Introducing a new networking book: From Workout to Last Call

Whether you are introverts or extroverted, we can all level up their networking skills.

"From Workout to Last Call" is a new book due out by our Canadian networking expert Paul Abdool and the book title is analogous to always being ready to represent you and your company. 

The concept is simple, if you are awake at a conference, you should be “working”. When Paul says working, he is not saying that you should always be selling or pitching, but you should be ready to network by showing up from sunrise to the last opportunity to converse with someone. 

In a recent members' call, we heard more about the upcoming book and Paul kindly shared a few recent networking insights.

You can currently pre-order the book on Kickstarter and the book is due out in June. Networking is clearly a very relevant topic to this community….

Read more

Recap of Vancouver CMS Experts kickoff

I had a great time and met some fantastic, knowledgeable folks at the inaugural Vancouver peer group meeting in the global CMS Experts/Digital Leaders community, held at TELUS on March 25.

Hosted by Paul (Toronto) and Janus (Denmark) from Boye & Co, the event brought together a cross-section of digital leaders to share ideas, explore emerging challenges, and discuss what’s top of mind in the CMS and digital services world.

My brain was buzzing with inspiration and ideas when Jodie Delore shared TransLink’s journey, and the strategic approach they’ve executed in translating content for riders whose first language isn’t English. And I was equally captivated when Morten Rand-Hendriksen from LinkedIn dove into the future of AI with some philosophical insights thrown in.

Read more

Storyblok and accessibility - progress, pains and plans

“Awareness of the importance of web accessibility is increasing - and with good reason. For too long, people with disabilities have been overlooked. As developers, it's our responsibility to create inclusive experiences on the web - for everyone.”

This quote by Josefine Schaefer is on the accessibility statement at CMS vendor Storyblok. While born with a developer-first mindset, they have made a commitment to making the web a more inclusive, accessible space for everyone.

We recently invited Josefine to share their progress and roadmap for accessibility in a members’ call. Josefine works as an Accessibility Engineer to improve their products accessibility and it’s a role that very few CMS vendors have.

Read more

Bridging Open Source & Enterprise - AEM, Composability, and the Future of DXPs

I've spent over 13 years implementing Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) solutions for some of the world's most recognised brands. As Technical Design Authority for EE's AEM implementation, I led the creation of an 8,000-page help website and trained over 150 stakeholders in AEM usage. At DigitasLBi, I led a team of 30 global architects on the UK's largest AEM implementation for the Nissan/Renault Alliance, eventually targeting over 200 websites in 30 languages across five brands.

My work with MediaMonks brought me to projects for Twitter, Genesis USA, and McLaren, where we pushed beyond traditional AEM frameworks to create richer experiences. At Cognizant Netcentric, I advised on headless AEM implementations for Ford, and at Inspired Thinking Group, I consulted on Jaguar Land Rover's migration to AEM from Tridion CMS.

Then onto Ford Motor Company with Netcentric, where I architected a completely headless AEM implementation using React.

Latest endeavours include investigating Adobe  Edge Delivery Services (Franklin), a high-performance document-based authoring system with a modern build system, that is being integrated into AEM.

Throughout these experiences, I've witnessed first-hand how AEM has evolved from its open-source foundations to a comprehensive enterprise platform, and I'd like to share insights on where it's headed in an increasingly composable future.

Read more

Exploring the Evolution of Automation: Introducing Agentic Process Automation

In the ever-evolving landscape of automation, we frequently encounter new buzzwords and terms like Robotic Process Automation, Intelligent Automation, Hyper-Automation, Quantum Automation, and most recently, Agentic Process Automation (APA) has arrived on the scene.

As these concepts grow more complex with advancements in process optimisation, sticking to the KISS (Keep it Short and Simple) principle is essential for understanding and applying them effectively.

Agentic Process Automation (APA) is an open ecosystem of autonomous agents that perform tasks using reusable components and machine learning, enhancing their decision-making capabilities. Unlike traditional automation, APA mimics human teams, making it crucial to onboard, train, assign roles, and eventually retire these agents—just like employees.

To put things in perspective….

Read more

There's a way to do it better, find it

This famous Thomas Edison quote was on the wall yesterday as we held two group meetings in Edinburgh, Scotland.

At one of the meetings our member Stratos Filalithis, Head of Website & Communication Technologies at the University of Edinburgh shared their progress with making AI useful and usable, including how to improve search and to power virtual assistants.

AI is a regular topic at our group meetings and conferences, including all the confusion and overwhelming hype that comes with it. It makes me happy that during the past months, the conversation seems to have shifted from sheer, almost blind excitement, to using AI to doing things better and actually delivering value.

Getting things done has always been a popular topic…..

Read more

Authors are also users - a new book on designing content authoring experiences

Most content management systems fill authors with dread starting at the login screen. That's because the needs of authors are rarely taken into consideration in CMS projects. When content systems offer a terrible authoring experience, people avoid using them. That means they can't communicate effectively with their customers. The result is stale, hard-to-read content that doesn't align with an organization's goals.

Designing Content Authoring Experiences is a new book just out written by content strategist Greg Dunlap. It's a book for the designers, strategists, and developers who build and maintain content management systems and as a community it’s a book we’ve been waiting for and also happy to support the Kickstarter campaign that made it happen.

With practical examples and best practices, the book will show you how to create content management systems that support authors, so that authors can better serve their audiences. the book argues that authors are users that a content management system needs to serve. 

