December 18, 2007

Call for Papers: Gilbane San Francisco 2008

They are now accepting proposals for panel participation and presentations for Gilbane San Francisco 2008, to be held at the Westin Market Hotel, San Francisco, June 17 - 19, 2008.

Join the content and information technology's leading analysts, IT strategists, and technologists at the industry's most popular and important conference this coming Spring. Share your expertise and experience, and network with the forward-thinking implementers and thought leaders.

How to be a speaker

Choose a topic area from the list below and see how to submit a proposal. The deadline is January 15, 2008. Topics to be covered in-depth include:

If you've never been to one of the Gilbane events and want see what we have been covering in our conferences, check-out the programs from the recent hugely successful Gilbane Boston 2007 and Gilbane San Francisco 2007.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:14 AM | Comments (1)

December 4, 2007

Meanwhile, Over at Gilbane...

Tomorrow, I will be part of a webinar, What Every Publisher Needs to Know About Content Management. It's being put on by Book Business Magazine and sponsored by Follett Digital Resources. Matt Steinmetz, Special Projects Editor for Book Business will be moderating, and I will be joined on the virtual dais by Jabin White, Vice President for Product Management at Silverchair.

I'm going to be presenting a market overview, offer some definitions, and discuss some recent and emerging trends. I'm going to leave most of the heavy lifting to Jabin, though. He is truly one of the smart guys in the business and an excellent presenter, and I am looking forward to hearing what he has to say.

You can go right to the registration page here.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:40 PM

October 13, 2007

Here and There

Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:08 PM

August 20, 2007

Semantic Web Strategies Conference Program is Ready

Bob DuCharme reports that the Semantic Web Strategies program is ready.

I'm very happy to announce that the program for the Semantic Web Strategies conference in San Jose September 30 - October 2nd is finished and available. For keynote speakers, we've got some well-known names who all bring a combination of experience and creativity to their semantic web work: Eric Miller, Nova Spivack, and Kingsley Idehen. We also have presentations on many interesting projects from large and small organizations and well-known semantic web companies such as TopQuadrant, Zepheira, and Access Innovations (of DataHarmony fame) as sponsors.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 4:57 PM

August 8, 2007

Gilbane Boston: Enterprise Publishing Technology

For this fall's Gilbane Boston, we have some some sessions on enterprise publishing technology. The session include: DITA: One Size Fits All for Technical Publishing?; Technologies for Multi-Channel, High-Volume, High-Quality Publishing; and Metadata for Content Management and Publishing.

If you have thoughts about a talk in one of these sessions, please email me.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 6:22 PM

June 27, 2007

Adobe Max 2007

Speaking of the major content technology companies, registration for Adobe Max 2007 is now open. I went to last year's fall event in Vegas (this year it is in Chicago), and my first impression is that this year's event has much more for the traditional Adobe Creative Suite community than last year's did.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 9:45 PM

The Content Management 500?

I was reading PersonaNonData today and noticed he has one of those Yahoo Finance widgets that track certain stocks. He has the big publishers (Pearson, Wiley, McGraw Hill, et al) and the big book sellers (Amazon, B&N, Borders).

I had been thinking for a while of doing one for content management companies, so I did, adding it to the right side of the page. To start with I have Adobe, Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, Vignette, EMC, Open Text, and Interwoven. It was striking to me how few of the CMS vendors are publicly traded companies--and further striking to me how the recent consolidation has shortened the list further.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:11 PM

June 12, 2007

The Future of Publishing

Thad McIlroy has his web site, The Future of Publishing, up and in full swing. It is really well done.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 2:14 PM | Comments (3)

May 17, 2007

Flex Books and Tools

I updated my Acrobat aStore to include a page on Flex books and tools.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:55 AM

May 6, 2007

Meanwhile Over at Gilbane

I have been in one of those modes where I have been too busy to blog, and yet have been working on a lot of interesting things. My Gilbane colleague Mary Laplante and I did a webinar with Oracle (details here about where to view the recorded webinar and download the associated white paper). If you haven't been keeping a scorecard, Oracle acquired Stellent a few months ago, and while the webinar was more broadly about web content management, it does give you some insight into what Oracle will be doing with Stellent. Hat tip to David Guenette, who co-wrote the white paper, and really did the heavy lifting there.

Also at Gilbane, I wrote a case study about Autodesk and its efforts over the last several years integrating Idiom's globalization management system into its technical documentation workflow. We then did a Webinar with Minette Norman from Autodesk, and she did a fantastic job of explaining the project at both the technical and management level. The recorded webinar and presentation slides can be found here.

Finally, David Guenette and I recently updated a Gilbane white paper on Digital Asset Management. The paper, sponsored by DAM vendor ClearStory systems, asks (and answers) the question, has digital asset management “crossed the chasm” from a technology used only by early adopters to one that is more part of the IT mainstream?

Posted by Bill Trippe at 7:41 PM

April 27, 2007

The Sound of One Hand Clapping?

Is the One Billion Clicks Project an example of Web 2.0?

I added seven clicks. No, eight. I can hear my mother saying, find something useful to do...

Posted by Bill Trippe at 3:42 PM | Comments (0)

April 22, 2007

CMS Watch is Hiring

Seeking Web Content Management Analyst

We're looking to hire a full-time Analyst to cover Web CMS technologies and trends. Get essential details here. Perhaps we already know you and you've always thought about working for CMS Watch. Perhaps we've never met you, but you really fit the bill. In any case, you'll see the person we seek is quite special indeed...

Posted by Bill Trippe at 2:51 PM

April 16, 2007

eCommerce Benchmark Guide

Or, as MarketingSherpa calls it, the Ecommerce Benchmark Guide. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a marketing affiliate of MarketingSherpa--and get a small commission on sales of certain products. But I have always admired their work. The new guide is an impressive piece of research, based on a survey of 1913 professional marketers and 2449 online shoppers. The numbers are compelling. 2006 saw a 25% in eCommerce over the previous year, and online sales now account for 3% of all retail sales (up from 1% five years ago). It adds up to almost $30B in retail eCommerce, though the report also notes that "the era of hypergrowth might be slightly slowing in the US."

You can buy the report by clicking on the ad at the right. If you would like to read a free excerpt, you can download it here (PDF).

Posted by Bill Trippe at 4:52 PM

April 10, 2007

A Well Deserved Webby Nomination to PaidContent.org

Webby Nominations Announced; We’re On The List

Funny thing about awards: we diss them publicly all the time, but as soon we get nominated, we become an award whore (well, more specifically me). This time it is the Webby, so I think it is justified. The nominations were announced today, and we’re among the five in the Best Blog: Business category along with some other great names like TechDirt and Dealbook (by NYTimes.com).

