CMS Debate from North Shore Web Geeks

A few weeks back I was part of a panel at North Shore Web Geeks which they titled The Great CMS Debate.

John Eckman, Jay Batson, Marc Amos, and Tom Herer. Photo (c) Trev Stair

Unfortunately Jake Goldman was ill and couldn’t make it, so Christine Greene agreed to step in and moderate in my place, while I represented WordPress in Jake’s. (See also Trev’s iPhone sketches of myself, Jay and Marc – he was unable to get Tom).

It was a fun night – I’m not sure I represented WordPress as well as I might have with a bit more prep. (On the security question in particular, see Brad Williams’ presentation from WordCamp Boston.)

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Open Source Content Management Panel at Gilbane Boston

Next week, I’ll be moderating a panel on Open Source Content Management at the fifth annual Gilbane Boston Conference – “Where Content Management Meets Social Media.”

It’s Thursday, December 4th, from 3:30-5:00pm. The panelists will be:

• Nate Aune of Jazkarta (Plone / Zope / Python)
• Elie Auvray of Jahia
• Michael Wechner of Wyona (Lenya, Yanel, Yulup)

Here’s the description from the official program:

There are many open source content management solutions available today, reflecting a wide variety of capabilities and costs, and organizations of all types are more willing than ever to consider them in place of, or along side commercial CMSs. This session will look at some of the pros and cons of deploying open source content management systems in terms of licensing, costs, maintenance, and functionality to help you determine if they are an appropriate option for your organization.

In addition to all of that, I also hope we’ll talk about how the adoption landscape is or isn’t changing for open source in the CMS space, innovation and standards compliance in open source CMS, and how open source projects can make user adoption easier or more effective.

What questions would you like to ask this group of speakers? How do you see the landscape changing for open source projects in the content management space?

Web Content 2008 Presentation

Wednesday was day two of Web Content 2008, and I presented in the afternoon on the rise of user-contributed content and community, and the impact that’s had on content management.

I had thought about calling it “From Content Management to Community Management” or maybe “Content Management is Dead” but ended up instead with: “Upload, Tag, Share, Discuss: Content Management in the Age of Participation.”
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I feel like a star

Kyle Flaherty posted a video compiled largely during the Social Media Breakfast IV earlier this week in Boston: Solving the Challenges of 2008.

It includes yours truly (0:42 through about 1:20) babbling on about distributed social networking and the DiSo project. (I didn’t really go prepped to give the elevator pitch for DiSo, but I think I covered the concept ok – maybe more social network portability in general than that project in particular).

Now, I took the question very much in the context of “social media” and the topic of conversation that morning, and did not go for solving things like the war in Iraq, global warming, or ending poverty on the planet. But that doesn’t mean I’m shallow, just focused.