Read more

Ibexa Summit 25: What a difference a year makes

With some 300 participants mostly from Europe, Ibexa and their DXP community took to Barcelona at the end of January for their annual kickoff and it was a quite different experience compared to last year.

Unlike last year, where it was 200 participants and partners-only, this year customers also participated at Ibexa Summit 25 and that was far from the only substantial change. Where the 2024 program looked much more inwards, or if you prefer, was more partner-community focused, this time Ibexa curated an experience that set sight on the broader marketplace, bigger customer problems and even touching on industry challenges as faced by AI and the erosion in trust.

In brief: Ibexa is growing, now also with a North American footprint and importantly, the combination of DXP (digital experience platform), CDP (customer data platform) and PIM (Product Information Management) is setting them apart in a marketplace that is as confusing as ever.

Read more

From Skeptic to Convert: Understanding AI's Role in Modern Development

Last year, I dismissed AI coding assistants as fancy autocomplete tools. After five decades of programming, I thought I'd seen every productivity promise come and go. I was wrong.

My journey started simply enough with vanilla Visual Studio Code. Microsoft Copilot came next, making big promises about revolutionizing coding. Skeptical but curious, I tried that, then Cursor, a VS Code fork that actually delivered when pointed at the right code along with the manufacturers documentation. Adding Claude through Cline opened new possibilities, followed by Roo Code with its specialized prompts for architecture, coding, and code review.

Then DeepSeek-R1 arrived, unlike the other leading AI LLms, it is open-source, meaning anyone can use, modify, or share it for free. matching Claude's capabilities at a tenth of the cost. This constant evolution taught me something: yesterday's cutting-edge tool could be tomorrow's expensive luxury.

5 new tools to learn in one year, it’s what I live for.

Read more

Demo Day x2: Sweaters Change, Lessons Stay

At the CMS Expert group meeting earlier this week, I received what you could call a refreshing crash course in live demo survival - and walked away with some valuable lessons.

The meeting was held at the diconium office in Hamburg with their harbor as stunning backdrop and so at the end of day #1, I started a live demo wearing my pink sweater, and I thought I was thoroughly prepared.

Then I took a creative turn and veered off script. I figured it’d be fun to show something unexpected - until the unexpected hit me back! The result wasn’t what I anticipated, and I was stuck.

Read more

Reclaiming Connection: Empowering Employee-Centric Communication in an AI-Driven World

In an age of AI-driven workflows and hybrid or remote setups, how do we keep our people at the heart of communication?

During our recent Employee Experience group session hosted by Microsoft in Toronto, I tried to tackle this head-on with the help from the group. Drawing on tactics for AI-powered communications, lessons on psychological safety, and the importance of hyper-personalized messaging, together we illuminated what it truly takes to reclaim genuine connection.

Below are the “big questions” that framed our discussion—and the key takeaways every employee experience and digital workplace leader needs to know. 

Read more

From Commodore PET to DeepSeek-R1

In 1977, I made what felt like a monumental investment: $795 for a Commodore PET computer. But that was just the beginning. The need for storage led to another equally significant purchase – a disk drive system for another $795. That's a total of $1,590 in 1977, equivalent to approximately $7,950 in today's money. For context, that total investment would have bought you a decent used car back then. The PET was revolutionary for its time, featuring a built-in monitor, keyboard, and cassette deck in one integrated unit. It came with a whopping 4KB of RAM (yes, kilobytes), ran at a blazing 1 MHz, and with the disk drive, offered unprecedented storage capabilities for a personal computer.

Fast forward to 2025, and I find myself contemplating another significant investment in computing technology, this time for running the full DeepSeek-R1 AI model locally. The parallels in terms of technological ambition – and cost – are striking.

Read more

Accelerating Transformation: Employee Digital Success in an AI-Driven World

At a recent employee experience group meeting in Toronto, Scott deVeber who works as Project Director, Digital Workplace at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) explored how organizations can break down silos, introduce AI responsibly, and foster a culture where employees confidently embrace digital transformation.

This topic is especially relevant today, as companies everywhere strive to remain competitive in an evolving, tech-driven environment—where employees are expected to adopt new technologies at a rapid pace.

This article shares reflections from Scott’s session and let’s start with the first big question that Scott posed

Read more

Reclaiming Connection: Building a People-First Culture in a Changing World

In an era defined by hybrid work, emerging technologies like AI, and shifting employee expectations, one factor stands out as the true engine of success: human connection.

At a recent meeting in our Toronto-based employee experience peer group, Ciara Byrne who works as National Director, Internal Communications & Engagement at Canadian accounting firm Doane Grant Thornton underscored how authentic communication, purpose-driven culture, and genuine employee connection remain the foundation of every truly great workplace, even in the AI era.

This article shares insights from her talk and let’s start both expectations and the workplace landscape has fundamentally shifted.

Read more

Kontent.ai wins CMS Idol 2025

Given only six minutes to show a live demo of your software, what would you show them?

At the CMS Kickoff 25 conference held last week in St. Pete, Florida, six vendors joined on stage for a brief live demo followed by commentary from expert judges and a final vote by the participants on the winner.

Czech-based Kontent.ai came out a winner and was represented by Vojtech Boril, who in a convincing show and tell, both managed to address a real pain when it comes to cumbersome content workflows, while also having a bit of fun charming the judges.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a six minute live demo (no precorded stuff was allowed) gives you even more to tell what a system is capable of. Live demos are a valuable, albeit sometimes lost art, and impressingly the second consecutive win for Kontent.ai, as they also took the Small Feature Award 2024 title back in November, making them the first vendor ever to win two consecutive live demo contests.

Read more