Yes, I've Seen the Article. Did You Notice the Process?

"Have you seen this article in CMS Wire about SDL?"

"Why yes, you're the fourth person to mention it."

This post isn't about the content of the article or SDL's divestment news. For a good perspective on that, read a post referenced in the first article. This post is about a Linked-In feature, semantics, and possibly micro-formats.

So, how did you hear about the article? I don't see you mention the post about strategy shifts or this one about non-core units.

I suspect you heard about it through the Mentioned in the News (Linked-In) feature that promotes online news stories about people to their connections using an AI algorithm.

Here's what I (and maybe up to 500+ connections) saw. Note how the email automatically included:

• A link to the article
• The headline
• A link to the connection's profile

The article, the connection's profile, and an email.

There are also two ways users can influence in the interaction:

1. Wrong Person? In the email you can note if the person was incorrectly identified by Linked-In's algorithm
2. Notifying connections when you're in the news. As a Linked-In user, you can opt out of this feature as seen below.

I find this fascinating in a few ways.

1. Semantics. I'm not sure it's required to make the feature work, but the article uses microformats to mark the headline appropriately (itemprop="headline"). In addition to Google search results, this is a nice practical example of the more fuzzy term, semantics.
2. Concrete. I suspect many are seeing the email and are interested in content labeled, "News about [your connection]." It's refreshing to see a direct connection mentioned rather than another link-bait title. This falls under the tip of using concrete details to create "sticky" messages. 
3. Subtle AI. I also suspect few stop to notice the article doesn't actually link to your connection's Linked-In profile. An automated AI program determined the connection based on (plain) text in a news article and then grabbed the headline as well as a reasonable excerpt from the article. 
4. Tracked. The links and images have querystring parameters likely for analytics, tracking, and/or possibly personalization features on Linked-In (which isn't really surprising).
5. Not new. I'm late to the party. The feature was mentioned here and here.
6. What Share Link? Despite the sharing link in the email, I ran across the article in Skype and Slack chat. Long live copy & paste!
7. Creepiness averted. Offering user control is an important part of personalizing the customer experience.

So, what did you notice when you or someone else shared the story? Did your contact's name stand out? Did you congratulate him on being cited by an industry news source and/or discovered by Linked-In's algorithm? Or did you find this article in another way?

Maybe the content and news was compelling enough that you forgot about Linked-In?

Hello from Amsterdam!

It's official. I've joined SDL Product Management and moved the family and dogs to Holland (well, the Netherlands really, but see this video to grok the difference*).

Here's a quick recap of my first month here and what's next.

Week 1: Arrival

Arriving mid-week on the 2 September, I had three days of paperwork and applications. The order was roughly:

1. HR and IT orientations at work
2. Register with the city and complete immigration at the Expat center
3. Get a bank account

Big thanks to the colleagues that helped us get over, from flights to passport information to tips and advice on Dutch culture, food, and where to live. Maybe a very helpful person in HR may start a blog someday. ;-)

Week 2: Presentation Preparation

I prepared for workshops for the SDL Open House, continued working on blog posts about SDL Web 8, finished an introductory slide deck, and prepped for the Tridion Developer Summit.

I also got acquainted with the team and started attending Product-related meetings, which have a different feel than client meetings and workshops.

Week 3: Open House. Open Community.

Last week was all about the open house and Tridion Developer Summit. Great job to the presenters, attendees, and especially Robert Curlette for braving a second year.

I particularly liked the impromptu session where you provided ideas for extensions, which I'm asking participants to list on Tridion StackExchange Meta.

Week 4: Connections

This past week I posted part 2 of our series on SDL Web 8. If the posts sound bigger and look nicer than what I usually post it's because they are. My boss asked me to work with my colleagues and even let me use our official materials as input into parts 1 and 2.

I've also had a chance to meet even more colleagues, answer questions, research, philosophize, and conduct other Product Manager-related activities.

What's next? I'm next working to clarify my role in the "new" team**. We'll spend time looking at what SDL Web 8 includes and what we should focus on in SDL Web 9. So if I ping you with a question or to introduce you to someone that has a question, please respond like I invented the Midas Rule (I did). And by the Midas Rule, you'll probably want to get your feedback in for the next release. ;-)

**Bart Koopman and I were introduced to the team as the new old guys, considering we have roughly two decades of Tridion experience between us and our combined ages make us 80 years old.

*Oh and if you think the Holland vs. Netherlands video was confusing, see another video from CGP Grey on the United States.

