Now, of course these are important goals – and CMS vendors (including Hippo) have succeeded in varying degrees to make these processes easier. But with all of the features of Web experience management that are being tossed around by CMS vendors – we are running the risk of once again focusing on the “parent” and not the cat.

These days - truly – it’s the end consumer of content that these editors and content managers should be focusing on. These are our audiences – and they are the ones making the ultimate decision of whether to engage with the content or not.

At Hippo we try to empower your audience.

To empower the audience we focus on two steps:

• How does your audience finds your content (SEO is not just about writing better content)
• How can we empower your audience to get the best experience.

But the focus is always on the customer. And yes there's also love for the editor, developer, marketeer. But this is not the end goal. At least, not for us.

For example, I can see why A/B testing can be useful, but I believe this is not the last step in the process. Your audience should be empowered to interact with your company on their turf.
Companies like to be in control, A/B testing can give them this feeling, but often, the general goal is forgotten. Engage within the context of the user. Personalize.
To get a better brand experience, improve revenue, share knowledge, interact or get social.

Context Aware Content Management

In the end, we need to be striving to deliver a contextual experience to our audiences – so that THEY are empowered to consume your content through whatever interface that is most popular, or is suitable for their needs. This means that as publishers of Web content, we need to be focused on publishing a platform of content that can be accessed in as many ways as possible, and contextualizes itself based on the channel, the time, the personal preferences and as many other environmental contexts as possible.

It’s like what Hippo CTO Arje Cahn said – “MultiChannel Is Not Enough”. What we’re doing with the Dutch Libraries, for example, is a first step in this direction. Using Hippo, we are making their content available as a content service – so that it might ultimately be consumed by any service at any time.

That’s giving the organization the ability to empower the audience. And, it’s where we’re going as Hippo. Ultimately our goal is that if your audience could choose your CMS for you, they would choose Hippo.

The Race Continues
As I said in the previous post – it’s interesting that the highest percentage of those still in the race are Open Source solutions. Of course one of the key strengths of the Open Source model – and especially one like Hippo – is that you’re getting a solution that will grow and evolve with you. Because of our Open Development model (using the community) and our support for Open Standards in all aspects of our software – the customer has MUCH greater flexibility. And even when there's an open source acquisition (or bankruptcy) the customers stays in charge. And because of the openness & standards being used it's 'easier' to move to another solution if you need to.
Beyond acquisitions, 2011 was certainly an interesting year for WCMS solutions. There was a big move for vendors to stop differentiating on how they “manage web content” – and more towards how they handle “Web Engagement Management” and “Customer Experience Management”. Perhaps the 2012 leg of the WCMS rally will be marked with how many solutions will be acquired because they promise these capabilities. You have to think there are more than a few commercial WCMS vendors out there right now hoping and wishing this is true.
As for us in 2012 – our fuel tank is full – we have amazing new product releases – we are working with incredibly exciting new customers – and we are still focused on delivering the best content management and delivery experiences for our customers and their audiences.
Rally on!

- Easier and less expensive to adapt.
Organizations that do this worry much less about whether the iPad, or the Samsung Tablet or whether Flash or HTML 5 will carry the day. By opening up their content repository to be available as a service – interfaces to that content can be assembled much more quickly and easily.
- Easier to contextualize.
Enabling targeting and testing behaviors on mobile devices, or providing different content experiences to those on an iPad vs. a Laptop is much easier when the content is available as a service. The rules for content display can be managed centrally as a layer on top of the content repository – never disturbing the availability of content for other means.
- Managing the content is easier
By making the content repository available as a service – the organization need not ultimately worry as much about what editor is being utilized. Lite CMS systems can manage the repository for the division that has no need for complexity. And, enterprises that require more complex workflow, approvals, translation and other needs can use a CMS that is more robust.

At Hippo we’re seeing our clients move in this direction in big ways. For example, the Dutch Libraries instituted a content platform that makes their entire repository available as a service. Now, some of the local libraries are managing that content using existing CMS tools that their users are comfortable with, but they are also making the content available to anyone who wants to build interfaces to display it.
The Importance of Context Aware Content Delivery
Our Hippo Context Aware content server is really a powerful toolkit that lets you both manage and deliver this context enriched content. You can use location, presence, behavior and other information to deliver completely personalized experiences.
And, this is increasingly important as content marketing becomes more prevalent. According to an AOL Nielsen research study done earlier this year, 53% of all time on the internet is content consumption. And, content marketing experts Junta42 and MarketingProfs released their annual study in September and it was reported that 90% of marketers will use content marketing and that 51% will budget more for it in the coming year.
So, in order to stand out from the crowd, marketers will absolutely need to deliver their content to their consumers in a contextually relevant way. In the end, we are all publishers – but our success as publishers will come down to us taking a holistic approach to both contextual content management and delivery. It’s a process that gives us the ability to easily and quickly optimize our content for our users’ experience. That includes, search, social sharing – and of course engagement that provides us with whatever business result we desire. As William Clarke, the Gartner Analyst said: “between 2010 and 2015 - The bar for user experience will be significantly raised and context aware computing will be its chief catalyst”. We think context aware content management will be a critical piece of that equation.

Standards in products are so common – and touch our lives every single day. In fact, in most cases we almost always just take them for granted. When you sit down in front of your television, or when you plug in an appliance, drive your car or put on a pair of shoes there are hundreds of product standards at work.

Standards are there to make sure that the products you use can work together with other products and that they meet common expectations. In a lot of cases they are about safety or quality; but in others they are just common “standards” that have grown up over the years out of a shared experience.

Take electricity as an example. Of course those of us who travel abroad have a case full of adapters to ensure we don’t fry our computers with the different power standards in the US, or in Europe. In the US it was Westinghouse that chose (rather arbitrarily) to standardize at 60Hz vs. nine other alternatives. This ultimately, just because it was the most common, became the US Standard. And, in Germany, one company (BEW) had a monopoly on providing electricity and standardized at 50Hz. And, in 1899 it raised the voltage from 110 to 220. This standard spread across Europe over the next few decades.

With Web Content Management Software – A Notable Lack of Open Standards

Interestingly, standards developed over time in the Web content management software space haven’t been universally accepted. In many cases, it’s in the best interest of a proprietary CMS vendor to make sure that it’s as difficult as possible for you to remove your content from their software – so there’s little incentive to support open standards.

From the way content is stored – to the format it’s published in – to the availability of the content over the Internet – many CMS’s just quite frankly don’t support open standards. That’s a problem. You might say it’s a little like having to buy an adapter for every single appliance you have. But it’s actually worse.

It’s like buying the lamp and then finding out there is no adapter at all to make it work with your current electrical set up – so you actually have to have one designed and built yourself.

Importance of CMS Software Open Standards

In my experience demoing to customers looking for a CMS I have found that looking at Open Standards support is sometimes not one of the customer’s main priorities. And, I think that’s a mistake. It’s absolutely something that, as a CMS buyer, you should be asking about from the vendor who is demoing to you.