Posted by Bill Trippe at 9:43 PM

April 2, 2007

Gilbane San Francisco

I have been so busy that I have failed to blog about Gilbane San Francisco, which is next week (conference grid here and registration here). It's a big event for Gilbane, collocated with LISA Forum USA and the Content Management Professionals Spring Summit. It should be a great event. Plus I love San Francisco, and I get to see my nephew Max's new restaurant, which is getting great reviews (here and here).

Posted by Bill Trippe at 1:41 PM

Philly XML User Group

Philadelphia has an active XML user group, with monthly meetings in Center City. The next meeting is next Wednesday, April 11 at 6:00 p.m., at a new location for the group, Wolters Kluwer Health, 520 Walnut Street (the Penn Mutual building).

This month's meeting will feature a presentation, "RSuite CMS: Native XML Content Management," from Michael Puscar of Really Strategies, Inc. RSuite is the CMS developed by Really that uses the MarkLogic Server XML repository. According to the announcement for the event.

Publishers struggle with the same problems as they embark on their XML-based content management solutions. Current CMS solutions don’t offer true native XML management and search. Some call themselves “native XML databases” but they really support XQuery compilation and execution inside an existing RDBMS. This approach does not harness the power of XQuery, limits the use of hierarchical queries, and contributes to major performance issues later when you need to reconstitute XML data scattered across the database into a document for export. So what’s an appropriate definition for “native XML database”? And what does “native” really mean? Let’s discuss this concept and take a look at Really Strategies' RSuite CMS, which offers features like node-level XML management, layered metadata, and true content reuse.

You can register for the event here; it's free!

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:44 AM

January 12, 2007

CM Pros Spring Summit 2007 San Francisco: Call For Participation

Via Scott Abel: CM Pros Spring Summit 2007 San Francisco: Call For Participation

CM Pros has issued a Call for Participation for their bi-annual Summit, April 13, 2007, at The Palace Hotel in historic San Francisco. The theme of the event is “Managing Content Management Implementation Projects.”

The event is collocated with Gilbane San Francisco.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 1:04 PM

January 9, 2007

A Companion to Digital Humanities

Landmark Digital Humanities Book Is Now Freely Available

A Companion to Digital Humanities is now freely available in digital form. This important 2004 book was edited by Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth. It includes chapters by such notable experts as Howard Besser, Greg Crane, Susan Hockey, …

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:10 PM

January 7, 2007

Content Management Professionals Select Scott Abel As New Executive Director

Congratulations to Scott Abel on being chosen as the new Executive Director for Content Management Professionals.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:37 PM

3rd Edition of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web just published

3rd Edition of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web just published

Perhaps better known as "The Polar Bear Book" from the cover design this classic book has just been published in a 3rd edition. The changes from the 2nd edition are more in the way of polishing than any attempt at a major revision though the new edition is 40 pages longer.

You can buy the book here.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 3:12 PM

December 28, 2006

Speaking of My Resource Pages...

... I also spent some time updating my eForms resources page.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 3:36 PM

Content Management Books

I spent some time today updating my CMS Resources page, and in the process unearthed three books on content management that I hadn't listed previously.

The first two are published by a vendor, OpenText. While the second two are published by two independent consultants who work a lot with Filenet technology.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 1:26 PM | TrackBack

December 27, 2006

The "New" 100 Most Useful Sites

The UK's Guardian newspaper revisits a list they came up with two years ago.

In 2004, the internet was a different place: there was, for example, no YouTube, and most Britons online didn't have broadband. That's changed dramatically: now, more than 75% of users have broadband, and the arrival of Web 2.0 has brought sites where the interaction is as fast as if it were on your machine. So we've revisited the "cream of the crop" that we brought you two years ago.

Sadly, I am nowhere on the list....

Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:21 PM

Speaking of San Francisco...

...it's not too early to be thinking of Gilbane San Francisco, which will be held April 10-12 at the Palace Hotel. Among the highlighs this year:

Posted by Bill Trippe at 4:54 PM

December 19, 2006

Call for Papers

Frank Gilbane notes that it is hard to believe, but the deadlines for speaking proposals for Gilbane's April San Francisco and June Washington DC conferences are rapidly approaching. Proposal guidelines can be read here. You can send the proposals to Frank. Tony Byrne from CMS Watch is chairing the Washington DC conference again, so you can also send proposals for DC directly to Tony.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 3:18 PM | TrackBack

December 8, 2006

A Conversation with Jon Udell about his New Job

Goodness. Jon Udell is taking a position with Microsoft.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 9:24 AM

December 7, 2006

Get Your Multimedia House in Order

“Do opportunities exist to call for more digital offerings, and are you prepared to spend wisely toward them? Looking back five years or so, some publishers put the cart before the horse, burning holes in their pockets for expansive digital publishing before the market was really clear.

“For instance, publishers that think they would benefit most from e-books need to know that a market exists, but it is not as big [as they might think] and there are plenty of third-parties who could easily handle production and hosting. On the other hand, medical and legal publishers with enormous electronic potential absolutely need to make a commitment to a digital presence and they need to adjust staff to handle it."

Sound like good advice? I hope it is. I gave it.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 3:30 PM | TrackBack

November 22, 2006

C-List

So much for becoming rich and famous...

C-List Blogger

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:55 PM

Writer's Block

Some good advice from Writing Information.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:52 PM

November 20, 2006

Ether

What will they think of next?

billtrippe
1-888-MY-ETHER ext. 01809518

This service enables me to provide clients with a number they can call and talk to me at a rate I choose. The service, ether.com, charges the client and passes the money on to me. Apparently, there is an e-mail mechanism as well, so keep those calls and letters coming!

Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:18 AM | TrackBack

November 2, 2006

StumbleUpon

Have you tried StumbleUpon yet? It's cool.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:10 PM

October 24, 2006

Blogging Has Been Light

I have been heads down with some project work and writing, so blogging has been light. I am at Adobe Max for a couple of days, and just saw a very cool demo of more integrated Web publishing beginning in Photoshop and extending through Fireworks and Dreamweaver. It was a "future," but I will find out more in a press briefing later today with Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch.

UPDATE: There is a beta program for Fireworks 9 if you are interested in applying.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:40 PM

October 3, 2006

Global Content Management Systems

Bob Doyle is at it again, launching a new Web-based aggregator for news and information about content management and globalization. The mission of Global Content Management Systems "is to give you the resources you need to choose a globalization management system for your organization. CMS Global is the tenth in a network of content-management related sites and mailing lists managed by Bob Doyle of CMS Review." This is especially timely, as the fall 2006 CM Pros Summit will focus on content globalization.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 1:41 PM

September 29, 2006

A Master's in Content Management?

