Monday, December 29, 2008

Happy New Year from Copenhagen

2008 is closing soon, and it's time for a small summary of the activities that happened during the year. Not in the google 'zeitgeist' manner, but more in terms of milestones and interesting Sitecore bulletpoints from my point of view.

After joining Sitecore (International) in January, it of course took a while to get acquainted with all the internal procedures and such. But I was already at my first tradeshow in February, showing off the wonders of Sitecore in Stockholm at the Internet Expo. 

More events followed, and during the summer came the big WPC in Houston. After that travelling in the name of Sitecore really took off, which is also why I try to update this blog as often as possible when there is something even mildly interesting to share from abroad.

Most of the events/tradeshows have been covered already on this blog.

Sitecore 6 On a more product oriented side, we had the release of version 6 in July which introduced many great features which really caters for the marketing units rather than the typical IT / developer audiance. We also released an updated version of the Intranet Portal and Sitecore Foundry. All in all some very interesting releases which will be improved even more once we release further marketing oriented modules. One thing to add is, that the release also introduced an improved structure for releasing updates in 3 levels, hotfixes, updates and service releases. This should ensure that we are on top of things, including fixing issues related to 3rd party vendor software like Adobe's release of Flash 10, and the issues it caused us and others like wordpress.

From the business side, we came out of our fiscal year with a growth in sales by over 100% from last year following our past trend. Included in that was a lot of nice sized deals and many great new references. Despite the whole world is currently still discussing how the financial crisis is going to impact business as we know it, I so far haven't met a prospect within my territories who postponed their investments. Hopefully this applies to all our markets also in 2009.

But rest assure, that despite any potential decrease in the market, Sitecore is well equipped and financially sound for going into 2009 head on.

 

As goes for the upcoming year there is already a lot of things planned. Aside from the various events we will be participating in, there is also plans for travelling to various destinations ranging from Dubai to Brussels, Oslo and Singapore. I will also be giving my first Sitecore Certified Developer training in 2009 in Stockholm in February.

Happy New Year!


So on that note, I wish you a happy new year!

Friday, December 12, 2008

CM Innovation 2008, what a show!

On December 4th, the annual CM Innovation event took place at Brussels Airport in the Sky Hall. This event is hosted by CMS Channel, an association of Content Management professionals and analysts.

sitecore-booth-setup Sitecore International sponsored the event as Global Sponsors and as a result we had one of the largerst booths, just in front of the area where most of the sessions of the event took place. To top that off, we also had the opening keynote speaker session at our disposal. My colleague Sri Carlyle and myself went one day in advance in order to setup shop.

sitecore-keynote-navigating-the-tech-crunchThe keynote was done by Lars Fløe Nielsen, one of the founders of Sitecore. He did a very great job, talking not about features and hot-buttons, but about how to navigate the tech crunch. A topic which dealt with the current global financial situation, and why this is not the time to save money, but to spend money for easy gain of marketshare. The presentation covered a recent customer case, including their calculations of cost savings, and increase in revenue based on improved focus on their web platform. The keynote received some great feedback, and also resulted in an interview with a local IT magazine called Smart Business Strategies.

sitecore-booth-cm-innovation-event This really kicked off the event, and our booth was packed for the rest of the day with interested people and partner prospects. I'm glad we had some reinforcements from our Dutch office in the shape of Alex de Groot, otherwise we simply wouldn't have had time to talk to everybody.



winner-of-sitecore-gift-from-royal-copenhagen To spice the show up a bit, we brought some nice prizes to win from our customer Royal Copenhagen (see case study). Something which made the 3 people who each won a gift quite happy by the looks of it. Thanks to Christian Daems from CMS Channel for helping us handing out the prizes.



sitecore-thereference-silver-award After the tradeshow closed, it was time for the annual CMS Awards show. Sitecore had a few cases submitted to the awards, and we ended up winning the Silver Award in the category "Web 2.0" for the Thomas Cook solution done by our partner The Reference.
I'm the guy that is all smiles in the right hand side of the picture, next to Anja Capelle from The Reference.

