Application Development, Technology, Web Content Management, Web Development, Browsers, software, Tools

Tools for Troubleshooting Web Sites and CMS Systems July 28th, 2010

Over the years I’ve learned that sometimes trouble comes where you least expect it.

Content Management Systems (CMS) have many different touch points: the physical servers, the server software, connections between servers, the Internet pipe to the user, and the end users’ computers are all involved. Any number of these could be a potential trouble area if there are issues. There are a number of fantastic tools to help isolate bottlenecks, and anyone involved in using, deploying, or maintaining a Web site should be aware of them because it will just make life easier.

Social Networking, Technology, Web Content Management

Social Stream Aggregation Site – Cliqset July 16th, 2010

Like everyone else, I wanted to find a way to look at all of my friends’ online activities without having to surf between the myriad of different social sites. There are quite a few out there, but a recently updated Cliqset has caught my eye. It aggregates over 80 social services including Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, and of course YouTube (among many more!).

Technology, Usability, Web Content Management, Web Development, Webcast

Why Could Your Content Management System Implementation Fail? June 30th, 2010

Are you about to invest in a new CMS? Or are you struggling to salvage your current system? So many CMS implementations fail, don’t let it happen to you.  In this live Webinar, I explored the reasons why so many fail, and focused on how to make your CMS work for you.

If you missed it, check out the slides on Slide Share, below, or listen to the recording.

Application Development, Web Content Management, Web Development

Transcript of SharePoint 2010 Chat with Product Team Members (public) June 18th, 2010

On May 17th three members of the SharePoint product team participated in a Live Q&A session about SharePoint 2010.  I didn’t see the content posted anywhere yet, so below is the transcript.  SharePoint 2010 Web Content Management topics are covered multiple times!  Enjoy!

Application Development, Internet Strategy, Technology, Web Content Management, Dynamic URLs, SEO, Sitecore

SEO-friendly URLs in Sitecore June 1st, 2010

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a critical feature of any Web site. One aspect of SEO is the URL itself – there are certain best practices to follow when it comes to URLs so that they can be best interpreted by search engines, and are built in the best way possible to increase their rankings. When your site is being run by a CMS, you have to make sure that it’s creating SEO-friendly URLs for you.

Social Networking, Technology, Web Content Management

Web Engagement Management: Crowdsourcing for Businesses May 12th, 2010

I recently blogged about “Web Experience Management” tools being offered by Fatwire’s new CMS feature sets and wanted to extend the concept to the Web as a whole. It seems that Fatwire is keeping up with the industries latest trend, Web Engagement Management (WEM).

Application Development, Social Networking, Technology, Web Content Management

Web Experience Management May 5th, 2010

Having worked heavily with the Open Market’s Content Server at another organization (prior and during its transition to FatWire), I was a bit dismayed to hear FatWire rushing to be at the head of the Social stampede.  Often this type of feature set is designed to be able to check off a box on an evaluators checklist, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in this instance.  I’ve yet to play with it first hand, but the offering seems to be a one-stop-shop should your site need an integrated social solution.

Information Architecture, Insight Article, Internet Strategy, Social Networking, Technology, Usability, Web Content Management

Digital Consolidation : Growing Urgency to Rationalize the Business Web May 3rd, 2010

When I pose the question “What’s keeping you up at night?” anywhere in the C-Suite these days, the conversation inevitably turns to issues of measuring and managing their extended Web enterprise.  In all sectors of business, not-for-profit organizations, and government agencies, the Web has rapidly and thoroughly become the undisputed platform for communications, commerce, and community building.  But while many execs celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit that has blossomed in their respective organizations around the Web, the proliferation of sites, applications, microsites, tools, widgets, and social media connections has confounded many user segments and placed growing strain on the ability of organizations to manage this distended organism.  Of course, it has also greatly complicated the challenge of extracting meaningful performance metrics from this platform which could indicate how cost effectively (or not) the organization’s business needs are being supported online.