Over at Gadgetopia, Deane Barker tells us he wants a master's in content management, and wonders why one doesn't exist.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 3:03 PM | Comments (2)

September 19, 2006

Meanwhile, Over at Gilbane

The Gilbane Group announced they have launched a blog for Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) who are involved in enterprise content applications, whether vendor, integrator, or enterprise implementer. The content technology CTO Blog is hosted by the Gilbane Group as a service to the content and information technology community. The purpose of the blog is to facilitate ongoing discussion and debate on technologies, approaches and architectures relevant to enterprise content applications. CTOs have a wealth of critical information about technologies that is not always accessible to enterprise customers. CTOs also have demanding jobs, and have limited time available to meet with each other with customers, or with other industry influencers. This blog is intended to encourage communication both between vendor CTOs and between enterprise customer CTOs and vendor CTOs. All CTOs are invited to participate as an author, and to comment. Two CTO Blog charter authors have already contributed posts during the pre-launch testing. John Newton, a Documentum founder and now founder and CTO of Alfresco, provides a provocative take on "content management 2.0". Vern Imrich, CTO of Percussion Software, shares insights into the apparent contradiction of content management technology moving up and down the technology infrastructure stack at the same time. Additional charter authors of the Content Technology CTO Blog include: Bill Cava, Ektron; James Gonthier, Refresh; Jason Hunter, Mark Logic; Vern Imrich, Percussion; John Newton, Alfresco; Bjrn Olstad, FAST; Eric Severson, Flatirons Solutions; and Carl Sutter, CrownPeak.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:15 AM

September 17, 2006

Currently Reading

Web Metrics: Proven Methods for Measuring Web Site Success by Jim Sterne. While the book is a few years old now (published in June 2002), the book is still selling well and I can see why. It is very readable, and it references a lot of good consumer research that still holds up today. Plus, as my post Friday on "functional web analytics" suggested, this is still a nascent arena in terms of real business impact, with lots of basic work still to be accomplished on many Web sites.

Any other books or resources on Web analytics you would recommend?

Posted by Bill Trippe at 4:54 PM | TrackBack

September 14, 2006

MarketingSherpa Publishes Two New Search Marketing Buyer's Guides

Press Release:: MarketingSherpa Publishes Two New Search Marketing Buyer's Guides: 64 PPC Ad Agencies and 104 SEO Firms Compared in Easy Scan Charts

Warren RI -- September 14, 2006 -- MarketingSherpa, a research firm publishing Case Studies and benchmark data for marketers, released today two new reports for 2007: the Buyer's Guide to Paid Search Advertising (PPC) Agencies and the Buyer's Guide to …

Posted by Bill Trippe at 7:31 PM

Web Publishing at Stanford

Web Publishing: A Stanford Workshop for Magazine, Association, and Corporate Publishing Professionals. Great subject, smart people, and it's in Monterey. Sounds like the makings of a fine event to me. And even better, it doesn't conflict with Gilbane Boston.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:41 AM

September 13, 2006

New Version of The CMS Report

CMS Watch has published the tenth version of its CMS Report. My how time flies when you are having fun. I have the highest regard for CMS Watch. Tony Byrne is simply one of the smartest people in the business, and the enterprise was only strengthened when Theresa Regli joined earlier this year. If you are in the market for CMS technology and you want independent analysis of the vendors, the CMS Report is a one-of-a-kind resource right now.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 3:04 PM

August 26, 2006

New Office

I moved my office in July, shortly before taking some vacation in Maine. My new office is in Waltham, at 45 First Ave (which Yahoo maps insists on calling 1st Ave). Anyway, it is a nice office, and is right off the highway. I moved mainly because my older son will be attending a nearby high school, so I am about to embark on a few years of commuting on Route 128 with my teenager. Wish me luck! My younger son doesn't seem inclined to go to this same high school, but there is a chance that starting next year I could be commuting with my two teenage sons. I am not sure that is actually possible...

While the office is in Waltham, I decided to change my mailing address to a PO Box here in Melrose. My full contact information is over on my New Millennium Publishing contact page.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 1:14 PM

August 12, 2006

Publishing Technology Survey

IDEAlliance is conducting a survey of publishing technology, and will be sharing the results. According to the Web site:

This IDEAlliance Publishing Technologies Survey is being conducted to assess the state of publishing technologies and standards in the industry today. First we ask for general information about your organization and your role. You do not have to reveal your name, company or position. However note that we provide survey results to any one who is interested. Next we focus on digital media assets both for archive and for product delivery. We hope to assess current media formats and identify trends for the next two years. We then move our focus to systems. Here we hope to assess the current systems that are installed and in use as well as the wish-list for the next 2 years. Other areas of inquiry include technology standards, both awareness and adoption.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:24 PM

June 7, 2006

The Gilbane Conference on Content Technologies for Government

Lisa Welcham has a podcast with Frank Gilbane and Tony Byrne, organizers of next week's Gilbane Conference on Content Technologies for Government.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 2:24 PM

Theresa Regli joins CMS Watch

Theresa Regli is joining Tony Byrne at CMS Watch. This brings together two of the smartest--and most decent--people in the business. Congratulations to Theresa, and best of luck in her new role.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:05 PM

May 12, 2006

InfoPath Books

I made a number of updates to my eForms Resources page today, including the addition of several new books on InfoPath.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:57 PM

May 6, 2006

Busy, Busy

I have been traveling a lot, including out to San Francisco for the Gilbane Conference, but also to client visits in New York, Philadelphia, Tampa, and DC. The travel should quiet down the next few weeks, though I will still be very busy.

For those of you who attended my DITA tutorial at Gilbane, they will be posting my slides shortly on this page.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:03 PM

April 21, 2006

Off to Gilbane and CM Professionals Conferences

I leave for the Gilbane San Francisco conference in the morning. Before Gilbane starts, I will be giving one of the keynotes at the CM Professionals Spring 2006 Conference.

This has been an extraordinarily busy few weeks for me, with visits to customers in Tampa, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. After the conferences, I will look forward to a quiet day or two back in Boston.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:18 PM

April 16, 2006

LISA Forum Asia - China Focus

Starting tomorrow in Shanghai: LISA Forum Asia - China Focus, focused on China and the emerging markets of Asia. Sponsored by LISA, the Localization Industry Standards Association.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:52 PM

April 9, 2006

A Few Changes

I added a few more categories, and am going through the process now of re-tagging some old entries. I now have separate categories for publishing, baseball, and poetry. They only go back a few months right now, but that will grow as I have more time to re-tag older entries. I also have a nascent category on RSS, as I expect to write more about that in the future.

UPDATE: Oops. I failed to mention an obvious thing. I have disabled trackback pings, and have decided to default to "no comments" on entries, though I will open up some entries to comments. I have been dealing with too much comment and trackback spam (and some other related abuse, such as referral spam), so I had to take a few corrective actions.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:35 PM

March 30, 2006

Publishing Strategy and Technology

The Gilbane San Francisco Conference is coming up, and Frank has announced a new special pass for people interested in attending just the Automated Publishing Track. The pass sells for $495 and allows you to attend all the automated publishing sessions April 24th & April 25th, sit in on our opening keynote, visit the exhibits, and join us for the sponsor reception on Tuesday April 25th. For more information on the track, click here.

