The notion of platforms in business isn’t new—automakers and product makers realized the value some years ago, software developers adopted it, and most recently Amazon, Google, and Apple have built businesses around the concept. This webinar is your first step in moving from siloed product-oriented architectures to a modular approach that enables quick creation of new products on a platform of shared content, services, processes and partners. Like Wayne Gretzky, you’ll soon be “skating to where the puck is going.”
1. Platform Publishing: Your Ticket to a
Better, Faster, Cheaper Products
Future Proofing Content Product Development
Marc Strohlein
Principal
Agile Business Logic
May 1, 2013
2. Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
What is Platform Publishing?
A Quick Look at Architectures
Defining Platform Publishing
The Five Pillars
Implementing Platform Publishing
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3. What is Platform Publishing?
• Concept, not a thing
• A way of thinking about product development
– Architectures and roadmaps
– Shared, re-usable content and resources
• A way of doing product development
– Agile, iterative processes
– Diverse, cross-functional talent and teams
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6. Product-Centric Publishing
Product A
Product C
Product N
Content
Process A
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Product B
Content
Process B
Content
Process C
Content
Process N
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7. Visual Depiction of Platform
Publishing
Product N
Product A
Product B
Product C
Content
Authoring
Search/
Browse
Viewing/
Analysis
Collaboration
Analytics
Tagging/
Taxonomies
Security
Search
Ent. Job
Function
Integration
Tools
Content Integration Layer
Big Data
User and Profile
Data (CRM)
Web
Content
Infrastructure Layer
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CMS
Repository
Purchased
Content
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8. Platform Publishing Defined
Modular, cohesive collection of hardware,
software, people, and processes that provide a
unified foundation for creation and delivery of
content products, now and in the future
and,
Holistic way of thinking about product
development
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9. Extending the Definition
• Platform Publishing Environments are:
– Scalable
– Shareable and reusable
– Extensible and upgradeable
– Agile
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10. Why Consider Platform Publishing?
Innovation Drought
Mobile Device
Proliferation
Competitors who
Work 25 x 8
New Technology
Juggernaut
Your Product
Development
Your Technology
Millstone
Products Late and
Over Budget
Rapidly Changing User
Expectations
Social Everything
Fickle Customers
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11. How Can Platform Publishing Help?
• Enable user
personalization—content
in context
• Create a customer
engagement engine
• Support diverse devices
and formats easily
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12. How Can Platform Publishing Help?
• Leverage and re-use content
• Continuously enhance
products and technology
• Produce better, faster,
cheaper, products
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13. The Pillars of Platform Publishing
• Modular architectures and APIs
• Modern CMS, XML, and semantic technology
(intelligent content)
• Cloud-based development using scripting languages
and frameworks
• Analytics
• Diverse talent and agile practices
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14. Modular Architectures and APIs
• Modular architectures make it possible to
upgrade or swap out technology more easily
– No more rip and replace
• APIs enable an application to access content
and services from another application
– Flexibility for client delivery (Mash-ups)
– Glue for modular architectures
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17. CMS, XML, and Semantic Tagging
• Modern CMS solves many content headaches
• XML enables content markup
• Content markup makes content componentized and re-usable
• Semantic markup makes content “intelligent”
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18. Why a Modern CMS?
• Older CMS
–
–
–
–
Repository
Versioning
Workflow
Security
• Modern CMS
–
–
–
–
–
–
Component content management
Targeted content marketing
Responsive design for diverse targets
Social media management
User experience management
XML, HTML5, CSS, XSLT
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19. • Semantic tagging
• Key word tagging
• Structure
tagging
• Display tagging
• No tagging-unstructured
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Value and Power
Tagging Value Hierarchy
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• Act upon meaning
• Recommendations
• Relationships and linkages
“like”
• Personalization
• Workflow integration
• Discovery/search
enhancement
• Identify/manage components
• Display formatted
• Display
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20. Scripting Languages, Frameworks,
and the Cloud
• Scripting languages speed development
– Faster and “lighter”
• Frameworks are like prefab construction—
save time and work for developers
• Cloud computing reduces IT workload and
helps in modernizing legacy environments
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22. Analytics: The Brains of the Outfit
Usage
Content
Relationships
Usability
Web,
Mobile,
Social
Sentiment
Effectiveness
Popularity
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24. Talent and Agile Practices
• New products require new skills
• Engagement is harder in “short attention span
theater”
• Dry content is unused content
• Agile practices get to “better, faster”
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28. Getting to Platform Publishing
• Product and technology
architectures (living
documents)
• Think global, act local
• Build new, retire old
• Use road maps and agile
processes
• Pay attention to culture!
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29. About
• Marc Strohlein, Principal, Agile Business Logic
• Author, “The Energized Enterprise: How to Tap
Your Organization’s Hidden Potential”
Agile Business Logic is a consulting firm that helps
businesses, associations, and non-profits unlock their
performance potential by optimizing and aligning
strategies, people, processes, and technologies.
www.agilebusinesslogic.com
mstrohlein@agilebusinesslogic.com
650-766-1067
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Hinweis der Redaktion
Take you on a whirlwind tour of concept called platform publishingThis session is an introduction, a primer to platform publishing. It will be followed by a session in New York on June 20 that digs much deeper into the concepts I am introducing today.