As we dive into the depths of some of these large enterprises, we see symptoms of unplanned and unconstrained organic growth.  The benefits of time-to-market advantage are obvious, but the risks less so. I’m reminded of a comment made to me by Dr. Max Coppes, Head of Oncology at Children’s National Medical Center; he said, “Growth for the sake of growth is the philosophy of a cancer cell.”  That’s hardly the analog we’d hope for when inventorying a business Web enterprise.  But in many offices the idea still prevails that “If I can build it, I should build it.”  So as we watch organizations innovate, add new product lines, and expand their global markets, we see their technologies and business processes proliferate, and any vestiges of coherent discipline seem to vanish in that euphoria of growth.

Technology, Web Content Management, Web Development

Sitecore Dreamcore 2010 Conference: Part Three – Unified Page Editor April 30th, 2010

The second session I attended at Sitecore’s North America Dreamcore 2010 was for the Unified Page Editor on the Developer Track, presented by Kerry Bellerose, VP of Product Management.

To recap some highlights:

Application Development, Technology, Web Content Management, Web Development

Sitecore Dreamcore 2010 Conference: Part Two – Sitecore Intranet Portal April 29th, 2010

At the North America Sitecore Dreamcore 2010 Developer and Partner conference last week, the first session I participated in was for the Sitecore Intranet Portal, part of the Developer Track.  I’d like to share some interesting points from that session:

Application Development, Social Networking, Web Content Management, Web Development, ASP.NET, Microsoft, Social Networking, twitter

Sitecore Dreamcore 2010 Conference: Part One April 28th, 2010

Last week two colleagues and I were fortunate enough to be able to attend the North America Sitecore Dreamcore 2010 Conference in Boston. The volume of information and quality of speakers was astounding, so it’s going to take a little while to digest and distill it into something that can be managed and talked about easily.

The Sitecore management team literally braved the elements and an angry planet (referring to volcanoes and such) to get to Boston, so kudos to the whole team are in order.

Out of the shoot considering the “live” nature of a lot of conferences these days I thought it would be interesting to share some links and tips that surfaced during the conference from around the Web.

Web Content Management, Web Development, JavaScript, jQuery, Sitecore

Avoiding jQuery’s noConflict() Mode with Prototype and Sitecore April 5th, 2010

The brevity of the Prototype JavaScript library’s $() (i.e. the “dollar” function) is without a doubt a handy tool and easy to type over, and over, and over again. It caught on quickly as JavaScript frameworks took off and John Resig’s jQuery library used a version of it from the start as well. Of course, this had issues where from time to time both Prototype and jQuery might show up on the same Web page.

The pros and cons of loading more than one JavaScript library over HTTP is of course a whole other article in and of itself. Please always consider the implications of such a move. It’s all about page weight and performance.

jQuery has been the JavaScript framework of choice at NavigationArts for quite some time. It has, for as long as I can remember, featured a method called noConflict() which returns control of the $() function to whatever it was previously defined as. What does that mean? Well, in jQuery, $() is just an alias to the jQuery object, so it removes that alias. It’s done this way:

Application Development, Technology, Web Content Management, Drupal, open source, SEO

Web Content Mavens on Open Source CMS April 1st, 2010

Meredith Casey and I of the NavigationArts Marketing team along with Pete Rose from the Business Development team attended the Web Content Mavens meeting at Il Mulino this past Tuesday night to discuss “Open Source CMS – Is it right for your Organization?”

We heard from Jeff Walpole of Phase II comparing and contrasting different Open Source CMS’s and on why he uses Drupal for so many of his projects, including WhiteHouse.gov.   We heard from Mike Vertal of RivetLogic on Alfresco and why it works so well for some of his clients (enterprises mostly) but that it is not for everyone.  And lastly we heard from Martin Ringlein of nclud on how the popularity of WordPress has positively influenced its SEO capabilities and simlified things such as application development.

Application Development, Web Content Management, Web Development, ASP.NET, Video

.NET Brightcove Video API Integrates with Sitecore November 19th, 2009

So a follow up to my post on Professional Video Services, here’s something I just found.