But don’t just take my word for it. We went out an interviewed some of the thought leaders in the world of Web content management – and got their take on it. We asked them to respond to one question:

Is Open Standards support important for customers to consider when selecting a Web Content Management System?
Here are their responses:

	Seth Gottlieb Founder and principal of Content Here, an analyst firm and consultancy specializing in content technologies. “By supporting and advocating a standard, a vendor is demonstrating a set of architectural values that prioritizes openness and integration. Standards force a vendor to think outside of its own solution set and look at different approaches within a broader context. Standards support also recognizes that not every aspect of a solution need to be unique and proprietary. By using a standard, a vendor can invest less energy solving ordinary (low level) problems and focus their efforts innovating at the layer that provides the greatest noticeable benefit to their customer.”
	Ron Miller Freelance technology journalist, FierceContentManagement editor and Contributing Editor at EContent Magazine. “I certainly think that customers have to strongly consider open standards as a key factor when choosing a vendor. Otherwise they risk getting locked into a completely proprietary solution, which can make CMS implementation and management all the more difficult.”
	Scott Liewehr Lead Analyst of the Web Content Management practice at Outsell's Gilbane Group. “Open standards are everywhere. They are essential for any software, WCM or otherwise, to be usable on the internet. Standards such as TCP/IP, HTTP, CSS and HTML are near-prerequisites and have been pretty universally adopted. The question is how quickly vendors are to adopt more domain-specific standards such as JCR, or contemporary, newly emerging standards such as CMIS or HTML5. While some vendors may tend to be early adopters and others take a wait-and-see approach, I believe it is extremely important for customers to look at a vendor's history in adopting standards as an indication of whether they'll viable in the future. A key to remember is that it's easy to evaluate a product's capabilities today, but much more difficult to know whether it will continue to serve an organization's future needs. The adoption of open standards gives a pretty good clue toward the latter.”
	Tony White Founder & CEO Ars Logica Author of The Compass Guide to Web Content Management “What's most important for a customer to know regarding a vendor's position on open standards is the vendor's long-term plan. This is especially true in the open source world, where vendors do not derive revenue from software licenses. We are seeing some of these vendors toy with the idea of expanding their product lines into semi-proprietary territory in order to become or remain profitable as downward pricing pressure on Web CMS products intensifies. Clearly, customers would not want to choose open source technology, only to have the supplier change its level of commitment to open standards somewhere down the line. Open communication with prospective customers about the 3-5 year plan is essential. We believe that customers need to be extra vigilant in analyzing open source suppliers' long-term strategies.”
	Arjé Cahn CTO at Hippo “At Hippo - we're focused on two things - the 'c' in CMS and the "c" in Context Aware. In today's multi-channel, multi-device world - consumers expect content when, where and how they want it. And it's changing every single day. The only way an enterprise can be flexible and nimble enough to focus on delivering context aware content, is to use Open Standards. Whether it's opening up through API's, or storing it in a standard, portable way, Open Standards is what enables an enterprise to achieve real interoperability between content management and the methods to display it. This is the reason we invest so much of our time and effort in organizations like OASIS, JCR and the Apache foundation.”

At Hippo we would certainly agree with these industry leaders. We believe in it so much, we include why we are Standards Driven right on our Web site. Our experience shows us that it really does enable our clients to:

• Enjoy a much more rapid deployment
• Provide for a much more scalable architecture – and portability
• Empower technical teams with an open and supportable infrastructure
• Give organizations the flexibility to use a self-managed, partner-driven or completely outsourced management model

We believe that all good CMS systems should support a modern and standards driven architecture – because it is targeted to meet both the needs of the business and the developers.

Today, we rarely even think about all the open standards that are supported in Web computing. From networking through TCP/IP, to the way we use Web browsers to surf the Web through HTTP, and the format of HTML Web pages, to interacting with databases through SQL, and even modern content syndication standards like XML.

It’s time for customers to really be plugged into the importance of a vendor’s support for Open Standards in Web Content Management. It’s really the best way to make sure your Web content platform works well with all the tools you have today – and tomorrow.

If you didn’t know - The Dakar Rally is an annual rally type of an off-road race. Since 1978 the course has mostly been from Paris, France to Dakar Senegal. More recently, because of security threats in Mauritania – the Dakar Rally has been raced in South America. It’s been called “the most dangerous race in the world” because of the fact that there are no roads, and that racers must face terrain that ranges from sand dunes, mud, grass and rocks. Only about half of all participants even make it to the finish of this grueling race.

The Dangerous Web Content Management Race
That number – 40% - got us thinking about Web Content Management and the number of vendors that have been acquired, or gone out of business in the last few years. We wondered how many are still in the race. It’s no secret that 2011 has been a busy year for CMS software acquisitions. Adobe purchased Day Software. Oracle acquired Fatwire. And, SaaS vendor Clickability was swallowed up by Limelight Networks.
In fact, we went back and actually did a little research and found some really interesting data about the Web content management software space.
We went back and took a look at the vendors offering up Web content management software at the beginning of the last decade (the early 2000’s). We then separated out the ones that were really specifically offering up Web Content Management solutions for larger enterprises (e.g. we didn’t include Wordpress, blogging or smaller platforms). And, we ordered them by the year that we estimated that they started offering Web Content Management solutions. We ended up with a list of about 30 vendors. Here’s the list we came up with:

Now, we know we didn’t catch them all – and we know that there’s a number of Open Source projects that are missing from this list. And, there’s also some commercial products that bit the dust around that time frame too.
But – if we look at this list – it’s interesting to note that you chose one of these CMS systems any time between 2002 and 2011 – there’s a 60% chance that your product was acquired or that the product was decommissioned. In fact the average lifespan of the 60% of companies that were acquired – from launch to acquisition is only about 6 years. You’re just starting to get the groove of your new CMS – when suddenly the company gets acquired.
And, it’s also important to note that many of the acquiring companies were - themselves – acquired during this time frame as well. Atomz, for example, was acquired by WebSideStory – which was then acquired by Omniture. And then Omniture was ultimately acquired by Adobe. Remember, Adobe acquired Day – and so the Atomz product was subsequently forgotten.
So, is Dakar the most dangerous race in the world?
WCM Acquisition Is A Crash For The Customer
See, having been sitting in this Demo chair working with Hippo clients for more than 10 years – we’ve seen a whole lot of software vendors come and go. It’s an important consideration when you’re considering what kind of CMS software you want to help drive your Web content platform.
When you’re looking at CMS software – you can ask two questions:

1) Which CMS Software will meet my needs today?
2) Which CMS Software will most likely meet my needs tomorrow?

Our experience tells us that customers rarely pick a solution solely because of the size of the vendor. The sheer size of the market – with hundreds of WCMS solutions out there is a testament to that. Customers are looking for the best solution to meet their immediate and future requirements. And, unfortunately – when software solutions are acquired by larger companies – those capabilities are put into question.
See – most CMS software acquisitions don’t occur because the company is trying to find the best solution on the market – they are either trying to change the competitive landscape (e.g. kill a competitor) or using it as a growth strategy (getting new clients). OpenText is a good example. That company alone has swallowed half a dozen smaller Web Content Management companies. Some products have been discontinued – and some have been merged into other products. In ALL cases – the customer of those smaller solutions didn’t end up any better than before the acquisition.
What happens is that the larger, acquiring company has got the customer in a compromising position. They know that its hard to switch out the CMS – and if they can come in and offer a whole bunch of “new software” to make everything right – then the customer may not only stick around – but may actually buy MORE software. Then, when the quality of the services decline – the company can come in and offer new, more expensive support services.
In the end – the customer is almost always worse off. For further reading on that – you should check out the recent article by Tom Wayman on CMSWire – where he discusses what to do when your vendor is acquired.

Why Open Source Vendors Finish The Race
It’s no wonder that of all the vendors we looked at – that the highest percentage of those still in the race were Open Source solutions. When I demo to customers I remind them that one of the key strengths of the Open Source model – and especially one like Hippo – is that you’re getting a solution that will grow and evolve with you. Because of our Open Development model (using the community) and our support for Open Standards in all aspects of our software – if provides the customer with MUCH greater flexibility. And even when there's an open source acquisition (or bankruptcy) the customers stays in charge. And because of the openness & standards being used it's 'easier' to move to another solution if they need to. We talked about the flexibility of Open Source in Episode one but it’s really the best of both worlds. It’s a model that gives you the quality of service and security of professional support – with the flexibility and freedom of open-source.
That gives extra incentive to us to make sure that we listen to clients, constantly upgrade the software and align our product roadmap to what clients are looking for. We discussed this in more depth in Episode 2 – where we talked about how a CMS can grow and adapt to your needs over a long time.
Another big reason for the longevity of Open Source is that because we are “open” and we have a much different model than proprietary software – we have a much higher focus on quality of the solution – rather than racing to add features to our software. We discussed the feature race in Episode 5 – but as an Open Source company – we live and die by the support we provide to our clients. Therefore, we are constantly focused on making the product as stable, secure and rock solid as possible. Sure, we add features and are constantly focused on innovating in the space – but instead of focusing on adding software in other areas so that we look good to potential acquirers – we’re focused on making sure we make the best Web content management and delivery suite available.
And, finally one of the reasons that Open Source finishes the race is that we are focused on providing true economic value for Web Content Management. We talked about the economics of Open Source in Episode 7 - but it is our networked model and our focus on service and a true SLA that provides ongoing economic value to our clients.

You can certainly argue which business model is better for getting acquired – and perhaps these statistics that we’ve found show that it’s better for the business owners to be a commercial, proprietary solution that’s focused on getting acquired by a larger company. But, an Open Source model is here to win the race – and the true winner’s cup for us is our happy end-users and customers.

You know the scene don’t you? It’s a classic from the movie A Few Good Men. Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessep is being grilled by Tom Cruise’s character Kaffee. The two men are red-faced, yelling at each other – and Col. Jessep unnerved and enraged at being caught in a lie screams “You can’t handle the truth!” He then goes on to speak about how his actions were justified because being a United States Marine officer means that sometimes you have to look at ugly truths – truths that other people have the convenience of not looking at.

As I’ve been demoing Web Content Management solutions to customers over the years – I find more and more that realizing “true” Web Engagement Management consists of a number of different content management truths; and each has their own value in an organization. And, it strikes me that the buzz around Web Engagement Management also has many different “truths” that we,as marketers and WCMS practitioners, really need to handle.

Truth #1 – The Moment Of Truth
Content and Contextual WEM

In most cases, if your web content is going to be effective – it has got to empower your audience. Therefore, no matter if it' s content directed at marketing, sales, customer service or just relaying information; it has to be as accurate and contextually relevant as possible.

As the practitioner and manager of our content – we can use a number of triggers to create this “moment of truth” for our audiences. They might be:

• Web Analytics. We can use the traffic to our web site to optimize content for our audiences.
• Personalization Tools in our CMS. We should be able to use our WCMS to target content to specific audiences, and personalize it down to the individual preference or need. Here your CMS should be able to integrate with your CRM system or your marketing database. As you collect information on landing pages, or email subscription forms – you’ll be collecting explicit information that you should be able to utilize to make the content more personal.
• Findable Content. Remember, most of your “new” visitors are going to come from Search. So, ensuring that your WCM produces SEO optimized content is a key to making that “moment of truth” happen even before they hit your web site.

Truth #2 – The Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth
Multi-Channel Management

Managing content is only part of the truth. The WHOLE truth of Web Engagement Management is both managing content AND delivering web content. In order for us to achieve real Web Engagement Management our CMS needs to not only be able to manage content efficiently, we’ve got to be able to deliver our content through all of the different channels that our audiences use to consume it.

• Mobile and Social Channels – We need a CMS that can automatically deliver content that’s optimized for the right device (Blackberry vs. iPhone vs. Android, etc.) and empower our audiences to engage with our content (e.g. liking and sharing content through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.).
• Global Content Channels – We need to make sure that it’s easy and almost effortless for us to add global sites in any language. And that not only the content can be delivered in a different language, but our international offices can also see the CMS in different languages.
• Other Internal Content Channels – Web content isn’t the ONLY content we manage for optimizing engagement on our site. The WHOLE truth is that we also have enterprise content that needs to be managed and delivered. So, our CMS should be able to integrate with ECM systems so that enterprise content can be included in our web content workflow and vice versa.

Truth #3 – The Truth That Sets You Free
Managing True Engagement

To really drive Web Engagement, we have to listen as well as speak. Engaging with our customers on our content platforms is critically important today. And, a good WCMS gives us the freedom to interact with our audience – without technology getting in the way. So, your Web Content Management solution should accept inbound content and facilitate conversation as easily as it publishes content.

• Social Widgets. Your WCMS should include conversation both inside the management platform – as well as the ability to include the conversation out on the live web site. For example, content coming into the CMS from the blog should be able to be facilitated through workflow. Additionally, content contributors should be able to include our customized social widgets into web content (like Facebook, Twitter or Google+ widgets) they are producing.
• Content As A Service. Your WCMS should be able to produce content in any normalized format, but especially those that facilitate engagement and sharing. Further, we should be able to make our entire content repository available as a web service if we need to.

Truth #4 – The Inconvenient Truth
Driving Marketing Results

Sometimes we don’t want to admit it, but in the end, real Web Engagement Management is about driving optimized marketing results. Converting your audience into a (paying) customer. And if that’s our goal – our CMS really needs to have engagement capabilities that not only help the testing, and relevance (as discussed earlier), it also needs to facilitate those results into our Sales and Marketing teams so they can take action. This is what completes a Web Engagement Management process – the human interaction that comes after the audience “clicks”.

• Lead Nurturing and Activities. Because our WCM is collecting data (see #1 Moment of Truth above) we need to be able to utilize this data and feed it back into the organization. Our WCM system should integrate with your CRM or Sales Force Automation tool in order to give marketing intelligence to our sales and marketing team.
• Data Workflow. The data coming in from our web site and our CMS will be mixed. It will be explicit data (form registrations etc..) and it will be behavioral (what they clicked on). We need our WCMS to sort through this data and smartly act on it.

If Truth Be Known – Putting It All Together
All of these capabilities are a part of a good web content management system that will be used to create or improve a Web Engagement platform. Remember, it all starts with good, basic web content management capabilities such as SEO, and easy-to-use interfaces. But beyond managing content – you need to use a CMS to create Moments Of Truth – by optimizing the content for each user’s preferences. And you have to know the WHOLE truth by not only managing that content but delivering it to any channel, at any time in any language. You can have the Truth that Sets You Free by socializing your content to drive WEM. And, with a good CMS you can face the Inconvenient Truth of facing the pressure of driving Web Engagement ROI with good content management practices.

Or as McKinsey is saying: "We’re all marketers now"!

In the 2005 hit book Freakonomics and their “freakquel” (yes they really did call it that) SuperFreakonomics authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen Dubner hit us with entertaining, but real, economic case studies that illustrated that people respond to incentives in sometimes odd, but ultimately predictable ways. Their main points were that incentives are important in our daily live & that conventional wisdom is often wrong.
One of the more famous examples of this is what was discovered when a day care center decided to levy fines to parents who were late picking up their children. What they found was that the number of parents who were late actually increased. By placing a “monetary incentive” on the infraction parents could rationalize that it was no longer morally wrong to be late, but rather just a matter of paying a little extra.
Well, after ten years in the CMS demo chair I think there’s a similar type of freakonomics in the proprietary commercial WCMS software purchasing experience and the Open Source software buying process.

The Freakonomics of A Commercial CMS Purchase

One of the examples in the book, is the “bias of the expert”. They discuss how a real estate agent has a bias to not get the best deal for you. It’s because their commission is based purely on the sale price of your house. Ultimately, an agent has no real incentive to get you the absolute best price – but rather to encourage you to take the first reasonable offer that comes along.
A similar but reverse thing happens when you buy a proprietary commercial CMS. You are, most likely, not an expert in Web content management systems. But of course the CMS vendors you’re looking at are experts. Most have seen tens, if not hundreds of similar challenges as yours and know exactly how and where to apply a solution to solve it.

But, see – there’s a conflict here.

The proprietary commercial vendor model is great... for the vendor.
It all boils down to incentives. Who is running the show. A closed source vendor is gaining the most by selling its license. The initial hit (yeah, it looks like drug) is the greatest when making the deal. What does a sales guy want to do? That is not a difficult one...: 'make as many deals as possible.' Regardless if the deal is in the best interest of the customer.

A proprietary commercial vendor gets paid in a few ways – and not all of them are really in line with you getting the best solution in the long run. Here are two examples:

• Initial Licensing Costs – The sales 'gets' the most money when you buy the license. The software maintenance fees is only a percentage of the initial license. So the goals is to sign up you up, not to keep you happy.
• Additional Modules or an Upgrade – Many proprietary commercial WCM vendors will charge you extra licensing fees for additional modules or when you want (need) to upgrade to a newer version of the software. Additionally, remember in Episode 2 when we talked about making sure to keep migration costs in mind when you acquire your new CMS. The proprietary commercial vendor knows what these costs are – and has every incentive to keep the cost of additional modules just under what it would cost to migrate to a new system.

This is different with (commercial) Open Source vendors. They don't get the initial hit when they sell their product. They get an annual fee for support, so to them it is important that a customer likes their product and wants to extent their contract year by year. This is a different approach. Open Source vendors invest in the relationship they have with the customer and needs to keep them satisfied. Even stronger, they need to keep them satisfied to be successful. This doesn't mean that it has to be free of charge, it means that you are treated as a customer with all the perks that come with that (like listening to and acting on what you say and want...)

In my view the world will not change overnight in one big philanthropical world. It is more like a powershift: the customer is back in charge.
Open source is a way of working that is more consistent with the changes we see in society nowadays. People know more, want the opportunity to choose and because of the internet have more access to information; the Google generation. The customers will get fed up with begging to their vendor. They know what they want and Google is showing them that it's out there.

The Economics of Open Source
But open source is different. As I’m demoing to customers and I start to look at estimating a new implementation of Hippo CMS we always have every incentive to make sure that we provide an accurate and cost-effective solution. There are no license fees and with Commercial Open Source the vendor is only charging you a flat yearly fee for services and ensuring the upgrade works with your current implementation. It’s not a percentage of anything but rather a fee based upon the ongoing services you require and the package you choose. Therefore the Open Source vendor has every incentive to make sure that you stay a happy customer.

Open Source Vs. Closed Source
See, the real difference is in how an open source software vendor operates. A commercial, proprietary closed source vendor resembles a set of concentric circles – with each circle representing a separation out to you – the customer. It starts with the “proprietary” source code which is then protected by product development/management. Product management is then protected by Support and Sales and Accounting etc… The entire structure is meant to feed more sales from the center out and grow the circles.
Open Source, however, operates differently. It is much more of a networked model. The internet is the connector and connects the code with a community – which is in turn connected to partners and customers who implement the solution but also equally connected (in some cases) to management, support and other modes that help to direct various elements of the software solution. Now, you can argue which model is more efficient for business (that could be another post ;-). But, in the Open Source model there is definitely more incentive to get happy end-users and customers.

We’ve all heard the phrase “pick the low hanging fruit”. It means (literally) the “easiest to grasp”. We use it all the time from the leads who are “ready to buy” to the vendors who are easiest to negotiate with. Or, in the case of Web Content Management – the system that makes my team’s content management job easier.

Interestingly, according most orchards - it’s the inexperienced pickers who go for the low-hanging fruit first. The experienced fruit picker actually takes his empty bag and goes to the top and works his way down the tree – so that by the time he’s at the bottom his bag is heavy and full.

Even more interestingly – picking the lowest hanging fruit usually means taking fruit that is under-ripe and leaving the delicious ready-to-eat fruit that’s higher (and more difficult to reach) on the tree. This means that while it might be “easier” for the pickers of the fruit - the customers of the orchard are getting fruit that spoils faster. And, that’s ultimately bad for business.

Don’t Pick The Low Hanging WCMS Systems

This is a lesson we can take with us as we look to replace a Web content management system. I’ve been doing CMS demos for more than ten years – and almost all customers start their requirements with how a WCMS will benefit their employees. The CMS must:

1. Be easy for the team to use
2. Have a great WYSIWYG editor
3. Contain a marketing suite
4. Feature user management and reporting
5. Etc…

Almost all of these requirements are the low hanging fruit of WCMS software. They are the features that make it easier for the team to manage content. But these features don’t have anything to do with making your Web content platform better for your audience. In fact, none of those features do anything for your Web audience. And, because of this, they are the features that most CMS vendors focus on – and they are the primary reason that so many CMS vendors look similar.