The Award ceremony also came with a nice dinner arrangement, and a Belgian radio celebrity who controlled the turntables to get the party started. I left around 11 pm, after quite a bit of networking and dancing. All in all it was a very good event for us, with many interesting leads and positive feedback. We will definately be present at the upcoming WebScene event which will take place in the summer of 2009.

 

Till then, enjoy a few pictures from the CM Innovation event.

 

sri-carlyle-at-the-booth

Sri Carlyle just after we had setup our booth and added the prizes from Royal Copenhagen.

 

 

 

 

 

me-taking-a-peek-at-lars-nielsens-keynote

Lars Fløe Nielsens keynote had quite a big audiance and gave us a lot of positive vibes throughout the day of the event. Thats me standing in the back checking out the setup.

 

 

 

Alex-giving-a-demo

Alex de Groot giving a demo at the Sitecore booth. In Dutch of course.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Educating in London

This post was supposed to be ready almost 2 weeks ago. Why it hasn't been is quite simply due to all the other things that have been on the agenda. More about this in my upcoming post.

But regarding todays topic London, here's the outline.
I travelled to London on November 25th in order to be ready for the SCD1 training that started in the morning on the 26th. This Sitecore training session however was a bit special, since I was going to be the instructor for the first time.

In Sitecore we have quite a strict plan for people to become instructors. First of all you need to complete the course yourself 2 times, each with a score above 90%. After you complete this step, you must carry out your first training session under the supervision of a trained instructor. This aproach ensures that whenever Sitecore sends an instructor out to certify developers, that they are well equipped with knowledge, know the material they are presenting by heart, and can assist the students in the best possible way.

So this was basically the reason why I went to London, to become one of these Sitecore  instructors. I had already passed the SCD1 training twice with high scores (one with 92% and one with 100%), so all which was missing from my puzzle, was to run the course under the supervision of Raul, who besides being based out of the London office is also responsible for certifying Sitecore instructors.

Training, Day 1,
I welcomed the 7 participants for the first day of training. The group consisted of a good mix of developers located at excisting partners and customers like the FA. Well, with the exceptance of one, but more about that later.

The day went by fairly smooth, although it's a bit tough doing the training for the first time. With well over 200 slides, there is alot of ground to cover on top of the labs which the students have to complete. Raul gave me some nice pointers and some well put criticism during the day which helped me fine-tune my delivery of the content. Practise makes perfect as they say. As day 1 wrapped up, everybody in the 'class' seemed to be very much into the material I had presented. So far so good.

After leaving the office I went for a walk in the surrounding area. My hotel was only 2 blocks from Tower of London, so I walked across Tower Bridge an into the area below Butler's Wharf. Very nice area I have to say. I easily found a nice Italian restaurant that was able to cure my hunger. Great pizza! Instead of walking back the way I came, I followed the river up to the London Brigde and back to my hotel. Not the longest walk ever, but it had been quite an exhausting day.

Training day 2,
Second day of training starts of with a summary of the previous day, before going into the more advanced Sitecore stuff. It was about this time that one student made a point that he should probably not participate in the SCD2 training on the next day afterall, as he was actually appointed to be a sitecore administrator, and not really a developer. We covered the rest of the slides and labs and then I prepared them all for the exam, developers or not.

Exam time.
The exam consists of 40 multiple choice questions drawn from a big pool of questions. This approach ensures that students are not answering the same questions in the same order at any time, so cheating is nearly impossible. Instead students may use all the information they have available as well as the internet to find the answers they need. If all my efforts in delivering the material should pay off, now was the time.

All students passed, one even scoring a clean 100%. And the administrator, who figured out he wasnt really suited for developer training, well, he scored 88% (and had the lowest score of them all).

I was of course very pleased that my students all did so well, and also pleased to know that Raul certified me as a Sitecore Instructor with nice grades.

Bye bye London,
On my way out of town, after leaving the office, I had to jump a few trains in the London Underground. Finding the right way was easy, but as it was the end of the working day for everybody, the Tube was packed. It's crazy and like nothing I have experienced in Copenhagen. I had to squeeze myself and my luggage into an already packed train. But I guess this is everyday life for most people in London. Eventually I made it to Heathrow, which will probably for a long time rank lowest on my list of interesting airports.