The sessions with the AP prefix, AP-1, AP-2, etc., make up the Automated Publishing track.

To register for the special pass, click here. To register for the full conference, click here. Of course, don't forget about my DITA tutorial.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:30 PM

March 29, 2006

Speaking of Mark Logic

Dave Kellogg, CEO of Mark Logic, offers this comparison of Google and Oracle in his blog.

Google has one primary revenue source (advertising) and a lot of science projects for PR (e.g., Google Earth, Moon, or -- believe it not -- Google Mars). This is just like Oracle which, for a long time, had one working revenue source (the DBMS) and numerous science projects of its own, such as nCube, the network computer (NC), or video-on-demand...

But the big difference is once you put Oracle inside your company it is very hard to get it out. If moving an IT department from Oracle to DB2 is a liver transplant, moving a user from Google to another search engine is a hangnail. The former requires re-writes of applications, reports, and queries. The latter requires a new bookmark and perhaps a thirty-second toolbar download.

Indeed.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:32 PM

New Book on XQuery

Stephen Buxton, who is Director of Product Management for Mark Logic, has co-authored a new book, Querying XML: XQuery, XPath, and SQL/XML in Context. It's a honking 848 pages, which doesn't surprise me. Along with the folks at DataDirect (who market Stylus Studio and DataDirect XQuery), Mark Logic really represents both the thought leadership and a growing center of excellence on XQuery. They have already done enough work to fill an 848 page book--and more. Buxton's co-author is Jim Melton of Oracle. Both Buxton and Melton are part of the W3C XML Query Working Group.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 7:56 PM

Alfresco Founder & CTO starts blogging

Jeff Potts likes the new blog from John Newton, Alfresco Founder and CTO.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 3:45 PM

March 27, 2006

LinkedIn Profile

I have discussed LinkedIn before, and have since spent a little more time on my connections and my profile. I decided to publish my LinkedIn profile as a kind of online resume. It's not as detailed as I would like, and clicking almost anywhere then invites you to become a LinkedIn member, but it does have some of the basics. If you are interested in my full resume, click here (PDF).

Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:06 PM

March 23, 2006

CM Professionals: Two Items

Tomorrow is the deadline for the call for papers for the CM Professionals Spring Summit, which will be held in conjunction with Gilbane San Francisco.

Also, if you are interested in joining CM Professionals (and you should), now is the time to join. The annual membership fee is $50 now, but is being increased to $100 on March 31. So join now.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:44 AM

March 22, 2006

AIIM New England (oh, and an iPod)

If you've considered joining AIIM New England, now is a good time. It's free, and they have some very good events and resources. And if you join now through me as your sponsoring member, I have a chance to win an iPod. So email me and I will get you enrolled.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 6:41 PM

Why XForms Matter, Revisited - O'Reilly XML Blog

Why XForms Matter, Revisited - O'Reilly XML Blog

Excellent article, published 3/19/2006, by Kurt Cagle.

(Testing the "blog this" feature on my Onfolio tool, finally.)

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:42 AM

March 19, 2006

A Cut Above the Rest

Tim Bray's blog is worth reading for so many reasons. He is smarter than most people out there, he writes really well, and his photography is wonderful.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 2:08 PM

Comment Dreariness

A month or so ago I mentioned a plague of trackback spam, and the new tool I had installed. The trackback spam immediately got better, but then starting a week or so ago I had a fresh plague of comment spam, which reached a crescendo on Friday. I was away from my computer for a good chunk of the day and came back to a couple of hundred comment spam.

How dreary. I considered for a bit my need to have comments at all. I don't get many, but the real ones I do get are much appreciated. So I decided to tweak the tool settings. At first I could only get it down to a dull roar, where I was still getting a dozen an hour. So I tightened it up more, and have now gone about 24 hours without any.

So now I am fretting I may block a few real comments, so I will monitor the logs. Over the last 24 hours, it blocked 113 comments, and they were all bogus. So far, so good, I guess.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:00 PM

March 15, 2006

Recommended Reading

DRM expert Bill Rosenblatt tells me that if you really want to know how systems get compromised and hacked, you should read Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World by Bruce Schneier.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:37 AM

March 14, 2006

In the Mail

Jonathan Lazar's Web Usability: A User-Centered Design Approach. Lazar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Information Sciences, in the Fisher College of Science and Mathematics at Towson University. He is also founder and director of the Universal Usability Laboratory at Towson University. I didn't find a blog by Dr. Lazar, but I did find an impressive list of published research papers, many of which are available online.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 9:35 PM

March 8, 2006

Slow Blogging, Redux

I have been quiet lately, which almost always happens with some combination of being too busy, traveling a lot, and technical problems. Yes, yes, and yes. Yesterday my primary notebook failed (almost simultaneously with my fax machine--how weird is that?), and I have just been swamped with work.

In the meantime, if you are an eContent subscriber, you can read my just-published review of The Complete New Yorker (quick version--I liked it).

You can also read a brief blog entry I wrote over at Gilbane on Microsoft's acquisition of Onfolio. More thoughts here from Richard MacManus at ZDNet.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:17 PM

February 28, 2006

Gilbane San Francisco

Hot off the press is a PDF of the brochure for Gilbane San Francisco, which will be held at the Palace Hotel April 24-26. I will be doing a DITA tutorial there.

Also of note: CM Professionals will host its fifth summit on April 23rd and 24th, also at the Palace Hotel, in conjunction with Gilbane.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 7:46 AM

February 16, 2006

LinkedIn

I am by no means an expert on the many Web sites and mechanisms for social and business networking. But over the years I have tried a few (Tribe comes to mind, but I tried a few more whose names I can't even recall right now, so obviously they weren't terribly effective for me). But the one I have invested some time and effort in is LinkedIn, and it has been fruitful for me. I can point to a couple of projects that originated there, and I enjoy being able to connect colleagues whose talents and skills I value.

So, via LinkedIn, I was really pleased today to hear from Bob DuCharme, someone whose work I have always admired. He has this great, readable book on XSLT, and his articles on XML.com are some of my favorites. (He has a new one on Hacking the XML in your TiVo.) I've added Bob's blog to my blogroll and CMS Resources page.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:27 AM

February 14, 2006

Traffic

Like many of you with a blog or Web site, I watch my traffic. I am not obsessive about it, but I usually check daily, and lately am both pleased and intrigued.

Pleased because there are more visitors all the time. I was getting a steady 700 or so user sessions a day when I lauched the combined blog in September of last year. I hit an average of 1000 a day around the end of November, and then averaged 1210 a day last month. The last week or so has seen a steady climb through 1300 a day, and then yesterday I had 1699 user sessions. I wonder how many of them were from T-Mobile?

The intriguing part is the number of people who go straight for the RSS feeds. Of the 3966 pageviews yesterday, 1560 of them were the feed for my blog, 130 of them were the feed from my eForms Resources page, and 98 of them were the feed from my CM Resources page. Even more interesting is that some downloads of my feeds are for multiple subscribers through places like Bloglines and Newsgator. Moreover, my feed is hosted in at least a couple of places, and I have only a vague idea how many people subscribe that way.

So clearly RSS is the growth medium for Web publishing, at least in my case. When I only had my brochure site, I would get 35 or so visitors a day. Yesterday, it looks like about 12 people took a good long look at the brochure site. Many of the rest of them were going straight for the RSS.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 9:15 AM

February 10, 2006

International Conference of the Book

I received an invitation to propose a paper for the 4th annual International Conference of the Book. Turns out it is put on by my former graduate program in Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emerson College.

I decided also to add an events section to my CM Resources page.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 4:02 PM

Journal of Electronic Publishing

Via DigitalKoans, I learned that UMichigan's Journal of Electronic Publishing has relaunched. Among the articles in the new edition: Joseph Esposito on, "What if Wal-Mart Ran a Library?" and Geoffrey Bilder on, "In Google We Trust?"

Posted by Bill Trippe at 2:12 PM

February 9, 2006

Two Days, Two Great New Blogs

So I mentioned a great new blog I found yesterday, and today Eliot Kimber announced his blog, Dr. Macro's XML Rants. Eliot describes it as, "W. Eliot Kimber's personal blog about XML as a technology, tools that support it, what I think is and isn't good practice, and technical issues in general. Other keywords that might be relevant: XSLT, XSL-FO, schema, publishing, composition, formatting, Python, Java." But I especially like his tagline: All Tools Suck; Some Suck Less Than Others.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 6:41 PM

February 8, 2006

The Ten Thousand Year Blog

Thinking about Google Print and its role in digital preservation got me hunting around the Web for more resources and better examples of digital preservation. I was delighted to find a great blog, The Ten Thousand Year Blog, with the tagline, "Archivist-historian David Mattison’s musings and Web tracks on digital culture preservation issues."

Posted by Bill Trippe at 9:58 PM | Comments (1)

Star of Stage and Screen?

No, but I will be on the radio show at MyTechnologyLawyer.com. Fellow Gilbane Report Senior Editor Mary Laplante and I will be talking about the upcoming Gilbane San Francisco conferences on content management and digital rights management. The interview will be at 1:00 Eastern time today, and you can listen live here.

UPDATE: Sorry, that's tomorrow, Thursday February 9, at 1:00 Eastern.

UPDATE: If you missed the live broadcast, you can listen to recorded versions here (Real Media) or here (Windows Media). Among the topics discussed at some length were DITA and Enterprise DRM.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:27 PM

February 5, 2006

Greater Boston DITA User Group Meeting

The February meeting of the Boston DITA UG is scheduled for next Monday, February 13 at 6:30 p.m. at the Waltham headquarters of Information Mapping. The featured speaker will be Willie Williams, a technical writer at Idiom who will be presenting a case study on "Converting Unstructured Content to DITA XML." For directions to Information Mapping's headquarters, click here.

If you are planning to attend, please RSVP to Erin Freeburger at Information Mapping, by email or by phone (781.472.3083).

Posted by Bill Trippe at 9:59 PM

February 4, 2006

Catching up on my Reading

I have had a crazy week, so am just now catching up on some of my blog reading. A few things worth reading:

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:04 PM

January 31, 2006

Joining Newstex

I have signed on with Newstex, a content aggregator. This is my first formal agreeement for my blog content, and I am looking forward to working with them. I am also very interested in the evolving business models for blog content and other kinds of micro or niche publishing. Newstex's own explanation summarizes their offering really well:

Newstex offers Content On Demand, including tailored, real-time news and commentary from thousands of branded newswires, newspapers, magazines, financial and business sources, official government feeds and weblogs. Newstex collects full-text digital news and commentary feeds, standardizes the content format, adds stock ticker symbols, people tickers and categories, and instantly delivers the result as easy-to-integrate XML or RSS newsfeeds.

They have signed up a long list of publishers, large and small. For a complete and current list, follow this link.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 1:04 PM

January 20, 2006

Wikipedia

There has been a great deal of turmoil over Wikipedia lately, but I have not followed it all that closely. I use it, and often cite it. But tonight, reviewing some possible additions to my CMS Resources Page, I decided to read the Wikipedia entry on content management systems and it is really lame.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:32 PM

New England Learning Association Blog

I read recently that there are 80,000 new blogs a day. As Dorothy Parker might say, "What fresh hell is this?" But I am confident that, just as the early days of Web "home pages" gave way to better and more organized directories and portals like Yahoo, the current noise of the blogosphere will be replaced by more and better ways to find, understand, and read high-quality new blogs.

In the meantime, we have fine new blogs being launched amid the "daily 80,000," and the one I learned about today is from The New England Learning Association (NELA). NELA is a fine organization, which has been doing top-tier events around Boston for several years. If my memory serves me correctly, it grew out of some ad hoc meetings among like-minded professionals several years ago, and then became a more formal organization. Allan Cole founded it and remains as Executive Director.

Association blogs have an important place among blogs. Associations already represent a community of interest, obviously, and a well-run association listens to its members, helps build consensus where it can, and gives its members platforms for expressing the important issues and themes of the community (through journals, meetings, and other events). Blogs are a natural product of this kind of community building, and the NELA blog is off to a strong start.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:33 PM | Comments (2)

Enterprise DRM Conference

Colleague and friend Bill Rosenblatt will be chairing the Conference on Enterprise Digital Rights Management that will be part of Gilbane San Francisco. Bill is now accepting speaking proposals, which you should email to him directly. As Bill mentioned recently on DRM Watch, "decisions on speaking proposals are made jointly by the program chair and the moderator of the panel in question. Priority will be given to proposals from Enterprise DRM users who are interested in sharing their experiences. Product sales pitches from vendors will not be accepted."

Posted by Bill Trippe at 9:37 AM

January 9, 2006

Upcoming Webinar on DITA

Over at the Gilbane blog, I have an entry on a Webinar I will be doing on Wednesday. These DITA webinars have been really well attended, so if you are interested, I would suggest signing up sooner rather than later.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 2:09 PM

January 5, 2006

Publishing Blogs

Scanning my log files, I tracked down a blog that was new to me: Joe Wikert's Book Publisher Blog, with the subtitle Book Writing, Publishing and Technology Perspectives. It looks like Joe is an editor at Wiley, and his blog is full of great material on the publishing business. The author's tips alone are worth it, but he also has some valuable posts on the various roles in a publishing company. Small world department: Joe's blog led me to another publishing blog, that of Chris Webb, who edited the DRM book that I helped write.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 7:27 PM

January 4, 2006

CM Pros Balloting

I just cast my ballots for the CM Pros Board of Directors and Management Committee. There are ten excellent candidates for four available slots, so it was a very tough choice for me. I know several of the candidates personally, and have the highest regard for them. And then I read the bios and position statements of the other candidates and was equally impressed. The organization will be well served by any of the candidates.

What's really impressive here is the number and quality of the candidates. It is a sign of vitality for the organization, and bodes well for the future.

Not a member yet? No time like the present to join.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 9:45 AM

December 31, 2005

Edward Tufte

There is a nascent conversation on the TECHWR-L list about Edward Tufte's books, and how much influence they have had on technical communication. I liked the comment by one person, who said, "I imprinted on his books early in my career. So I suppose you could say that all my design work since then has been strongly influenced by Tufte's approach." I could say the same thing. I read The Visual Display of Quantitative Information soon after he published the first edition in 1983, and haven't looked at anything graphical in the same way since.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 5:50 PM

December 29, 2005

Thanks

My thanks to Scott Thompson at ContentBiz Blog for naming my blog among ContentBiz's top 13 favorite blogs. In one fell swoop, ContentBiz is now my second biggest referrer after Google.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:46 PM

DRM Year in Review

Bill Rosenblatt has a DRM Year in Review up. Meanwhile, a colleague pointed out a dissenting voice to counter my enthusiasm for The Complete New Yorker. The culprit seems to be DRM, even though the unwanted behavior is disk swapping.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 3:13 PM

December 26, 2005

Here and There

I continue to update my eForms (RSS here) and Content Management (RSS here) resources pages. Looking at my logs, it is striking how many people go right for the RSS, so I am going to give some thought to making the feeds more prominent. Does it also suggest I should give some thought to combining the feeds (from the blog and the resource pages)?

I also have opened up comments again, sans moderation. This opens me up to some comment spam, but the version of Movable Type I am using seems to guard against this better than previous versions. Despite a steady readership (about 1000 visitors a day) I have never had an abundance of comments. I enjoy them, so I am glad to remove the moderation if it makes posting easier.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:33 PM

December 19, 2005

So Tim Berners-Lee Has a Blog

Tim Berners-Lee is admired, of course, for being one of the key people behind the start of the World Wide Web. I also have found him to be a captivating speaker and very funny; I often quote what he said about HTML tagging, "Who would want to type this stuff?". (He is also a Unitarian Universalist, and has written about his faith here.) Now he has a blog, which he is careful to point out, is not about general W3C business but more specifically about his more recent work. "I intend it to be geeky semantic web stuff mostly. For example, it won't be for W3C questions which should really be addressed to working groups."

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:13 PM

Around the CM Blogosphere

So I have taken some time over the past few weeks to compile a blogroll of content-management-related blogs (see down the left side of the page), and have also maintained a nearly identical list as part of my Content Management Resources page. It has been well worth the effort, and I hope to add more. If you know of any others I should include, please feel free to email me or post a comment here.

Lisa Welchman continues to impress with her CM-related podcasts. The latest podcast explores "the middle way" in workflow--a balance between un-structured processes and total process automation. GALA, the Globalization and Localization Association, has launched a blog. Over at the Gilbane blog, Frank Gilbane has some thoughts on structured blogging, and Leonor Ciarlone comments on DITA and its clearly broad implications for information architecture and technical writing. Friend and colleague Michael Edson has joined Really Strategies, and has begun blogging about some of the dynamics of technology in the K-12 educational publishing market. Scott Abel hunts down some ideas about DITA and SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) from IBM's DeveloperWorks site, and also provides some helpful additional links and resources. And Micah Dubinko shares a cool piece of technology, "Web Search Without the Web," but then wonders why no one noticed an obvious bug (which he has since fixed).

Posted by Bill Trippe at 7:21 PM

December 18, 2005

Block that Metaphor!

I had been thinking recently about a series of posts along the lines of "what Shakespeare could tell us about content management," or, more broadly, "what Shakespeare could tell us about managing technology." Then I read this piece, and decided to swear off the idea forever.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 2:19 PM

December 16, 2005

Audio Book Kiosks

Bill Rosenblatt's DRMWatch is reporting on a new product from Overdrive that will allow library visitors to download audio books in Windows Media Audio format. Seems like a good idea to me. I wonder if the satellite radio networks might think of streaming audio book content via a dedicated channel. That and the Bruce channel might turn me into a subscriber.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 7:18 PM | Comments (1)

December 9, 2005

Books by Friends: Better Thinking

Gerry Waller co-wrote an excellent book, Strategies for Better Thinking : An Advanced Model for Organizational Performance Consultants. The book discusses learning styles, how different people approach problems differently, thinking processes and strategies, and process models for thinking. Gerry is director of Sales Development at Thomas Industrial Network.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:08 PM

December 3, 2005

Content Management Podcasting

Content management guru Lisa Welchman has launched a podcast service related to content management over at CMS Advisor.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:44 PM

November 29, 2005

Gilbane Conference Starting Today

The Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies kicks off today. I am part of an analyst panel tomorrow, where a group of us will discuss content technologies and trends. Then on Thursday I will be moderating a session, Blogs & Wikis @ Work, which will include case studies on blog and wiki technology in enterprise applications.

I will be doing some blogging from the conference, though I am not sure how much as I have some meetings with vendors planned as well.

It's not too late to register for the entire conference. You can also register for free to see the technology demonstrations, attend one of the keynotes, and attend the sponsor reception Wednesday evening.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:10 AM

November 23, 2005

Updates to Resource Sites

I made some updates, both cosmetic and substantive, to my two resource sites, eForms Resources and CMS Resources. I found several resources related to XML eForms that I had never unearthed before. Some of them, like this presentation on eForms for government (PowerPoint format), were a couple of years old and very good, but they hadn't come up on my Google searches before. Either older materials are finding their way to the Web, or Google is doing a better job of finding them.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:37 PM

November 13, 2005

Manufacturing Competitiveness Conference

I am going to be attending a day-long conference on Wednesday the 16th. The topic is manufacturing competitiveness, and the keynote speaker is Jack Welch. If I have a chance to ask Mr. Welch a question, it will probably be about whether IT gives the United States an edge in manufacturing. Chances are, given the nature of the conference and the setting (the Advanced Technology and Manufacturing Center at UMass-Dartmouth), he will have touched on it already in his remarks. And given that GE has implemented content management and related technology on such a massive scale, I will be curious to see if the topic of content comes up at all.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:16 PM

October 27, 2005

Gilbane Conference Coming Soon

The Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies is about four weeks away. General information is here, and you can register here.

I am doing two things at the conference. I will be part of the panel, The Analysts Debate Content Technology and Trends, and will also be moderating a session on enterprise use of blogs and wikis entitled, Blogs & Wikis @ Work.