The fact is that most Web content management systems will meet these requirements. As CMS Expert Janus Boye said back in February “while it is possible to select a content management system which does not meet your requirements and will be unsuitable for your organization, most significant systems in the market today are likely to meet between 80%-90% of your requirements.”

Pick The Higher Hanging CMS Systems

Instead you should consider Web content management systems that are specifically focused on making the experience of your customer – your audience – more engaging, rich and more valuable.

This is where there are true differences between Web content management solutions – and its one where your requirements will help you shorten the list of potential candidates much more quickly.

In Demos, instead of focusing on things like “easy-to-use” or “WYSIWYG editors” which just about any Web CMS vendor will choose – we like to focus on how Hippo will make the customer’s audience experience so much richer.

Consider Web content management systems that:
1. Focus on Search Optimization
2. Provide Context Awareness
3. Personalize Content
4. Empower you to test and/or target content
5. Serve content quickly and in a more scalable way across multiple devices
6. Open up your content repository to other party's

In our view, these are the features of a Web content management system that will, in the long run, provide you the greatest return on your investment. If one CMS provides an incrementally better interface for moving content around or moving it through workflow – we might be 10% more efficient, or save 20% time. But if one CMS provides the ability to serve content to multiple channels, or multiple sites – seamlessly based on how the customer asks for it – now we’re empowered for exponential increases in business success.

Don’t Forget The Low Hanging Fruit

Now, of course we shouldn’t forget to pick the low hanging fruit. All things being equal, and once we’ve focused on the audience related features of our Web Content Management system - we should look at how the different tools will make our team’s day to day management more easy, or effective. But instead of making this our priority – let’s look at that as a secondary concern. That’s the best of both worlds - or in the words of the Orchard manager starting high in the tree – and only picking the fruit that’s actually ready as we work our way down.

That’s the way we can make sure that when we’re ready to serve up our content – it will be ripe and sweet.

Not a lot of people know this – but the famous Leatherman tool was actually invented while its inventor Tim Leatherman was traveling through Europe. That’s right, while he and his wife were driving a used Fiat that constantly had leaks and electrical problems, Tim practically wore out his pocket knife fixing the car. He wondered if he could combine a knife, with pliers and other tools – and create something brand new.
Over the next three years, he worked the design into the famous tool that we know and use. He first approached knife makers – who told him that his device was a “tool, not a knife”. Then, he went to tool companies who told him that his device was a “knife, not a tool”. So, like any good entrepreneur, he created a new category of “survival tools” and started to sell his device by mail order. And, today The Leatherman Tool group has more than 500 employees and more than a billion dollars in sales. But, what’s really interesting is what didn’t happen. His invention didn’t replace all the tools that it contained.

People still buy pliers, and they still buy knives. They still buy screwdrivers and they still buy files and saws and bottle openers. Why?
To Do An Enterprise Job You Need Best Of Breed Tools
Today, many Web content management systems are taking the Leatherman approach to Web site management – especially for marketing tools. They offer Web content management of course; but they also offer Web Analytics, Email Campaign Management, Online Communities, Social Media Platforms, and even lead management, scoring and nurturing software.
There are three challenges with these types of solutions:
1. A Knife is A Knife But Web Content Management Is Still Evolving. The reason that most vendors start building corkscrews and pliers on to their tools is because they assume that Web Content Management is like the knife. It’s sharp – it cuts and there’s nothing more to do with it. The fact is that the Web is evolving now, arguably, faster than ever. Mobile interfaces, social networks, personalization, context aware and making content available as a platform are all critical business imperatives. Additionally, as Web traffic grows – ensuring scalability and security are important features to adapt. These innovations sometimes aren’t the most sexy – or the ones that “demo the best” – but they are vitally important to the business. For example, here at Hippo we took a year and a half to develop our newest version – which is almost entirely focused on making deployment and implementation better for developers.

2. You’re Not Getting Best Of Breed Applications. With WCM vendors that provide solutions like Email Campaign Management and Web Analytics, you are almost certainly NOT getting a best-of-breed application across every one of those categories. For example, Email Campaign Management vendors spend tremendous amounts of their time and energy maintaining a close relationship with ISP’s to ensure deliverability of your email. That’s really what you pay for.

3. The Bigger They Get – The Longer You Wait. By adding all those components into their “suite” of software – it means that upgrades to any one of those applications are complex and have huge interdependencies on other elements. That means if you find a bug, or are waiting for some new feature – you’ll be waiting much longer than if you were using separate best-of-breed tools.
It’s quite simple - Web content management is still a space that is changing and needs a best-of-breed tool. No single company can be great at everything. In short, while you might be able to fix a small leaky pipe with your Leatherman – no one is suggesting that a Leatherman is all you need for your household plumbing.
There’s An App For That
If you’re in marketing – and you’re looking at upgrading your whole Web site stack, we highly recommend considering best-of-breed solutions for the various components. You’re probably already using some of them anyway (e.g. Google Analytics or Salesforce.com). Just remember, that software should and probably will be the least of your concerns from an investment point of view. The biggest expense over the long haul is going to be the services needed to support whichever solution you choose. So, by diversifying your investments, if one piece of it (e.g. Email Campaign Management) doesn’t meet the needs of your organization or ends up costing too much to support – you can replace it quickly.
And, if the whole Web 2.0 thing teaches us anything, it’s that Open Standards of Web formats are making it easier and easier for applications to integrate and talk to one another.
There’s a reason that we, at Hippo, have decided not to build Web marketing tools. It’s because our integration with solutions like Google Analytics, SalesForce, and other tools is so strong. Really, any Enterprise Web marketing solution that supports open communication across the Internet (and that’s most of them these days) can integrate with Hippo CMS just as easily. We have customers using all kinds of Web marketing tools.
It’s Not About Website Management Any Longer
The reason that Tim Leatherman was so successful with his tool – was because he didn’t market it as a knife, or a tool – but rather a new “category” of device. The same is true of WCM vendors who are marketing themselves as Website Management systems. And, of course – we’ve got to get out of that thinking. The Web is much bigger than just Web sites. We have so many other channels to manage content for.
And, of course it’s not just marketing tools either. Some CMS systems try and tackle every piece of the stack. In fact Adriann Bloem just wrote about this last month where he talked about how Microsoft Sharepoint is really a Swiss Army Knife.
The point is, as the web evolves – with the Semantic Web coming, and Context Aware Computing – Web content management still needs to evolve with it.
As you start to develop your requirements for your new Web content management system, you will find that today, they are ever-more complex. It goes well beyond a “web site management tool”. Today’s WCM must allow for both the management and delivery of a multi-channel, context aware, and enterprise level content strategy. As Realstory Group’s Irina Guseva recently put it – the “c” in WCM stands for complexity”. Trying to add in all these other components under one solution is going to make your implementation *MORE* complex – not less.
Your Leatherman might be good for some, very specific jobs. But, don’t trust it to build a platform on which you’re going to rest your whole strategy.

That’s right – if you want to know what a CMS Demo has to do with a pop song from 1992 you’ve come to the right place. In the song, Right Said Fred sings:

“I’m a model you know what I mean
And I do my little turn on the catwalk
Yeah on the catwalk on the catwalk yeah
I do my little turn on the catwalk”

The next time you go into a CMS demo – and the vendor starts to show you how “sexy” their interface is by showing off in-line editing (sometimes also referred to as inline editing) - keep this song in mind as they do their little turn on the catwalk.

What is In-Line Editing

Some CMS systems allow end-users to look at a preview of their web site and then, because they are “logged in” as an editor, can simply start changing things “in-lineline” with the look and feel of the page. In a post written last year, CMS Analyst and Consultant Seth Gottlieb proposes a reason that this is so popular in a sales demo. He writes that “in a typical CMS sales demonstration, the audience has the perspective of a site visitor. After all, this is not their site. They have no responsibility for it. “

And that’s a key point – some features look really sexy in Sales Demos – but when you actually have to implement it in your unique content management process – it can cause issues.

The Challenge With In-Line Editing

Now of course every vendor that offers a Web content management solution wants to put his or her best foot forward in the demo. They want to show you their best stuff. Unfortunately, many of them do so at the expense of what really matters.

See, you’re hardly expected to be an expert in Web Content Management. If you’re like most people – selecting a Web Content Management System is something you’ll do less than a handful of times in your entire career. So, how are you to know what’s really important. There are plenty of features that look sexy in a sales demo – and make you think “wow, we really need that”. But a year later, that same sexy feature that looked awesome in the demo – can make your life miserable. In-line editing is one of those features.

CMS expert and consultant Janus Boye pointed this out really well back in March of this year – when he posted about the 8 Features That Customers Want But Never Use. When referring to in-line editing, he said that the feature was “rarely implemented in the real world, except for small customers that don’t worry too much about staging environments, permissions and quality assurance processes”.

And, that’s the important point. Today, enterprise Web content management must go beyond the “page” paradigm. At Hippo we’ve been working with customers for more than ten years. And so many initially come to us frustrated about the way their end users can’t get out of the “page mentality”. We know that, over time, if you treat your Web content management system as a page manager – end users will start managing it like a page manager. In short – if it looks like a page, and it feels like a page – it’s a page. And what happens, especially over time is that you lose an inherent requirement in today’s content platform – which is content modularity and re-use. Important questions start to come up:

• How do I keep users from making references to things which may not be relevant in other uses of this content? For example, what if a user edits the right column on a page and writes “look to the left for the registration”. In this case, what they don’t realize is that this piece of content is re-used in multiple interfaces and on different pages where that registration doesn’t appear. How do I keep end users from “designing” (for example adding extra 'carriage returns' for some white space) the content for the page – which will look horrible in, for example, the Mobile interface.
• What if we add extra fields for other contexts like mobile, social, personalization etc.? How will we let the user know that their changes may have contextual relevance to those things? For example, what if we have a different version (e.g. one long and one short) for the “mobile site” and the user changes the entire meaning of the content on just the Web site because of inline editing. Now we’ll have two different meanings which may screw up our measurement. We can add a pop-up for all the contextual references – but now that takes away our need for in-line editing.
• What do we do about meta data, analytics, and other “content elements” that are important – but aren’t part of the visual display? For example, we may want to make sure that we assign “tags” to content for display logic (e.g. authenticated, or targeted to a certain persona). Or, we may want to make sure that categories for “relevant” content are added to each element we add. Sure, we can add “power user” interfaces – but now we should ask ourselves do we really want to maintain two interfaces?

See, what typically happens is that you don’t need to solve these challenges on day one of your bright and shiny new WCMS. But after a few hundred days, these content management requirements get more complex and you start adding more and more “contextual” fields to the “in-line editing” interface. It’s not long before everyone is using the “power user” interface. In fact –it’s worse – because now we’ve basically got TWO interfaces. The one we’ve hacked together for in-line editing (in the design of our website) and the power user interface. And, the users end up disliking both equally.

Delivering Web Content Has Changed – So Should Managing It

As content managers – we need to understand that, at our best, we are managing content for multiple channels – in multiple formats – and for multiple interfaces. There are more and more “tags” and meta data we need to associate with content.

In-line editing is not new. It was originally created to make it “easy” for non-technnical users to make page changes. For them, avoiding HTML code, or making fast changes to a Web page “in-line” was a way to prevent them from having to see the “back-end” of the Web content management system.

But – users are more savvy now. And, from everything to Facebook, to Twitter to filling out ecommerce forms - they are used to filling out online forms, and working in a fielded way. And, besides – your in-line experience eventually turns into an exercise of filling out forms anyway.

Preview or “Surf and Edit” Is Different

One of the common arguments for in-line editing is so that non-technical people can see what their work will look like in the context of the Web content platform that they’re working. And, of course that’s different.

Being able to use a preview of your Web property – or look at what your changes look like in ALL the contexts of your channels (mobile, Web, tablet etc..) is very important.

And, the best – is a user interface that can be molded around the way your users will manage your Web content. For example, using Hippo you might want to navigate to the page you want to edit using a preview mode. Then, by highlighting over a particular area – you can see which areas of the page you’re allowed to edit. And then clicking on it – gives you the ability to manipulate that content. But, then – you get to see all the context of that in an “editing interface” and that includes whether it’s something simple like a page widget (where all you can do is manipulate the title or the number of news items on a page). Or, maybe it’s something more substantial where you can edit the different versions and target it to a certain type of persona – or even drag and drop it around where it will automatically reformat itself to the interfaces you’ve allowed. Additionally, based on your users, they may have access to certain WYSIWYG fields or not. We have example of all this in a video we did here.

And this is the key. Editing and managing content should be a separate process from delivering content. Today there’s just so much more to our content – than just the page itself. Beyond the content reuse and the other technical and user interface challenges that in-line editing provides – the most important is making sure our end-users change their mindset as well. Our content platforms are no longer about managing Web page. Today, we manage a content platform that’s used in a variety of contexts.

And, we should make sure that they are being managed in that… wait for it… context.

Every year at tax time, the newspapers are filled with articles about those who admit to cheating on their taxes. Last year, in the United States, 15% of citizens asked, admitted to cheating. And that’s just the people who admit it!

Interestingly, studies have been done to look at why people cheat on their taxes – and the general reason is that we all recognize that while it’s “good” to pay taxes – we all have a selfish desire to pay the least amount possible. And because the tax codes are usually so complex – we can rationalize all kinds of things that are “deductible”. “Sure, that dinner with my grandmother is tax deductible… she asked me about my job.”

Well interestingly, over the years, I’ve noticed the same thing with Web content management RFP’s – especially the type that use complicated Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets as a way to “score” vendor responses. Over the last 10 years, as you might expect – we’ve seen hundreds of those types of RFP – and I can tell you – while we’ve gotten very good at filling them out – we don’t believe they are a good measure of a WCMS solution.