Well back in Copenhagen, my cab driver drove me home using a completely different way than instructed. Quite annoying, but I was too tired to argue about the price. At least I was certified, and ready to get started on the upcoming tasks and reaching the goals I had set out for...

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

In Berlin, the future is called Xtopia

Monday last week (Nov. 17th) i travelled to Berlin to help my colleague Marc Schneider man the Sitecore booth at the Xtopia event. My first trip to Berlin ever in fact, but definately not the last.

xtopiaIn short, the event was mainly all about keynotes and sessiona about future technology, and not really directly linked to the CMS world. However, since the event was targeting the developer community, there was many reasons for us to attend. Of course we used the opportunity to promote the Sitecore Xpress.
I am not fluent in German, since I haven't spoken the language for many years, but I did manage to put together the following advertisement: "Kostenlos für Entwickler" (Free for developers) which we rotated on our screen in between the demos.

We had quite a good turnover during the event, with many interesting partner leads, a few customer leads and lots of valuable networking with developers (some already certified Sitecore developers).

Unfortunately for me, I was unable to attend the keynotes and sessions. But from what I could gather, the technogoly revealed was cutting-edge stuff that will probably not be in top-of-mind of us mere mortals for another year to come. The oldest technology present at the event was apparently the two Microsoft Surface systems (you know, those table sized computerscreens inserted into a small table which support multi-touch commands). Something I think is more of a gimmick than an actual tool. Sure, it would look impressive to edit a sitecore website using the touch screen, but it would still just be a gimmick. And yes, the Surface is in fact a year old or so, but you get the picture.

 

A few closing statements about Berlin, it is certainly worth the trip, and the food and service at restaurant Bond is definately worth recommending. But the Tegel airport is some rookie architects attempt of being funny.
At least it had a Starbucks.

 

As one adventure ending is usually replaced by another one beginning, I am currently in London to become certified as a Sitecore Instructor. More info about this project to follow in a few days...

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Innovation is coming in just 3 weeks...

CM Innovation that is. It shouldn't really come as a surprise to me, since we are a Global Sponsor of the event, but it did anyway just now, so I thought I might as well write a short post to remind myself.

3 weeks, thats pretty close. I guess I have been to busy traveling to realize it. But rest assure, Sitecore is coming well prepared. We have our keynote speaker lined up, the booth material is either done or in the works, and we have a great spot at the show!

If you are in the area of Brussels Airport around Thursday December 4th, be sure to come by and meet us. The event should be free for visitors, so there really is no excuse.

More info available here: www.cminnovation.eu

Some of our competitors will obviously also be present, but curiously enough, only one other looks to be a Global Sponsor as well.

Looking very much forward to the exhibition, and also to the annual CMS Awards show, which will take place during the evening on the 4th.

See you then.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Lessons learned while travelling

After a full weeks absense from catching planes and eating second-serving food, I'm now back in business. I flew to Oslo today to be ready for a full day of training in Kongsberg, Norway tomorrow morning. So there I was, munching on a club-sandwich at the hotel restaurant, when I realised how much and how little the actual travelling had taught me so far. Not what I learned from the business perspective, but things surrounding the actual travelling itself.

Since I haven't always been in a role where travelling was part of my job, you can safely say that I had to learn the ropes from scratch.
OK, must stuff in travel are pretty self explanatory: remember your passport, be in the airport on time etc etc, but some things come from personal experience.

 

So without further ado, I hereby present a list of things I've learned:

When travelling, do remember cash.
I learned this the hard way once I went to Antwerpen. I was just in time for my meeting if only I could catch a cab from the trainstation. Finding the cabs was easy, but none of them took creditcards. None.
In Copenhagen, and the rest of Denmark for that matter, all cab-drivers accept all major creditcards, so naturally this came as a surprise to me. Anyway, I had to walk about a kilometer to find a working ATM, get cash, get a cab, and thus I ended up being 15 minutes late for my meeting. Lesson learned.

When travelling, do yourself a favor and check hotel services up front.
This lesson is not as important as the one above, but still entitles to be presented here. I know that most often you book your own hotel, which in some ways make this comment unnecessary. But in the cases where you are paid to come and do a presentation, and the involved party has booked your hotel for you, this comes in handy. It is actually very simple, since most hotels have a website. Just be sure to check for things like available internet access (wireless or cabled, free or not).
In case your shirts got crumbled in the suitcase, do rooms come with an iron, do you care? Does the hotel have sauna, pool, spa? If you intend to make use of those facilities, remember to bring your speedos trendy, yet subtle swimwear.

When travelling, make sure you have airport lounge membership.
This particular one, I must admit I haven't taken care of myself. But I can't count the amount of times I have looked at people walking into the nice lounges and thought, dammit I need to get me one of those cards. A good friend of mine already recommended getting a Diner's Club card, since it can get you into a lounge in most airports. Why don't I have one yet..? Utter stupidity, plain and simple. So until I get my act together, I will be enjoying coffee and incredibly expensive internet access next to screaming babies and drunk British people in the "monkey-class" bars which are present in most self-righteous airports.

When travelling, remember entertainment.
Ok, this is almost too stupid to mention, but it deserves being added to the list. Bringing a book, a magazine, a newspaper or similar can save you from a mild attack of momentarily insanity when you go through the seat pocket in front of you in the plane and realize that you've already read the inflight magazine and security instruction chart a dozen times. Another good travel companion is of course a music gadget (iPod or whatever you can afford). This could save you from a potential headache from listening to the screaming infant in the seat behind you. That and a double gin & tonic. Another option is to boot up your laptop and work, but frankly, the elbow space in those seats doesnt really justify anything but watching a movie. It is possible to work, definately, but I try to have that done before I get on the plane. Also, batteries tend to run out of juice, so having some good old fashioned reading material can be a life saver.

 

Allright, so this list was basically the tip of the iceberg of what I could remember while writing this post. So I will take any good advice you can provide (hint, hint).

In the meantime, do remember to check all the great Sitecore blogs and news-stories out there, theres quite a lot going on at the time...

Thursday, October 30, 2008

MarketingFirst, business second in Belgium

Friday night of last week I came home after spending 2 days in Belgium. My colleague and I had attended a marketing event called MarketingFirst in Brussels as visitors. We didn't really know what to expect, except that we would meet a some of our partners who were exhibiting.

But since the event had free entrance for pre-registered visitors, we got alot more than we bargained for. With emphasis on A LOT. The event itself was quite small, with about 40 different companies on display. But the event was packed with people all looking to see and learn more about the latest marketing tools and trends. In between this crowd we met some existing customers, some newly signed customers and a few prospects. We of course also spent some time talking to our present partners. The Reference had a very nice stand where you could get a free massage, and LBi was handing out nice stuff and serving drinks.

Another important contact who had a booth was CMS-Channel. We managed to "kidnap" Christian Daems for a short meeting although he was quite busy. Sitecore International is going to be a Global Sponsor at the upcoming CM Innovation event (arranged by CMS Channel) in Brussels on December 4th.
Stay tuned for a lot more information about this...

So anyways, this was a recap of last Thursday which took us to the event in Brussels, and later by train to the city of Gent, which is a very nice city by the way. So all in all, we had a great day with lots of networking, for free!

 

Friday we then had a meeting with The Reference about previous and upcoming activities. We already have a lot going on in Belgium, but the future will bring even more, that is for sure. 
Besides that business aspect, it is always nice to talk to the developers at the partner, and hear them confess that for whatever project they are going to do, they always vote for Sitecore. They even had a few newly hired developers who passed the version 6 certification without prior knowledge about Sitecore, who already praised our API.

 

I'm travelling alot these days, but hopefully my upcoming posts will be more frequent than they have been lately.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

New release of Sitecore Intranet Portal

It is now official, the anticipated update of our Sitecore Intranet Portal solution passed the last QA cycles and is ready for download on SDN.

Read the release blog post from our Product Manager.

The SIP 2.2 release adresses a few issues that improves the overall performance and experience of working with the product. I know this for a fact, because I demonstrated it a few weeks ago to a client who are handing in the PO as we speak. Previously at similar demos, I would demonstrate the 2.1 release  which wasn't a bad product at all, but this release just makes a better demo. The release is more intuitive, easier to administrate and of course still offers strong integrations with 3rd party backend systems.

So thank you very much to the SIP team for a job well done!