SDL Connected Recap

Much of what happened in Vegas will stay on Facebook or in bits and pieces as recounted in future gatherings. Here are the safe-to-share CXM- and Tridion-related parts.

"CXM Icebreakers" may never go viral, but feel free to share, explain, or use these types of games, format, or explanations. You might find a quick game useful in explaining how to orchestrate contextual experiences for today's empowered customer before, at, or after a purchase or interaction. At the very least, you can wake up an audience.

Pre-Event

A sneak peek into what we were planning before the event. 

• Orchestrating an Event
• The Games

Day 1

How the game turned actually turned out and an "aha" (or an "oh duh") perspective on Tridion integrations.

• Pillars and Journeys Post-Game
• 3 Questions When "Connecting" Tridion

Day 2

The second game was even harder, but I think we improved our product knowledge... somewhat.

• The Pillars-to-Pillars Cheat Sheet
• Post-Game
• My functional topic included:


• Predicting Tridion's UI
  
• Feature-Driven CMS Design (Keywords over "Booleans")
• What's in an SDL Tridion Functional Design
  

Day 3

The final presentations sharing SDL's product roadmap will stay in Vegas, sorry. But you can see some of the presentation live at SDL Innovate, June 10 - 12, San Francisco, CA. Or get insights by following @SDLInnovate on Twitter.

SDL Connected: Post-Event Team-Building Experience Day 2

We finished the Day 2, Pillars-to-Pillars game. We learned some lessons getting to the following answers.

Answers

• (Randomly chosen) SDL Social Intelligence Customer Experience Analytics and SDL Media Manager = fairly creative answers including:
• Media Manager Connector -> Tridion -> ADF -> Website
• Media Manager -> YouTube -> SI
• Customer Commitment Framework  (using Twitter hash tags) for Videos that are rated
• Data from Social Intelligence (in Engine), coming from CMA embedded into MediaManager
• (Not possible or "this sucks")

• Tridion to Tridion = Content Porter
• Tridion and Fredhopper = SmartTarget (as the "Pillar" that customers would recognize, but behind-the-scenes the connection includes the Ambient Data Framework, server-side code, and a publishing piece)
• Tridion and CMA (Campaigns and Analytics) = Target Groups, specifically Context Engine Expressions saved into Target Group Application Data via the Core Service

Lessons

• Beware of making games for people in sales and consulting
• Yelling hopefully correlates with learning (emotions impact memory and recall)
• Using random products or modules makes it hard to have fairly objective answers

If running Pillars-to-Pillars, consider picking the product, "connection," or term you want to clarify like "OData."

To learn more about SDL, its Customer Experience Management perspective, and solutions, consider checking out SDL Innovate in San Francisco next week, June 10-12, 2014. 

SDL Connected: Important Tridion Integration Questions

We learned about disruptive, yet innovative, technologies in the first day of SDL Connected, my team's knowledge sharing event. From cloud use seen in today's clients, to interesting projects our partners are working on, to updates in Microsoft development stack and our own Media Manager, it looks like 2014 and 2015 will be just as interesting as 2011. Get ready for the 5 Stages all over again (but it'll be easier this time, trust me).

Questions

Such updates should prompt three questions from any experienced Tridionaut:

1. How will it work with BluePrinting?
2. How will it work in DTAP?
3. How will it work in the Fifth (personal) and Sixth (training) environments? This includes licensing as well as a potential one-to-many relationship (as seen when starting cloud training instances).
4. Update: How will it work with Create, Read, Update, and Delete (plus search/list and publish)?

For example, for Media Manager, we have:

1. BluePrinted. The MediaManager Connector, as an External Content Library (ECL), is "somewhat BluePrint aware." Items are shared throughout a BluePrint and you can localize Tridion-side metadata if you have any configured. Most importantly, you can pass querystring parameters such as subtitle, voice over, and backslide (sl, vo, and bl respectively) to the unique distribution URL to get a shared (video) asset with the correct localization or translation.
2. Shared across DTAP. Unless you license multiple Media Manager accounts, DTAP could have multiple SDL Tridion environments share a Media Manager connection. Frank Taylor was asked the same question and has used a test folder of sorts in his implementations.
3. One-to-Many Environments. Personal and Training environments may also connect to the same Media Manager connection, which means training exercises should be unique to individuals. Personal naming conventions for creation can help, otherwise read-only access (using a distribution on a page, for example) is fine. With more awareness of the Media Manager Web service, I'm sure we can also work out smart ways to clean up and organize items.

