reporting and commenting about the latest happenings in content management and content management systems.

My segment begins about 43 and a half minutes into the show and you'll find the video embedded below. If you want to do a lot more "segment hopping" in the video, check out the show's page at CMS-Connected where you'll find all the segments in this March show nicely indexed and parsed.

For a second year in a row, I along with CMS Report was invited to cover Liferay's North America Symposium which is being held this year in San Francisco. During this morning's keynote speech by Bryan Cheung, Liferay CEO and founder, I couldn't walk away from the presentation without recognizing the difference a year can make for one company. Something has changed for Liferay and the many partners and associated vendors that are represented here at this conference. Liferay has grown up, people are ready to talk business, and they're once again ready to talk about the importance of open source and community which makes this all happen.

This morning, Liferay released some startling numbers on just how good business is in terms of growth for the Liferay ecosystem. Consider some of these highlights related to the announcement: