We at SDL are looking forward to the opportunity to participate in Internet Week New York (https://www.internetweekny.com/). 

It’s an event that has run since 2008 as a festival that takes place all over the city, with diverse events in different locations "celebrating NYC's thriving and diverse internet industry and community". 

The result is a critical mass of web-focused events that I’ve heard described in the same breath as SXSW (http://sxsw.com/), presumably without the films, music, but with a firmer focus on web engagement tech and what excites the digital engagement professional. 

However, the folks behind Internet Week New York have an interesting model for choosing the sessions that that will be on their agenda.They open up submission and then let their community vote for who they’d like to see. Calling it Make the Stage, you can read about it here.  (#makethestage on twitter)

Working with our partner Siteworx we have put together two sessions that I’m excited about presenting with them. 

One of our sessions is called “Developers: The Rock Stars of Marketing?” that is inspired by a blog post I wrote, when I was back at Alterian and something I am really looking forward to talking about withTim McLaughlin, President and Founder of Siteworx. You can vote for that session here: http://bit.ly/H8zQQX

Alternatively, we have also proposed a slightly different session titled: “Saving the CMO … Bridging the Gap between What Designers Dream and Technologists Create!” where together with Tim from Siteworx we are going to present: "a roadmap to achieve both big ideas and measurable, provable success by bridging the gap between what designers dream and technologists create". You can vote for that session here: http://bit.ly/HXDLhD

But, we won’t be there without your votes! So please, check out the links and follow the #makethestage Twitter hashtag and see how we get on.  

See you in New York?

At the beginning of this month, I was in a conference room in Santa Clara, at my first SDL Innovate conference.

An annual event where we get together as the SDL group and share with our customers and partners what we have been doing, what we are planning and maybe inspire with some thought provoking presentations from around our broader industry.

One of those thought provoking presentations that really resonated with me was the day two keynote by Mike Walsh - and looking around the engaged faces, affirming nods and occasional murmur of “YES” around the 400+ folks I shared the room with, I wasn't alone. 

As I round out my first year at SDL I have the privilege to be speaking at SDL Innovate this year and in this post, I’d like to share a little bit about what we are going to be talking about next Tuesday (March 6).  

The theme of the whole event is Mastering Global Customer Engagement and during our session we will be addressing how SDL Tridion enables our customers to enage with their customers through providing relevant digital customer experiences, across multiple devices and channels.

The session on Tuesday will blend discussion of our roadmap for 2012 and practical experience of solving needs today with SDL Tridion 2011. I am excited by the format, as we have assembled a panel of SDL Tridion experts to lend their implementation and technical expertise to the discussion and share what our customers can do with our product today.   

We are very fortunate to have a great technical community and through our MVP program we recognize those who offer exceptional contributions to that community.  We are therefore delighted to welcome Chris Summers from Urban Cherry, a 2012 SDL Tridion MVP to the panel.

We will also welcome two of our most valued and knowledgeable SDL WCMS developers; Frank van Puffelen Principal Developer from our Innovation center in Boston and Nuno Linhares, Principal Consultant from our Professional Services team in New York.

Our panel will be completed by Julian Wraith, a Technical Account Manager who has worked with some of our largest international clients, working with them to develop customer engagement solutions.

I will open by discussing our product direction, new products that are scheduled for release and I will then hand over to the panel to dive into key trends and customer engagement requirements we are seeing with our customers. For this session we will be focusing on mobile, content targeting and social and the panel will share some of the best practices and techniques that are helping our customers today. 

I encourage you to follow the hashtag  #SDLInnovate for updates and my fellow panelist @nunolinhares,  @julesdw,  @urbancherry  and @puf.

I look forward to seeing you next week in Santa Clara,

@iantruscott

As marketers, we’ve seen an amazing increase in investment in video and multimedia experiences. Online advertising through video is projected to increase from 42.1% in 2011 to 54.7% in 2012. Mobile users, in particular account for half of all video traffic at 52% and this is expected to account for 70% of all traffic by 2016. YouTube alone streams 4 billion videos every day.

What is the draw? And why is important for brands and organizations to participate? Video has the unique ability to draw in viewers through its combination of words, voice, image, music and movement. It creates brand recognition, connection, emotion, experience…

So far, marketers seem to be approaching video with varied levels of creativity and expertise. But as it’s adopted as a standard tactic to reach customers, I think that the practical understanding we apply will only increase.

We need to look at the customer journey and find a best fit: how can we enhance what they’re doing or what they want to know at any given moment? Don’t get me wrong, video is a fantastic tactic, but I want to be clear about how I make my customers’ experience better by adding video.

I think that the recent discussions about Customer Engagement and Experience Management really point the way forward since they call for a genuinely integrated strategy that brings together all the different possible tactics.

KLM has managed to utilise videos to enhance their customers' experience enabling them to experience their journey before they board. You can find out more about their video solutions here.

How is your organization using video? Where do you find using video hard/easy/helpful/difficult?

My dad always says, “The only constant is change.” While this is not a Michael Slaughter original – although he does create some mind-blowing original thoughts – it is still true. In few places is this adage more poignant than on the web. To point:

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) recently released a Google-backed study around the growth of the web economy. The findings show that the value of the web economy in the G-20 countries will double in value by 2016, growing from $2.3 trillion US to approximately $4.2 trillion US.^[1] This is attributed directly to the rise in mobile internet access and applications. Because of mobile device growth, Google estimates that over 3 billion people will have access to the internet on a regular basis within the next four years.^[2] The question for global organizations is how to jump on this information in the most appropriate way to drive the future of their business and client engagement.

As a global organization, the G-20 is quickly re-solidifying their position as the standard bearer for significant, sustainable revenue generation. While “developing” or “burgeoning” markets are always going to be important, there is not foreseeable threat to the global dominance of the G20 marketplaces.  To provide perspective, the G-20 economies account for more than 80 percent of the global gross national product (GNP)^[3], 80 percent of world trade (including EU intra-trade) and two-thirds of the world population.^[4] They contribute to 84.1 percent and 82.2 percent of the world's economic growth by nominal GDP and GDP (PPP) respectively from the years 2010 to 2016, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

When you look at the projected internet economy ($4.2 trillion US) when compared to the overall economies of the G-20, will still be below 10%. While this does not dispel the need for “brick and mortar” shops for retail companies (as an example), it does call for a significant way in which we approach customer engagement.

Staying with the retail industry, a majority of “brick and mortar” retailers maintain a simple online strategy – use the website as a means to drive in-store revenue. Big box retailers like Best Buy and Target offer the ability to order something online and pick it up at a nearby store. While this meets the “immediacy” of the customer to have the item, the logic is that when the customer goes to pick up their purchase they will make additional purchases at the store. While this model has a level of effectiveness, the dynamic increase in the number of customer personas require multiple strategies for online engagement, including a “shop-like” environment for those buyers who look only online and avoid the “brick and mortar” altogether.

However, I will again state that developing and improving your online strategy means the end of “brick and mortar.” In fact, in their latest report ForeSee noted that “highly satisfied visitors to retail websites in the U.S. say they are 65% more committed to the brand overall, 68% more likely to purchase from the retailer online, 48% more likely to purchase from the retailer offline, and 67% more likely to recommend the retailer than their dissatisfied counterparts.”^[5]

While retail has been the driving example, it is fair to note the growth of the web economy will come largely from an increase in mobile internet access.  The ever-dropping price and availability of smart phones and tablet devices in the market place will drive a significant revolution away from the traditional internet access via a copper wire and a desktop PC. In fact, it is estimated that by 2016, over 80% of all internet users will access the web using a mobile device.^[6]

What this means is that the ability to complete the purchase quickly will become a significant driving factor. This is counter to the traditional belief that the accomplishment of a purchase is holding the item in your hand. Quickly the expectation is a smooth, online experience that creates a “shop-like” feel.

So, what does this mean for global organizations? Who is impacted by this potential change? The answer is simple: Everyone.

It does not matter what industry you are in, there is a specific point that will resonate throughout every industry. So, even if your company is more B2B than B2C (example medical devices, IT, software) the ability to access IFU’s will have to come through the web – not traditional print (except where required by law). As the expectations of ease and simplicity move into our personal lives through online, mobile channels, the desire to see this approach incorporated in the “work” life will be pervasive. Video instructions and demonstrations will become more commonplace – asking the question of formats (i.e Flash or HTML 5).

So, while the initial discussion was around the increase in online economy, the ability to engage our “work” life with the same ease as our personal lives will drive those changes across every industry, not just retail.

