Tuesday, April 27, 2010

WCM, CMS, OMS – How Do You Categorize Sitecore Now?

Well, it’s Tuesday morning and I’ve had the weekend to let all of the great information and ideas from Dreamcore 2010, held in Boston, soak in. Marco Tana (President and CEO), Benjamin Vidal (VP, Technology), Shane Freeman (Manager of Client/Partner Engagements) and I (VP, Operations/Marketing) saw some great new products and features that are now available or will soon be.

One thing that really struck me was not only the maturity of the product, but the expansion of the product. The terms CMS (content management system) or WCM (web content management) or even that of the OMS (online marketing suite), just don’t do Sitecore justice in trying to explain to potential customers what it is exactly.

From Sitecore CMS to Sitecore Intranet Portal to Sitecore Foundry and from version to version, Sitecore always was a true CMS and then some. With the extensibility and open-nature of Sitecore, the product could be best described as a “framework” for your website or websites in the case of organizations with multiple websites. Sitecore serves as a hub on which other web apps could be built upon and other apps integrated with. But now, after seeing the latest products and features on the horizon, I think the scope of what Sitecore provides is even closer to encompassing all web operations.

The Online Marketing Suite, released last year, was a leap into the marketing space. Now, that is being followed by the all-new Email Marketing Manager and an enhanced Web Forms for Marketers module. So, while I don’t have an acronym for it like WCM, CMS, OMS… its quite clear that Sitecore is solidifying its place as an e-business solution that encompasses content management, applications framework, marketing analytics, campaign management, email marketing management, lead generation, system integration and so on.

And with the release of these new marketing-centric tools, it will be exciting to see how this functionality is integrated with Sitecore Intranet Portal for use internally within organizations… or with Foundry for use across individual affiliate websites and rolled up across such an enterprise. There is some amazing potential there!

In the meantime, we plan to wrap our minds around these new tools as quickly as possible by implementing for our own “e-business” needs, assist clients with similar implementations, and host training sessions in our headquarters offices for any of you out there that want to get the most out of Sitecore as well.

I’d love to hear your thoughts too on how OMS and its related marketing-centric products are shaping Sitecore’s position in the industry.

*EDIT October 28, 2010. We have moved our blog to http://blog.roundedcube.com and you can now comment on this specific post at http://www.roundedcube.com/WhatsNew/Blog/wcm-cms-oms-how-do-you-categorize-sitecore-now

Monday, April 26, 2010

Quick Dreamcore Shout Out

I’d like to quickly thank everyone from Sitecore for putting up a great inaugural annual event, Dreamcore. You can ask Sitecore and they’ll tell you that I’ve been waiting for this. Even though it was only a couple of days, it was enough to get excited again about the prospect of Sitecore and the world of CMS.

Besides learning about the new stuff that Sitecore has in the pipeline, it was great to know where Michael, Bjarne and the rest of Sitecore gang think the market will be, the so-called “Digital Intimacy.” I don’t think we’ll be competing against match.com or eharmony.com anytime soon, but the idea of committing to your audience’s needs is key to engaging them. You can see this commitment from Sitecore initially with their release of OMS. Analytics nowadays seems to be just a buzzword, but in Sitecore world, it’s more than just giving you reports but it’s about tying things together from the multi-variant test results to actual contextual content delivery that matters to the visitor. It’s basically like eharmony’s “form of a thousand personality questions” and match you with "the right” person…sort of.

I’m amazed at the products presented in the conference. One would think that since this is a Sitecore show, it would just be about the CMS. Besides the improvements in the CMS (such as the OMS and other modules), there are renewed commitments to the Intranet and Foundry. There’s also the Ecommerce module that allows for simple online shopping; also, the Email Campaign Manager seemingly replaces the Newsletter module for more robust online campaigns. I think these are great products on top of Sitecore because they are turnkey solutions that would allow us to penetrate other markets.