See, if you’re thinking about using complex spreadsheets as a way to determine which CMS to buy – you should think again. Using a spreadsheet based RFP for a WCMS is very much like looking at who paid the most taxes to pick the wealthiest person. You won’t get what you’re looking for. All you’re doing is selecting the best RFP response – not the best solution to your Web content management challenge.

As has been pointed out in other blog posts by independent analysts the Real Story Group and by Janus Boye – vendors will often “cheat” (either a little bit or a whole lot) when they fill out those RFP Spreadsheets. If you put in “WYSIWYG Editor” or “Easy To Use” as a requirement in an RFP spreadsheet – all the Vendors will say “Yes, Supported”. And, for more complicated features, honest vendors might say “no” and dishonest vendors might say “yes” even though neither has it. Using spreadsheets, inherently reward vendors for being dishonest. The key is understand the subtle differences in each vendor’s approach.

So, from my demo chair view – what I’d much rather do is understand what specific challenges you have with Web content management – and then show you how Hippo CMS solves them. User scenarios help me guide the demonstration process – as well as our response to the RFP. And, they help me to determine if we’re even an appropriate fit for what you’re looking for.

For example, let’s pretend there’s a scenario where you’re looking for an Enterprise-class Open Source Java based Web content Management System – and your end-users are marketers who need to be able to drag and drop elements around on the page to change the look and feel of the site. And, further your developers need a system that is bullet-proof, and will scale to millions of visitors per month. I know, in that case, that Hippo CMS is a good fit. So, when I demo to you I can demonstrate our solution to that challenge. But if you’re looking for a .Net solution that focuses on a community oriented site or a blog for a small business – then Hippo is not for you.

When you’re working with a vendor – ask them for a written summary – not a checklist of the following kinds of business challenges. Ask the Vendor, fro example, to explain how their CMS will:

• Help your business achieve higher conversions on my marketing
• Improve your Search Engine Optimization
• Give you more flexibility to innovate content and marketing strategies
• Enable you to get my content to market faster
• Empower you to launch microsites or new events or new sites in other languages.
• Provide a WCMS solution that will grow with your business
• Lower your Total Cost Of Ownership of a Content Management solution

And, from a development point of view – For example ask the vendor to explain how their CMS will:

• Support your traffic of 500,000 unique visitors per day/month etc.
• Ensure that your site never takes more than 1 second to serve a page
• Scale to hundreds or thousands of end-users, and support ecommerce, document management or other enterprise technologies
• Serve your internet, intranet & extranet from one repository
• Build up knowledge domain & faceted search from your taxonomy
• Personalize your content & application using Single Sign On using open social to share
• Use different delivery tiers (Spring MvC, JSP, Grails, etc.) and create a front end in HTML 5

Finally, there’s one other reason to not use the “spreadsheet” form method – and that’s the element of pleasant surprise. Interestingly, one of the arguments for getting more people to be honest on their taxes is to give them more of a say in where their money goes. The theory is that if people could decide – specifically – where some percentage of their taxes go then people would contribute more and perhaps cheat less.

There’s a similar idea in the RFP. By opening up the RFP process to be more creative by the vendor – and letting them approach scenarios rather than checklists – you encourage the vendor to suggest things you might not have thought of. It’s highly unlikely that anything in your spreadsheet is “creative” or “out of the box”. In fact, it really can’t be if you’re trying to play “fair”. But of course - you don’t care about “fair”. You want the *best* solution for your business. So, by giving vendors the incentive to “surprise you” – you’ll get the best, most creative demos and RFP responses that the vendor has.

And, that’s what will make the start of this long process more interesting for you. Because the last thing you want is for your WCMS selection process to be like doing your Taxes. Right?

So, here in the Netherlands – and in most parts of Europe, we have a law that says when we make a purchase of any electronic device (like a washing machine) we have to make (included in the price) a contribution to a fund that will clean and recycle the various parts of the machine for disposal. It’s a very interesting and innovative way to ensure that the machine’s end-of-life deconstruction and replacement is paid for before it’s even put into service. And I can’t help but notice that there is something really similar (and missing) from the way that businesses acquire their Web content management system.

So, when I demo the Hippo CMS to prospective customers – it’s almost always because they are looking to replace their old, broken down Web content management system. It doesn’t matter whether it’s some custom built platform, or a commercial product – they want to move their Web content from one system into another – and Hippo is under consideration.

See, many Web content management systems are like that old washing machine. Once it gets old, and it stops performing like you want it to – you want to either shine them up and fix them (re-implement) or just replace it altogether.

But here’s the important thing! If you decide to replace your old CMS with a new solution – you should make sure to calculate how much effort it will be to replace that old washing machine. And, secondly – but just as importantly - make sure to explore how much those costs would be with the new CMS you’re considering. That’s right – as part of your consideration, before you buy your new CMS, you should factor in how much it will be to replace that system.

See, there are a lot of WCMS solutions out there that will store your Web content in proprietary ways, and/or lock your Web site presentation down into some proprietary technology. And, while all of that seems fine when you buy the shiny new Web content management system, it will mean big trouble when it’s time to replace it. All those “proprietary” things that have built up over the years are now going to be VERY expensive to replace. The content may have to be manually pulled out of the proprietary system. Or you need to hire specialized companys which you can hire to migrate the content automatically.

You see – with some Web content management systems - unlike your washing machine – you’re not paying for the removal of those things when you first invest in your CMS. Rather, now that you’re replacing it – you have to increase your budget and basically add investment to replace all those “customizations” you put in place. You have to literally pay more money to replace your old washing machine with a new one. And, unfortunately, just like the disposal of the washing machine – you usually don’t know how much it’s going to cost – until you actually have to replace it.

Open Source and Open Standards Future Proof Your Content, Your Customizations And Your Integrations

When I demo to customers, I remind them that there are ways to avoid this extra cost. One of the strengths of Open Source and Open Standards based CMS’s – especially one like Hippo CMS – is that you’re not only buying your Washing Machine in “Europe” – you’re actually getting one that can grow and evolve with you. Hippo, for example, uses Open Standards methods and is completely separated from the presentation.

This provides two big benefits. The first is that the system can grow and evolve with you – so it’s less likely to have to be replaced in the first place. The second is that if it ultimately does need to be replaced – you’ll know that it can be done more easily and without “extra costs”. Your content is completely separate from the functionality and presentation of your Web content. And you can immediately migrate that content seamlessly into another WCMS.

The one big challenge with closed-source proprietary solutions is that you are not allowed to change the software. Bottom line: you are not allowed to see how it works or customize it to fit the unique needs of your business users, validate security or optimize the performance.

See, with a closed-source vendor – you end up paying so much more than the initial license fee to really use the software and make it your own. Even if you CAN make changes on your own (or they make them for you) your investment in replacing the software becomes bigger and bigger. With every tweak you get away from a successful upgrade path – and you create a bigger headache for yourself.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen Open Source become much more popular. So, if Open Source used to only be used for the “plumbing” of our Washing Machine – now it’s moved up to offer everything in the Washing Machine “stack”. From operating systems, to databases – and now to applications – the success stories for enterprise use of Open Source is becoming huge. And, that success is because the openness lends itself for integration capabilities – and their ability to be adapted over time to unique business needs.