My goal this morning is to convince you that it is worth the time and effort to architect and plan information product publishing platforms, rather than just muddling along and bolting on the latest technology. I will talk about…
Relatively new concept, drawn from software development and some forms of manufacturingCan’t buy itAmalgam of ideas from software development, auto manufacturing, and companies such as Google, Apple, and AmazonRequires changes in thinking and doing
This is the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose—it was built by Sarah Winchester who believed that as long as construction on the house continued, she would not die.Designed using nightly seances—no plans or bluprints—38 years later…
Tea house in Shanghai—clearly couldn’t do this without planning and architectingWhen you think about your product development infrastructure—which does it resemble?Architectures are key to understanding platform publishingSimple definition is a way of describing the components of a system, their organization, and how they interact
Traditional publishing has been product-centric—new publishing infrastructure and workflows are often built for each new productThat worked OK when product needs, market conditions, and technologies were not changing rapidly
Contrast with previous diagramComponent architecture—modularLayeredIntegratedNew product is simply an instantiation of code, content, and logic
Working definitionOperative words:Modular—component architectureCohesive—components work together smoothlyFuture—supports products not yet envisionedFinally, holistic thinking- systems thinking
Products can scale quickly to meet demandResources are shared across products and product lines, content can be repurposed and re-used in different productsTechnology can be upgraded and extended to meet new product needsWork is done iteratively with a focus on creating superior products
Any of these look familiar?
Right content to the right person at the right time and in the right format or contextCustomer engagement is the new phenom and buzzword, but it is important—the notion is to provide the right content and services throughout the customer lifecycleResponsive design, cross-platform development, HTML5
Content is chunked and can be used in multiple productsSupports a roadmap-driven approach to product and technology enhancement
Next, we’ll focus on the five pillars of platform publishing
Modular applications are easier to maintain, upgrade, and replaceAPIs enable applications to talk to each other—they simplify what would otherwise be complex software programmingMay have heard of JSON or RESTful APIs—those are different approaches to APIs
This is a simple depiction of the contrast between an old-style monolithic application and a newer, modular oneThe Old style application is brittle and resists upgradingThe modular application is more loosely coupled and easier to upgrade or replace components
NYT exposed (some) content through APIsNon-commercial useEncouraging community and new creative usesPetri dish for innovation, talent
Lumped together because they are intertwinedNot talking about XML, but it is a prerequisiteSemantic content can “work for a living”
CMS have evolved a lot in recent years from WCMS to CXMSThey solve a lot of heavy lifting problemsIf you have a home grown CMS or one that is a few years old, it’s worth checking out “a newer model”Sitecore, SDL Tridion, MarkLogic (via partners)
At the lowest level, content is dumb—not very usableAs you move up the food chain, content can be re-used and repurposedAt the top of the food chain, applications can take action based on the meaning of content
Scripting languages—PHP, Ruby, JavascriptFrameworks: Ruby on Rails, Railway (JS), Zoop (PHP)Several models of cloud computing—I’m focusing here on Platform as a ServicePut all three together and let developers focus on solving business problems, not build plumbing
Heroku is a cloud-based platform as a service offering—now oned by Salesforce.comOffers a range of languages, frameworks and developer toolsSaves from the time, cost, and effort to modernize legacy development environmentsIf you have an older, legacy development environment in place think about the time it would take to replace it, versus moving to a new cloud-based approach
Analytics are tools and processes that help you understand what’s working and what’s not, and how to optimize content, products, and processesAnalytics works by detecting patterns and trends buried in data and answering questions such as:Who is reading what?What devices are readers using?What ads are working or not working?How are users navigating our website?Is this content better than that content?Lots of flavors—need to focus on what you need to know in order to avoid getting overwhelmed.
OmnitureSiteCatalyst (now owned by Adobe) is one example of web analyticsThis is a dashboard widget that displays a variety of statistics about a blog. Analytics tools typically display information via dashboards that are tailored to the needs of specific individuals: marketing, content, technology, etc.Adobe OmnitureIBM CoremetricsWebTrendsHubSpot
Last pillar is both important and challengingTalent is the often overlooked soft “stuff—arguably the most important component as the best technology in the world can’t overcome poor quality content productsAgile processes and agile thinking are key to making all of this work—they are the operating system of platform publishing
The diagram above is somewhat simplified, but shows the growth in the skill sets needed to create modern, cutting edge information productsIt is a long list, but far from completeI think finding the diverse skill set needed for cutting edge information products is going to become a constraint for publishers
This slide depicts a traditional approach to product development –waterfall, as well as agile, a newer approachWaterfall doesn’t handle change very well—it seems robust and reliable, but results often fall shortAgile uses an iterative approach where products are built out in full view of stakeholders. It isn’t foolproof, but in my view a much superior way to create and enhance products
SpringerImages is cool because it brings together several of the elements of platform publishing.Developed custom content platform onMarkLogicin only 7 months - that allows vastcollection of text, images and video to bestored, searched and delivered to scientistsAgile platform and processes allows Springer to offer robustproducts to new audiences, allows weeklyreleases of new features, and offers analyticinsights to how peers are using the content.