Gilbane Conference: Day 1 Keynote

On Day 1 I attended four sessions: the keynote, The Analysts Debate Content Technologies (since I served on the panel I had to make that one), New Search Technologies and Web 2.0, and The Business Case for Enterprise Blogs and Wikis.

Moderated by Frank Gilbane, the analyst panel at the keynote consisted of Tony Byrne (CMS Watch), Dan Farber (Editor-in-Chief, ZDNet), Gene Gable (President, Gable Industries), Charlene Li (Principal Analyst, Forrester Research), and Bill Rosenblatt (Editor, DRM Watch). Frank asked each analyst to talk about three key technologies they saw as important over the next year to 18 months. The nominees were:

Bill Rosenblatt

1. Enterprise DRM outside of repositories
2. Content rendering (flexible displays, Microsoft Origami-like appliances)
3. Cross-media publishing

Tony Byrne

1. Inventorying current technology
2. Usability
3. Records management lite

Gene Gable

1. Server-based page production
2. Customers as publishers
3. Forthcoming big Apple iPod [Apple response to Origami?]

Charlene Li

1. Syndication/aggregation
2. User participation (wikis/blogs)
3. Users doing their own CMS

Dan Farber

1. Standards such as JSR 170
2. Syndication
3. Lightweight solutions

There were some interesting common themes. For example, users are the new focus, given their ability to create their own content via blogs and wikis, and the need to increase usability. (Nice to hear, given that that point is the major theme of my forthcoming report on content management). Also, enterprises want some lighter versions of things: records management and some CMS systems are being seen as too onerous and expensive. Finally, distributing content via syndication is key.

I'd wax on more, but I need to stop typing and get to the conference, Day 2.