And here’s something important. The key is in that adaptation. If you use an Open Source Content Management System (like Hippo) “as-is” – simply to get an easier User Interface for business user – the benefits will be equal to proprietary solutions. The big advantage is that the Open Source CMS provides is the “freedom” it provides. It’s “free” for you to adapt, customize, scale and meet your requirements as they change. It’s like a Washing Machine that starts small when you’re a couple - but grows, adapts and gets bigger as your family grows.

Now, of course one of the big challenges is that because you’ll take that challenge – you must do it in a sustainable way. Leveraging Open Source is not without risks. With no one, single vendor to turn to – you must develop a resource to turn to in case of emergency or in case your Washing Machine breaks!

The Rise of Commercial Open Source

To address the Open Source challenges mentioned above, a new and very successful delivery model has surfaced: Commercial support for Open Source. Companies like RedHat – and Hippo - are helping Enterprises to enjoy the benefits and liberty of Open Source, while mitigating the risks.

The traditional benefits provided by Commercial Open Source are:

• Guaranteed support with service levels
• Legal Indemnification and liability
• Warranties
• Regular updates and patches
• No big upfront investment and significantly lower costs.

But there are a few additional benefits of Commercial Open Source which are crucial for the Enterprise:

• Road-map alignment
• Liberty / Freedom
• Interoperability

Road-map alignment is a crucial benefit you gain from Commercial Open Source. This is how you plan how your Washing Machine will grow and where your family is going – and making sure those two things are in alignment.

Enterprises need to increase the speed of development in order to improve time-to-market, increase reach and conversion. The model that Commercial Open Source uses allows you to gain that speed. Incorporating modifications to the core are part of the business model; not a struggle as with proprietary software. In some worst-case scenarios with a proprietary system you could end up with a fully customized platform on a closed source solution where you still have to pay the maintenance fee, but cannot upgrade (in order to get new features or improve stability). With Open source your investment will not be lost.

So, as you’re getting a demo of a replacement WCMS product, make sure that you think about replacement cost. Make sure that you’re thinking not only about the investment that you’re making over the next few months – but for when you ultimately have to make the decision whether or not to replace this tool with another. Make sure that you don’t have to invest MORE money to replace your CMS than you did implementing it in the first place. It’s an investment in your future – not your past.

So, as you know – we Hippo folk started in Amsterdam – and Amsterdam is full of bicycles. And there is every flavor of bicycle you can imagine. From color to size, to shape and even whether it has a basket or not – bicycles, in a way, reflect our personalities, how we use them, and ultimately help move us around. Each one becomes unique to us!

The same is true with the WCMS you are trying to decide on. If you’ve just started looking for a WCMS – you’ve seen that there are literally hundreds of options for how you can manage your Web content. There’s Commercial Open Source solutions like Hippo, proprietary solutions like SDL/Tridion or Adobe’s CQ5 or even ECM systems like Alfresco, Ms Sharepoint or OpenText. You can spend months just learning about all the different types of solutions that are out there.

But here’s a secret that no one will ever tell you. One of the keys to choosing the right WCMS is understanding that it will change the moment you get it. It will start to reflect the way that YOU will use it. Whichever WCMS solution you choose – you (or whoever you hire) will have to implement it to meet your unique needs. In other words as soon as you buy it – you have to decide whether to put a basket on it, put on decals or lights, add a second seat, or anything else you’ll need to make it work for you.

Many times when I demo to a prospective customer – it’s clear that they haven’t really asked themselves exactly WHY they need that WCMS. They haven’t asked why they need a bike. So, what happens is that all the CMS’s they demo look exactly alike – and then they’re surprised that they can’t make a decision as to which one will best suit their needs. So, the better you understand your unique needs BEFORE you schedule a demo – the better demo you’ll have and the quicker you’ll get to a short list of candidates.

A WCMS Built For You!

Once you figure out all these requirements you’ll naturally start to lean toward a few solutions. Are you looking for Open Source? Are you looking to install a system on premise or host it in the cloud? Is your Web content focused on marketing? Are you looking for an intranet? Asking these questions (and many others) will be the start of your business and technical requirements and will ultimately lead you to bike that will get you there in style.

Keep in mind that all CMS’s (no matter which one you pick):

• Must be implemented to meet your unique needs
  
• Must be managed and supported to your unique needs ongoing
  
• Must be used by your unique end-users to be effective
  
• Must be upgraded to add new features
  
• Must be constantly modified to meet the changing needs of the business
  

So, as you consider solutions – look at how it will work across the business, the technology and the infrastructure. Jeroen Verberg – the CEO here at Hippo - has recently written a white paper about the value of Commercial Open Source and in that white paper he says:

“In today’s enterprise environments, software systems need to be integrated and fine-tuned, adapted to meet demands of the business users and hardened to ensure security.”

It’s just like a bike!! My bike is finely tuned for exactly how I ride it. And it has changed over time to be perfect for how I use it. That’s how you should think about your new CMS. Focus on choosing a CMS that can be customized to meet YOUR business requirements, and YOUR technical requirements - and you’ll have a WCMS that will stand the test of time – and work for years to come.

WCMS - It’s The Ride That Matters

Really, the goal of a Web content management solution is so your team can collaborate on all the great content that you want your business to produce. And, what we’re really hoping is that this great content will facilitate collaboration with your users – and empower your audiences to consume that content in whatever way they choose. That’s what ultimately adds value to your business.

Jeroen, at the end of his white paper says this well:

“The big benefit of open-source software is not the reduced license costs per se, but the flexibility it brings. Connectivity with existing infrastructure and platforms is easier to achieve and the liberty to adapt the software to the demands from business users is an inherent feature. The Commercial Open-source model gives you the best of both worlds: the quality of service and security of professional support and the flexibility and freedom of open-source. By empowering enterprises and putting them back in the driver’s seat they can drive down costs and be more competitive at the same time.”

So, no matter if you choose to go open source or not – selecting a CMS and it’s ability to give you the ride that You want is the real key to making sure it’s an investment that will last.

So, over the next 10 weeks – what we’re going to do is roll out a series of blog posts telling a few of these stories and lessons learned. The reason it’s called “tales from the demo chair” is that many of these lessons are learned learning about customer’s CMS challenges for the first time – when I give that first demo. One of the most mysterious parts of the CMS process is when you’re trying to decide which one to buy.

We’ll talk about lots of things – from how a WCMS is like a Bike – or how buying a new CMS is like replacing your washing machine – to why you should avoid Microsoft Excel spreadsheets when you’re putting together your RFP – and even why your content editors might be the last people you want to consider in your CMS choice.

We hope you’ll join us over the next 10 weeks – and of course you can tell me your own experiences as well by emailing me @ t(dot)brenninkmeijer(at)onehippo(dot)com or send a tweet to http://twitter.com/tbrenninkmeijer.