Yesterday (Monday) it was official, Alterian have become a very welcome part of SDL. This is personally very exciting for me, as I am an Alterian alumnus. But more importantly, it elevates our company’s ability to meet the contemporary needs of our customers; to engage with their customers. 

People use the term ‘game changer’ quite a lot, but on our 20 year anniversary of being founded as Software Documentation Localization (SDL), this is a clear signal of intent to be at the vanguard of what global information management means today. We are continuing on the journey to serve the digital consumer that included the acquisition of Tridion to form our WCM solutions division in 2007.  

Those contemporary information management requirements are described by various acronyms, but I think we are settling on Customer Experience Management (CXM) and this acquisition brings together a family of products that can address those needs. 

In saying that I don’t mean some artificial spreadsheet or graph laid out by an analyst (as much as I respect them) - I mean it responds to real needs I am hearing from our customers today. 

Real people, in large, sophisticated organizations that are looking for how they systemize social engagement, how they reach their customers with a high degree of relevance, across multiple channels and in multiple languages.

Here are my top 3 of things top like about having Alterian in the fold:

1. The combination of language and social. This is really exciting, understanding the sentiment of what is being said out there is the science of social media monitoring and this starts with the language that is being spoken. 

2. Actionable insights. The combination of understanding your audience through observing behavior, social media monitoring and transactions - and then being able to address the audience across multiple channels. It’s a message I carried when I was at Alterian and is even more powerful when combined with componentized, structured content management and language.  

3. Expertise not just technology.  After I left Alterian, they acquired Intrepid with a view to help customers understand social media engagement. This is a great example of recognizing that we don’t just sell technology, but we have to assist customers understand the value and how to shape their strategies, especially in something as relatively new as social. Customers do approach us as trusted advisors and not just about social media, but across the board Alterian brings us closer to the world of the CMO and the challenges they face. 

These are just my quick thoughts, a top three of a list that is sure to be expanded as we bring our products together in 2012.  

Welcome Alterian, I look forward to working with you.. again!

(OK, that might be the fourth thing I like - the people).

Ian Truscott

On Twitter: @iantruscott

To find out more information regarding the acquisition you can check out our dedicated site regarding the deal. Alternatively watch the video of John Hunter and Mark Lancaster discussing the benefits of this acquisition.

Understanding what your customers are interested in by analysing what they are looking at, and for how long, is key in developing your web and customer engagement strategy.

We already have best-of-breed web content management technology, user guidance content management technology and leading language technology.

Adding Alterian’s marketing analytics, social media and campaign management technology will provide customers with a superb integrated solution for managing customer engagement and improving customer experience.

We are very pleased to have completed this acquisition and look forward to working with Alterian employees, partners and customers.

To find out more information regarding the acquisition you can check out our dedicated site regarding the deal. Alternatively watch the video of John and I discussing the benefits of this acquisition.

Recently Forrester released their latest analysis of the WCM market with the publication of “The Forrester Wave™: Web Content Management for Online Customer Experience, Q3 2011”. 

This wave represents a slight shift from previous reports that were primarily focused on publishing external websites and places more emphasis on engaging the visitor, through social/community functionality, globally over multiple digital channels and wrapped up with a level of orchestration and measurement.

This isn't new territory for the WCM folks at Forrester, it's really an extension of their "Persuasive Content" research that I think started around 2005.  

As you may be aware the European Commission published a report last month on user’s language preference online. For anyone trying to reach customers across Europe this report should be of particular interest to you. 

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about our attendance at the Mulitlingual Web event organized by W3C and I shared my observations through the lens of a content management professional and marketing technologist. I concluded the post, promising to blog again about the presentation I gave. Well here we are, finally!

The objective of my presentation was to bring together the business challenge of translation/localisation with those of engaging an audience over the web.

My primary points were:

• All content is global, once you publish it's out there
• To be relevant, you first have to localize your content
• To hear the needs your audience, you need to understand their language
• We need to create global communities, across language
• Management of content variants for each audience and channel is a complex business 

I then dashed through 20 minutes of slides in 15 and along the way I lost my ability to use a mouse! 

Anyway, the good folks at the event have shared a video of my presentation (click on me below), including slides - a rather nice job I think. I don't mean my presentation, I mean a rather nice job of the video...

I hope you enjoy it, I look forward to your comments. You may also be interested in what Sophie Hurst said at the same event.

The next event is in November, we hope to be there - find out more here.