Application Development, Information Architecture, Internet Strategy, Social Networking, Visual Design, Web Content Management, Web Development, Video

Professional Video Services for Businesses November 11th, 2009

An unlikely source for cutting edge technology news of course, but USA Today has an interesting article discussing the future of online video for businesses. They point out that video has a huge and critical future for most everyone doing business online these days, and there’s several major players coming in that exceed the offerings by such commonly known entities from YouTube and Vimeo.

Specifically, pay services targeted for businesses include:

Web Content Management, Drupal, government, open source

Whitehouse.gov Moves to Drupal CMS October 30th, 2009

The team responsible for the Whitehouse.gov Web site has switched over to using the open-source Drupal CMS to manage the site.

From TechPresident.com:

The great Drupal switch came about after the Obama new media team, with a few months of executive branch service (and tweaking of WhiteHouse.gov) under their belts, decided they needed a more malleable development environment for the White House web presence. They wanted to be able to more quickly, easily, and gracefully build out their vision of interactive government.

More thoughts on the change and what it means in terms of technology and the public adoption of open-source software is available from Dries Buyatert (original creator and project lead for Drupal development) and Tim O’Reilly.

Application Development, Social Networking, Web Content Management

ExpressionEngine – Beta Test V2! October 21st, 2009

It looks like Ellis Labs is about to enter into the second phase of its beta testing for its ExpressionEngine V2 offering. If you haven’t had a chance to learn about it, here’s your chance! Looks to be an exciting offering, sitting on the CodeIgniter framework (also developed by Ellis Labs).

Application Development, Visual Design, Web Content Management, Web Development, performance

Web Site Performance Software October 6th, 2009

At NavigationArts, the client-side development team focuses heavily on optimizing the performance of Web pages and how fast they load. Some of the leading research in the area is from the likes of Yahoo! and their front-end engineering team.

Social Networking, Web Content Management, Web Development

Future of Content Management September 3rd, 2009

Julian Wrath has asked those of us interested in the world of CMS to comment on the “The Future of Content Management.” While I’d like to presume I know what the future will hold in that world, I’d like to express where I hope that it’s going.

Information Architecture, Insight Article, Internet Strategy, Usability, User Experience Design, User Research, Visual Design, Web Content Management, Healthcare

7 Principles for Designing a Successful Hospital Web Site August 1st, 2009

With health information Web sites like WebMD setting the standard, hospital Web sites must at a minimum meet basic user expectations. Your hospital Web site is a direct extension of your brand and a poorly designed or outdated Web site will translate in the public’s perception to a poorly run hospital with outdated services.

What are the keys to developing a successful hospital Web site? All of the principles outlined below are rooted in the practice of user-centered design.

Web Content Management, Web Development, Flash, Video

Flash and Flash Video June 30th, 2009

I have this question asked to me atleast once a week: what’s the difference between Flash and Flash Video, or do you need Flash to play a Flash Video. I found a nice article that articulates the difference.

“The thing most users don’t understand is the difference between Flash and Flash Video. Flash is the interactive part of the process, which allows the creation of the player that is designed to interactively manipulate the video: stop, fast-forward, rewind, etc.

Flash Video on the other hand, is just the video file that the Flash SWF file plays, using the Flash Player. SWF files may include video content that has been imported from FLV or F4V files, or may merely reference external FLV/F4V video files which the SWF file will play back at certain pre-defined or user-input intervals.”

Web Content Management, Web Development

Web Applications with Web Standards Front-end Development June 18th, 2009

Two years ago, I had the unique opportunity to contribute with some incredibly distinguished
industry names on a book about Web Standards-based Web development. The book, called Adapting to Web
Standards, is of course available from Amazon.com and other retailers … and some of it is available for free, online.

Web Content Management, governance, non-profit

Just Enough Governance July 14th, 2008

I was thinking about content governance this morning. My current project, a government Intranet, needs revised CMS workflows, prompting me to remember a lesson from a recent presentation: Use just enough content governance. (The presentation was by Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy at the Smithsonian, at the June meeting of “Web Content Mavens“.)