Again, thanks Sitecore for the great show. I can’t wait for next years. By the way, thanks for the interview as well. You truly value your partners (we’ve been doing it for 5 years now) and customers.

*EDIT October 28, 2010. We have moved our blog to http://blog.roundedcube.com and you can now comment on this specific post at http://www.roundedcube.com/WhatsNew/Blog/quick-dreamcore-shout-out

Friday, April 16, 2010

Now Serving Cuber #16 … Cuber #16 …

As the new Marketing Communications Specialist at Roundedcube, one of my roles is to launch the company full fledged into the land of Social Media. Engage in online conversations that are happening in our industry. Translation: learn the unique attributes of our company and our industry and get right to work!

I like to think I am well versed in Social Media. I tweet, network on Facebook and LinkedIn, use Yelp as I immerse myself into my new city of St. Louis (I recently moved here from New England. And don’t worry, I wasn’t a Patriots fan.), post photos and videos on multimedia sites for my friends and family to see, blog about my adventures, and so forth. But all those things I do online, I do about me. You see, I know myself pretty darn well and am able converse about my life and what I choose to do fairly intelligently.

Now I just need to apply those skills to market Roundedcube. Wonderful! I am genuinely thrilled about this new opportunity. But some funny things tend to happen during the discovery period of a new job. Think about it for a minute. Starting a new job is exhilarating and fresh: you are trying to absorb as much information as possible and you want to make an immediate contribution but then you realize you made a right turn when you should have made a left turn and now you are so lost that you feel like the town idiot (I actually did and felt the same thing during my move from New England to St. Louis).

Many companies have their own language. Don’t believe me? Think back to the first day of your current job … were your fellow co-workers using acronyms you couldn’t quite figure out? I needed to learn my new work language and needed to learn it quickly. I raised my hand on my second (and third) days and asked for clarification on acronyms that were being used throughout staff meetings. Ah, yes, those make sense now (some were industry specific but most were our clients names condensed for easier reference). Is there a secret handshake I should know about too? Because I really want to be part of the team.

After some extensive research about how Roundedcube’s web strategy, design and development is in fact different from other end-to-end agencies, I was ready to dive right in to my new role. But hang on a second. Where should I start? Should I Tweet about the beautiful Cardinal I saw outside from the office window? Or should I keep my tweets to strict business matters only? Todd Defren, of SHIFT Communications, touches on this very conundrum with his article “The ‘Problem’ with Authencity: You’re Still Being Watched.”

I decided to go the first route. I’ve seen (and follow) some people and organizations who choose the latter; they only tweet about business related or industry information. And that is their decision. There is no right or wrong philosophy here. No one is forcing me to follow them, I choose to do so because I think the information they provide is valuable. Personally, I want to be as open and honest as possible in my tweets so I will tweet about the bird and the ping pong tournament in the office . Isn’t that first line in the Social Media Oath? And by the way, I think there needs to be a standard Social Media Oath that goes a little something like this:
- Honesty is always the best policy.
- Spam is absolutely unacceptable.
- Be yourself. Don’t use language that you don’t usually use. If you’re a walking thesaurus and use $1 words all the time, then continue to do so. However, if you use $0.25 words, then continue to do that too.
- Be respectful. Everyone has an opinion. And there will be disagreements. Be tactful and remain poised.
- Respond promptly.
- Always cite your resources and references.
- Add value to the discussion.

Two weeks in and I am immersing myself not only in the Cuber life, but into the St. Louis marketing and social media community as well. I attended the Social Media Club of St. Louis’ First Anniversary celebration at Mosaic last night and am very excited for Social Fresh St. Louis on Monday.

I am diving head first into the pool. And in case you are curious, I don’t need floaties … yet.

*EDIT October 28, 2010. We have moved our blog to http://blog.roundedcube.com and you can now comment on this specific post at http://www.roundedcube.com/WhatsNew/Blog/now-serving-cuber-16-cuber-16