I am also looking forward to the keynotes:

Keynote Panel: New Technologies You Need to Consider for Content Management Strategies

The pace of information technology development continues to increase as organizations develop experience in implementing content applications, and as software vendors vie to incorporate their customer's feedback into product technologies ahead of the competition. As most enterprise applications become more content-oriented, content technology developments are coming from a broader base of suppliers and developers. This session will look at a couple of technologies relevant to content-oriented applications you may not be aware of, or may not think of in the context of content management strategies. Complementing this session are the analyst panel, and the Keynote debate on Enterprise use of Blog and Wiki technology. More info

Keynote Debate: Blog, Wiki, and RSS Technology - Are they Enterprise Ready? Applicable? Or a Passing Tempest in a Teacup?

Most of you have probably not seriously considered using these technologies in enterprise applications. Yet there are companies using these technologies for collaboration, knowledge management, and publishing applications in corporate environments, and there are vendors marketing products based on these to businesses like yours. Do these companies only represent the experimental fringe, or are they early adopters of technologies that will soon be part of every IT department's bag of tricks? In this session we'll take a look at the suitability of these for corporate use and hear from both skeptics and proponents of, for example enterprise or group blogs. You will come away from this session able to discuss these issues with your colleagues back in the office. More info

CTW Keynote Panel: Enterprise Panel on Best Practices & Implementation Strategies

Speakers in the keynote session for the CTW track complement the opening keynote on technology and trends by sharing their experiences with actually putting content technology to work. This panel features enterprise executives who will describe how their companies leverage the technologies discussed in the first keynote. We'll examine actual business and IT planning scenarios and identify the characteristics associated with successful content technology deployment. The panel sets the stage for the day's track of user success stories and case studies. More info

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:11 PM

October 26, 2005

A Few More Updates

So I have done a few things to the Web site itself, and have also added a blogs section to my CMS Resources page. I simultaneously added a blogroll here, and the goal will be to somehow keep them in sync. I ended up choosing Blogrolling.com for the blogroll, but it had trouble importing the OPML file from my newsreader, Onfolio. I don't know whose fault this is, though the Blogrolling.com web site was very open about the OPML import feature being beta. I will try it again next time I go to update it. I also need to play with my stylesheets.

If you have other suggestions for blogs, please post them here or email me. If you see your blog listed, I would appreciate the reciprocal link.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 2:38 PM

October 22, 2005

CM Pros

I renewed my membership to CM Pros today, and added the organization's logo to my list of links.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 6:53 PM

October 21, 2005

Tech Blitz: Embracing Technology and Process Changes

I am going to be speaking at an upcoming SSP Fall Seminar, Tech Blitz: Embracing Technology and Process Changes. It is going be held November 8 in Philadelphia at PALINET Headquarters. PALINET is at 3000 Market Street, within easy walking distance of the Amtrak/commuter rail station at 30th and Market Sts. You can download the brochure here.

The early registration deadline is October 28th, and you can register online. After that date, seminar registration will be accepted on-site only, and higher fees apply.

You can also check the website for more detailed information about the other three Fall Seminars. Two are being given in Philadelphia on November 7th and 8th: The ROI of Discoverability and Tech Blitz: Embracing Technology and Process Changes. Two are being given in Washington, D.C., also on November 7th and 8th: Institutional Repositories: Opportunity or Threat and Copyright: Developments at the Core of Your Business.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 6:15 PM

October 8, 2005

Really Strategies

Publishing technology consulting firm Really Strategies has built up a nice collection of articles from their ongoing newsletter. This issue they have an interesting article on "Rich Data" products. They have also started a blog, and it is quite good.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 2:30 PM

September 22, 2005

Content Management Books

Thinking about XML books got me thinking about content management books, so I decided to add a Book section to the CMS Resources page I have been developing.

Here is the list I started with. Should I add some more?

Of course, if you are in a book-buying mood, feel free to buy either of the two books I have helped write: one on DRM and one on SVG.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:51 PM

XML Books

Someone asked me to recommend an XML book for nonprogrammers. I like two, actually, both from O'Reilly: Learning XML by Erik Ray and XML in a Nutshell by Elliotte Rusty Harold, et al.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 5:38 PM

September 19, 2005

CMS Resources Again

I have continued work on the list of content management resources. I have been focusing on news feeds and related sites, but am also working on a couple of other categories, including member organizations and analyst firms. I may extend this to blogs and other things--am still thinking this through.

I know the CM Pros site, as well as some other things Bob Doyle has been working on, also are intended to aggregate CM resources. My goal is slightly different I think, as this is meant as a catalog of resources, and not an aggregator or something you would consult every day. Rather, it attempts (I think!) to list--at a high level--all of the authoritative sources of information about CM in certain categories.

I would love to hear what you think, either through comments here or by emailing me. Also feel free to suggest additional sites, and in which category you think they should be placed.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 1:18 PM

September 14, 2005

CMS Resources

I have been compiling a list of CMS resources, starting with the various magazines, newsletters, and Web sites that provide CMS-related news. If you noticed any I have missed, please email me.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:59 AM

September 11, 2005

Call for Members: CM Pros

Bob Doyle is putting out a call for new members of CM Pros. He points out that Tuesday, September 20 will be the anniversary of the launch of CM Pros. They are currently at 473 members and growing fast. For more information, see the CM Pros site.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 1:42 PM

January 19, 2005

We're Moving

Well, it's official. I have decided to incorporate this blog into the new group blog we are now doing over at the The Gilbane Report. I think the new blog is much better for my readers, as it includes several really expert folks writing on a wide variety of issues related to content manahement. You can also, if you care to, read just my postings in their own category here.

My sincere thanks to all of you who have been reading, commenting, and corresponding with me via email. I enjoyed the conversation, and I appreciated your time and feedback as I found my blogging "voice." Let's continue the conversation over at the new locale.

Let me also mention briefly that I do write a more personal blog, elsewhere on this site. I will continue to write that blog, separate from the technology blogging I will now be doing at Gilbane.com.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 5:46 PM | Comments (1)

December 2, 2004

Gilbane Conference

The Gilbane Conference was off to a great start yesterday--and then I had to leave town for a customer engagement. Attendance was very strong, and there was a nice turnout for the first-ever CM Pros meeting. I did get quick briefings from a few companies, and was most impressed with MarkLogic. Yes, there is still a place for an XML-specific repository. Especially when the XML in question is for documents and not data.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:52 AM

November 30, 2004

EContent 100

EContent Magazine came out with the EContent 100, their annual list of "companies that matter most in the digital content industry." It's an interesting mix of technology and content companies, and also includes some of the smallest and biggest companies in the business.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 9:48 PM

November 26, 2004

Writing Copy for Dummies

My friend and colleague Jonathan Kranz has a new book out, Writing Copy for Dummies. Jonathan is a very sharp guy, and principal of Kranz Communications, an award-winning writing firm that helps leading agencies tackle their most difficult marketing, advertising, and public relations assignments in numerous consumer and B2B industries. Like the other Dummy books, Writing Copy for Dummies is an expert's take on the subject, but written for people from other fields with a need to know. As Jonathan suggests, many people have to do some copy writing in the course of their work. This book is a great introduction to the topic, and very well written.

