Readers of this blog will know that I pay too much attention to site analytics. Tonight I realised how little they sometimes tell you. There was a visit to the Mimtech site yesterday by a user that had found us by searching for 'how to say potato in taiwan'. I tried it and (if you limit the results to UK sites) we do come at the very top of the results. I think I might give the analytics a rest for a while. 

Got a call from Kathleen this morning at 07:30, she's running another Kaizen this week and had had a bad drive out to Livingston because one of her headlight bulbs had gone. She wanted to see if I could swing round past a Halfords on my way to the office to get a replacement. Even better says me, I'll get a spare bulb and pop into Livingston on my way to Glasgow and replace the bulb before tonight's drive home... Kaizen weeks feature early mornings and late nights.

So I think its better to check online to see what bulb I need  for a "see you baby, see you shakin' that ass" car and couldn't believe what I found - try Googling "renault megane headlight bulb" and you'll see what I mean.

Unbelievable! Considering the motor industry through Toyota is at the heart of Lean management it's a pity the techniques of continual improvement haven't reached Renault.

One of the most respected commintators on the WCM market space is Tony Byrne of CMS Watch. Today I read with interest a posting he made accusing WCM vendors of competing with their channel partners, read it  here. He particulary cites Sitecore and Ektron for this and both companies have responded (unsurprisingly) in their own defence. My experience of Sitecore is that they go to market via partners only (in the UK at least), we do not partner with Ektron at present so I can't comment on their strategy. Where other WCM vendors sell direct they are open about it. Why wouldn't they be? We are very open with them that we will tout their competitors software if we think it's a better fit for a client and we will certainly provide support and development services to any WCM platform if asked. I am an admirer of CMS Watch and of Tony but it's easy to take the 'moral high ground' unless you are trying to ensure the survival of your business and the jobs of those that work for you. So what if they are selling services? As Tony points out they are usually (and I am generalising about WCM vendors here) ill equiped to provide those services and often turn to partners in the back ground to deliver. We have been asked to provide such services by a number of WCM vendors over the years and are happy to do so. Doug and I had a meeting just last week with the UK head of a WCM vendor that has recently been proposing services and were assured by him that they only have 5 staff capable of delivering any such services and they are usually involved at a project management  (i.e. protecting the brand) level. Times are hard and no-one will turn away work at the moment.

I have always valued the truly independent analysis that CMS Watch provide but maybe they should sometimes give the guys busting a gut trying to grow the industry a bit of a break. Don't let them away with anything, just take their position into account.

Now, I'm off to try and sell our Livelink WCM migration software to anyone (including any WCM vendors) that give me the time of day. 

This week I am doing back to back demos of our Livelink WCM to RedDot migration software. (Although I don't think it's called RedDot any longer, see their site). The requests are in response to the newsletter we sent out giving our take on the current market situation. We are being contacted on a daily basis now with requests for information about the options open to the Livelink WCM (Obtree) user base. We would love to see the conversations and opinions being exchanged online at TalkObtree so, please get involved and share your views.

If you are interested in receiving a demo call +44 (0)141 303 8239.

Book your MIM:SWITCH DEMO and we'll enter you into our prize draw to win FREE Livelink WCM PS (Obtree) website audit/analysis report.

Here at Mimtech HQ we're all about the content. We love content, amongst other things. We also love technology and we especially love that most symbiotic of relationships where technology meets content.

He said...

She said...

..and so on.

We love the way we can manipulate, enhance and deliver content via technology, it's kind of what makes us tick. But despite all the advances in media and internet technologies what we do with the content once it has been rendered to the browser has not evolved dramatically since the mid 1990's.

You may think this sounds odd and may be questioning the whereabouts of my glass sphericals but it's true. We view it, we look at it, we read it. Once it's there it's there and viewing it is pretty much, in the grand scheme of things, all we can do.

Imagine, though, if there was another layer of functionality, imagine if we could then click on the content and do something else with it beyond the browser. Imagine if we could click on a set of contact details and add those directly to our Outlook address book or click on an event and add that directly to our calendars? Well guess what, now we can!

Enter Microformats!

Microformats are a way of presenting common types of content using already existing web markup standards so that it can be easily recognised and extracted by software other than the browser. I won't ramble further but instead point you to these links for further info and ask that you watch this space, I'll report back once I've had a good play about.

http://visitmix.com/Articles/Microformats-The-Quiet-Revolution

http://microformats.org/wiki/Main_Page

John