The News is not as it seems

A while back, watching the U.S. game show -Million Dollar Money Drop - there was a question asking, "Who was chosen as Time Magazine's "Most Trusted Man in News for 2009"?" Of all the choices, the answer was comedian Jon Stewart. In my opinion, his comedic take on headline news is a breadth of fresh air to the usual negative stories that seem to take top slot on the local evening news. What happened to the local kid who won the spelling bee or saved the cat out of the tree? Well, I suppose I will give credit to the world coverage of the Royal Wedding as a jolly event. I just prefer to avoid the negative evening news in favor of keeping tabs on the Trending twitter-sphere. The trouble with Internet stories, as I tell my mother, is to double check the facts and look for signs of Photoshop editing. Not everything you read on the Web is true. (she asks... "Really???" - LOL)

I am taking liberty on a comment Jon mentioned during an interview with Chris Wallis, about laziness. The Internet has made it easy to pass along "news" without verifying facts and thus propagating inaccuracies. Forwarding a tweet or email without verification is tantamount to the childhood game of whispering a word to your neighbor and seeing what becomes of it as it makes it's way around the circle - it is usually quite different from the original.

Corporations are not immune to this phenomenon either. The game players usually laugh at the morphed results, but it's not so funny when it happens in real life. Take for example the recent situation in Scott Bowen's blog "Check the Facts" regarding an inaccurate post by an independent analyst firm. As an employee of OpenText, I can confirm we are continuing to develop new features for Web Site Management as shown in recent case studies - like Lone Star College - showcasing their success with the product.

If we were playing the whisper game, what might have returned from its travel around the social circle, is not that WSM is in a "Death Spiral" but rather it has a "Great Future".

Death Spiral

Death Spira

Heath Spire

Heat Stire

Geat Sture

Great Suture

Great Future

Customer Experience is all about the ME

To paraphrase Don Tapscott famed author of Wikinomics, and Toby Bell of Gartner, who both described this new genre of information sharing -

"If the news is important, it will find me."

I can't remember the last time that I turned on the TV to watch the news. I get notified via my Twitter stream if there is anything important going on in the world. The connection of information from various sources to the numerous channels people visit is a daunting task for any marketer. Hence, part of my job is to make this transference of knowledge as easy and unobtrusive as possible. Multi-channel distribution is the technical term - for many it is "just let me watch what I want where I want and in the form I want."

As a mother of teen and tween girls, I am always fascinated by their easy adoption of technology that has been around only as long as they have been alive. They take it for granted that they can find out or watch just about anything on the Web today. I am reminded of a conversation that might just sound familiar to those of you with tech-savvy kiddos.

Scene: At the grandparent's house with limited internet gadgets.

child: "Dad, can I watch my favorite cartoon on TV?"

dad: "No, grandma doesn't have that channel."

child: "Then can I have the iPad?" (note - Netflix watch instantly is enabled there)

dad: "No, I am using it right now."

child: "Then can I have my iTouch?"

dad: "Yes, but grandma doesn't have wifi, so no cartoons are available."

child: "Does she have a gamebox to watch it on?"

dad: "No, just go play outside."

Try explaining the ubiquity of content being delivered to so many different devices using different methods of internet access - it is lost on a child who just wants to what their show - right now!

Now, being a product marketer for OpenText's Web and online product line, I appreciate the power of the technology that makes the Web work almost like magic. We just released an update to our Web Experience Management product line that makes finding content easier (with Semantic search) and viewing rich media seamless from browser to mobile phones. Our focus on the ease to which information can be shared and consumed is a must-have in this "Net-generation" world we live in today.

(check out the recent Press Release )




Here is a view of our inline editing that makes it easier to manage the Website.

It is important to cater to your different audiences - provide the most compelling Customer Experience possible. Forrester Research found that this is a top priority in 2011 for content and collaboration professionals. WCM systems make achieving this goal a lot easier.

The question to ponder is: Are you delivering the ME experience today?

The Magic of the Silver Screen

As I flew over the Hollywood sign to land at LAX today, I looked down on the tiny cars traveling the coastal and city highways and I was reminded of the magic this city creates through the motion picture industry. Having just watched Tron over the weekend, I see those tiny cars as the light jets racing along beams of light, like the content on the information superhighway. I was so anxious for Jeff Bridges (as Kevin Flynn) to get out of his trapped world of programs and linear order. ( I did wonder how he created water, though – hmmmmm). The magic that was created on the screen was even more impressive that Disney brought old footage into the new movie. I often talk to customers about reusing content in new ways – well there you go – Disney did it exceptionally well. Imagine the miles of footage that must exist in their video closet – whew! I would not want to be the one to go through hours of video without a digital media system to help sort through the chaos.

I have to provide a shameless plug for OpenText’s Media Management solution. It handles media assets with ease; the slick new user interface, storage and publishing capabilities has made many a media company happy to have it in control of their most valuable assets. Check it out at: www.opentext.com/magic

But wait, there’s more. Perhaps you can relate to this story.

Year 1990
Daughter: “Do you have a picture of me in that red dress when we went to someplace when I was little?”
Me: “Hmm… can you be a little more specific?”
Daughter: “You know, the one where I was sitting on the piano in that red dress?”
Me: “Well, if I did have such a picture, it would likely be in the box of photos in the attic.”

- Skip forward in time to where photography is digitally stored and old photos have been scanned in –

Year, 2011
Daughter : “ Mom, do you have a picture of me from last Christmas with that cute reindeer hat?”
Me: “Yes, I tagged it with your name, Christmas 2010 and cute knit hat. Just search on MyPictureAlbum for the tag – I also ranked it with 5 stars seeing how you were so cute in it.”
Daughter: “Found it – it was at the top of the results list for '5-star hat photos'. Thanks mom!”

Without media management tools to store, manage and publish our most prized digital memories, we’d spend more time sifting through pages over and over again instead of going out and creating new memories to share with relatives almost immediately across the globe. Business is the same way. To really leverage the investment you make into a photoshoot or video production, it should be stored, tagged and easily retrieved for future use. Keeping control on digital assets is easy with the right tools.