Considerations for an Answer

Whether your background is system architecture, object-oriented design, data modeling, or content modeling, the same principles apply:

• What are the systems, classes/objects, data, or fields? How many are there?
• What are the relationships? Are there sets (-tuples) that belong together. Are the items related one-to-one (1:1), one-to-many (1:many), or many-to-many? Are there limits such as minimums or maximums?
• How will CRUD work? With CMS you also have to consider publishing and search in addition to create, read, update, and delete (P-SCRUD?). Update: I moved this up as an important fourth point.
• Which way do updates work (which way do the arrows point?)?
• Who will manage which parts and where?

BluePrinting, DTAP, and ad-hoc environments, got it?

Bonus: apparently I missed publishing my CRUD post. I guess it's a 2-for-1 kind of blogging day.

SDL Connected: Post-Event Team-Building Experience Day 1

We just wrapped up Day 1 of "Connected," our 2014 Knowledge Days team building event. As somewhat expected, Pillars and Journeys included lots of interaction (yelling) and hopefully some learning. Thanks all for being a good sport. Here are the use cases you suggested. I leave out the product details

Pillars and Journeys

*The numbers show the order of the answers. See how the scenarios evolved as the group got warmed up and trust me, the big smile and laughter from my part meant I was definitely impressed.

Pillar / Step in Customer’s Journey	Pre-purchase	Purchase	Post-purchase
Insight	3. Before a purchase, a website visitor searches for items using a mobile phone in a given geographic location, looking for user-generated reviews/comments as well as documentation translated into their language. Based on this ambient data, you get insight into what customers are looking for even before they make a purchase.		1. After a (registered) user makes a purchase they receive follow-up emails which can track actions taken on the website. Social intelligence can also show insight into how customers feel about the product after such purchases.
Orchestration			4. Parents purchased a complex toy manufactured in a different country, which has material translated into multiple languages along with helpful video and documentation available on a mobile-optimized website. Follow-up email campaigns along with web analytics help you follow their actions post-purchase.
Contextual Experience	5. Someone on an older phone searches for a new smart phone to purchase and chats with support before purchasing (in a preferred language). Translated documentation also helps the visitor evaluate the product. The product included a complex release cycle with marketing material, rich media, and targeted content.	2. A visitor makes a purchase on a mobile device, seeing related, contextual content promoted (as an experience). The site integrates with an eCommerce engine. *This was seen at an actual retail customer that wanted to create a typical seasonal store front display "experience," but on the Web.

These scenarios should be familiar to anyone who's researched, purchased, unwrapped, or experienced a product or service. The fun part for my SDL colleagues and the partners that attended was mapping these back to appropriate product, service, or customer example.

I also attempted to summarize 2 days worth of Media Manager Bootcamp material into 30 minutes. It might not have been my strongest presentation, but read the post to review my main points. Contact SDL Education if you're interested in attending an actual Media Manager Bootcamp or session.

CXM Pillars and Journeys Cheat Sheet

Here's a cheat sheet for the CXM Ice Breakers game with some possible answers for Pillars and Journeys and Pillars-to-Pillars. The advanced version would have you confirm version numbers.

• SDL Archive Manager
• SDL BeGlobal
• SDL Campaign Management & Analytics
• SDL Content Porter
• SDL Context Engine Cartridge
• SDL Contextual Image Delivery
• SDL Customer Analytics
• SDL Social Intelligence Customer Experience Analytics
  (Customer Commitment Dashboard)
• SDL CWA
• SDL Fredhopper
• SDL LiveContent
• SDL Media Manager
• SDL Social Media Monitoring (SM2)
• SDL Tridion
• SDL Tridion Connector for CMIS
• SDL Tridion Connector for SDL Media Manager
• SDL Tridion Online Marketing Explorer
• SDL Tridion Profiling and Personalization
• SDL SmartTarget
• SDL WebForms
• SDL WorldServer
• SDL XPP
• SDL Quatron

As a reminder of how to understand pillars, here's the basic idea:

• Insights -- anything related to monitoring, analyzing, and otherwise capturing customer information, behavior, and sentiment around you, your websites, or your products
• Orchestration -- anything that helps you create, edit, profile, and gather a mix of editorial or technical content along with back-office systems. Think any Content Management System and content project-related software.
• Contextual experience -- content/presentation, translation, and localization specific to a visitor's context (which is more than just their device and can include location, what they're trying to achieve, etc).

To save time soliciting product, module, and add-on names and making a drawing of sorts, you can use an online random number generator.