For more information on Jonathan's company, see his web site.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:19 PM

November 15, 2004

Your Thoughts on Enterprise DRM Panel?

We have a panel on Enterprise DRM at the upcoming Gilbane Conference. I will be moderating it, and we have the following panelists:

I will start out by asking at least two panelists to answer the following questions, and have told them they can all jump in on any of these questions.

By this point, I think the audience is going to be chiming in, so I am going to be very flexible after the first few questions. However, I will have a number of other questions ready to ask, depending on time, the themes that come up, etc. Here are a few more I will have ready, and please let me know if there are others you would like me to bring up.

Other topics people would like to see discussed?

Posted by Bill Trippe at 5:28 PM

October 14, 2004

New Consulting Services Offerings from The Gilbane Report

I have an expanded role at The Gilbane Report, where I now serve as Senior Editor and Senior Consultant. With the ongoing expansion of the group there, we now offer three kinds of consulting services for end user organizations. These are Content Technology Briefings, Technology Acquisition Advisory Services, and Content Governance Consulting Services. I will be most involved with the second of these, Technology Acquisition Advisory Services. The following describes this service and how we approach the work.

Gilbane Technology Acquisition Advisory Services

Manage the risks of new technology acquisition by working with seasoned analysts who are acknowledged experts in content management, publishing systems, XML, and related content technologies. We offer a variety of services that guide you through the acquisition maze, from requirements definition to final technology selection.

Our Technology Acquisition Advisory Services include:

Why work with the Gilbane team?

For additional information call Mary Laplante, VP Consulting Services at +1 617.497.9443 ext 212, mary@gilbane.com.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 7:58 PM

September 28, 2004

CM Professionals to Hold 2004 Summit

CM Professionals: A Content Management Community of Practice

CM Professionals, a group of content management professionals from around the world, will hold its first CM Summit in conjunction with the Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies, Tuesday, November 30, 2004 in Boston, Mass. (U.S.)

The CM Summit is a peer-to-peer meeting. Sessions will take the form of participatory discussions - no talking heads reading slide shows - facilitated by some of the world's top content management experts: Bob Boiko, Ann Rockley, Tony Byrne, Frank Gilbane, Erik Hartman, Mary Lee Kennedy, Brendan Quinn, Hilary Marsh, Bob Doyle, Scott Abel, and many others.

Sessions at the summit will be devoted to content management practices that have been selected by members from among 25 best practice areas, including:

--Content Strategy, Business Strategy and Business Cases
--Designing for Reuse
--Performance Metrics
==Auditing the Content
--Glossary and Resource Library

There will also be networking sessions, as well an open forum to discuss future CM Pros events and projects. "Birds-of-a-feather" sessions (informal gatherings of people with common interests) are planned for lunch at the Summit and for dinner at a Boston-area restaurant. Summit sessions will be videotaped and made available online to members who cannot travel to Boston.

Detailed program and registration information: www.cmprofessionals.org/summit/.

Fee is $100 for CM Pros members and $125 for nonmembers. Membership in CM Pros costs $50 per year.

CM Summit attendees who also register for the Gilbane Conference will receive a $150 discount on their Gilbane Conference registration.

Information on the Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies can be found here.

About CM Professionals
CM Professionals is the premier community of practice for people involved with managing content for electronic and other media. CM Professionals collects, develops, organizes and provides access to knowledge about content management through online resources, email interaction and face-to-face summits. By identifying, refining, publicizing and advocating for respected content management practices and models, CM Professionals educates and fosters interaction among content management professionals, enterprise leadership, product vendors and university educators. For more information, please visit the organization's website.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 3:31 PM

September 20, 2004

New Content Management Professionals Organization Announced Today

CM Professionals: A Content Management Community of Practice

Silver Spring MD, September 20, 2004. A group of thirty content management experts from around the world has announced the formation of CM Professionals, an international community of content management professionals whose purpose is to further best practices based on shared experiences of experts and peers.

CM Pros offers a members-only mailing list, a collaborative website, discussion forums, issue-oriented group blogs, knowledge wikis, syndicated web services, a job board, a professional directory and a calendar of face-to-face meeting opportunities.

CM Pros president Bob Boiko, author of the Content Management Bible and director of the University of Washington iSchool CMS Evaluation Lab, says, "As the first group of its kind, CM Pros is a membership organization that enables content management practitioners to share information, practices and strategies. This organization is needed to help move the discipline of content management forward, helping practitioners avoid the pitfalls and costly mistakes made by others."

"We also envision a variety of members-only services, including a newsletter, professional discounts and summit-type gatherings devoid of marketing hype," says Tony Byrne, CMS Watch editor and CM Pros treasurer.

"CM Pros will raise awareness of content management as an essential discipline that builds value, both financial and human, for companies and organizations," says Ann Rockley, author of Managing Enterprise Content and secretary of CM Pros.

CM Professionals will hold its first CM Summit, in conjunction with the Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies, Tuesday, November 30, 2004 in Boston, Mass. (U.S.A.).

Click here for more information on the Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies.

As CM Professionals grows, Boiko says, "We will work closely with other organizations that share many of our goals. We will coordinate our thinking about recommended standards for best practices with these organizations, and we hope to work closely with graduate schools that are training the next generation of information professionals."

About CM Professionals
CM Professionals is the premier community of practice for people involved with managing content for electronic and other media. CM Professionals collects, develops, organizes and provides access to knowledge about content management through online resources, email interaction and face-to-face summits. By identifying, refining, publicizing and advocating for respected content management practices and models, CM Professionals educates and fosters interaction among content management professionals, enterprise leadership, product vendors and university educators. For more information, please visit the website.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 1:47 PM

September 9, 2004

AIIM Survey on BPM and ECM Trend

Take the AIIM Industry Watch survey focused on user perceptions of Business Process Management (BPM) and Enterprise Content Management (ECM) technologies. The survey is being co-sponsored by AIIM, Transform, and ebizQ.net. The deadline for participation in the survey is Friday, September 17.

You can link to the survey at www.zoomerang.com.

The survey is designed to explore implementation trends and overlaps between these two technologies. Participants will receive a free copy of the survey results for use in your own internal benchmarking. In addition, we would be happy to provide copies of recent AIIM research reports as a thank you to participants. Details on receiving the following publications can be found at the end of the survey.

* The Current State of Information Management Compliance: A Summary of Findings from User Research on Compliance and Information Management (400+ end users).
* Back to Basics: The Search for Efficiency and Compliance-A Summary of Findings from User Research in Six Countries (1800+ end users).
Electronic Records Management Survey: A Call To Action (2000+ end users).
* Managing Email in the New Business Reality: A Summary of Key Findings on Email Policies and Practices (1000+ end users).

AIIM will be sharing the results of the survey with respondents.