More SIP info available on the main website.

I am planning to publish a movie which shows the nice features this release has to offer. Including topics like AD integration, ease-of-use, creating skins etc. So stay tuned.

Intranet quick concept overview

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Oslo makes it 5 weeks in a row

Yesterday I was in Oslo with a colleague to attend a few meetings. This trip is the fifth trip in five weeks I have been on. Thats right, I've been in and out of Copenhagen Airport's departure hall every week for five weeks. Unfortunately the security guys haven't seemed to recognize me so I could skip in line.

One thing I wonder is, why other people in the security line seem to not understand the simple concept of the security check. I mean you're going through a metal detector, so it might be wise to remove coins, wallets, belt etc first. Maybe I am asking to much?
  
Enough nagging for now, I usually have time for coffee before departure anyway, despite the slow move through airport security.

 

Visit Oslo

Oslo is quite a nice city in case you haven't had the chance to visit. Especially downtown is quite nice, but thats a whole other story.

 

After arriving in Oslo, we went to meet existing customer UDI regarding some projects. UDI is responsible for immigration, seeking asylum and similar important topics for foreigners who want to live in Norway. One thing on the agenda was the option to improve the search experience for their visitors, a topic that is not directly related to Sitecore, but very important for the overall experience of any website. So we discussed the options (Sitecore recommends a broad range of search tools) and also talked about future projects.

After meeting the very nice people at UDI, we had a quick lunch before visiting a partner prospect whom we met briefly at this years WPC in Houston.

This partner is a very interesting prospect for us, given their size and reputation in Norway. So we went over the business aspects of being a Sitecore partner, and of course what our solution offers them and their customers.

Gartner and CMS Wire already shared some nice reviews of our latest version, but I of course showed our cool editing and patent pending usability features first, before going into details with the (enhancend) .Net 2.0 based security model, the content based structure, the available free modules (seo, webforms, AD integration etc) and so on. Hopefully we can come to an agreement with this new partner, and have even more customers in Norway benefit from using Sitecore in the future.

Thats it for now, but time will tell where my next trip is heading. But both Israel and Belgium is on the radar...

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Fine tuning in Basel

Tomorrow I'm doing a demo for a company located in Basel, Switzerland. This demo has been scheduled since the beginning of August, so you know the audience is expecting a killer demo. So apart from my trustworthy slide-deck that uncovers Sitecore and the API, I felt I had to finetune my stuff a bit.

A blog post from a colleague gave me a good idea of what to improve on my Nicam demo-site. Thanks to Alex Shyba for pointing out that little detail about enabling the Rich-Text Editor to filter MS Word  content by your own definition during copy/paste. This is not a new thing in Sitecore version 6, but the way it works OOTB have changed a bit. Nevertheless you can in a very simple manner tune the editor to do what you expect, whenever you are copying content from MS Word.

seo-module-install Another thing I want to present is the SEO module. This one was ported to version 6 a long time ago, but still I hadnt implemented it on the Nicam site. Shame on me. Quick trip to SDN to download the module, and about 3 minutes of installing. Easy.

One last thing I corrected while i was at it, was to display the bold, italic and underline buttons in the Rich-Text Editor. It seems we went a few steps to far when doing the version 6 release (internally known as "the simplicity" release). I personally know that I can just use the wellknown keyboard shortcuts in the editor, but not all editors know this. And frankly how bad can it be to display a few extra buttons?!?

editor-bold-button The steps taken to "re-insert" these 3 buttons in the editor are very simple. Open up the core database, navigate to System -> Settings -> HTML Editor Profiles -> Rich Text Default -> Toolbar 1. Right-click and insert an HTML Editor button item. To insert a "BOLD" button simply name your new item 'Bold' and also write ' bold' in the 'click' field (yes, it is that simple. The editor backend code is already done, Sitecore is just not exposing the actual button until you force it to).

 

 

So now my Nicam site, running on version 6, is exposing a bit more functionality and easy of use. Perfection can always be improved...

Friday, August 29, 2008

Focusing on Belgium

As I wrote in my last post, I have spent 3 days doing a  roadshow in Belgium last week. The topic of the trip was basically letting our partners know who their new points of contact would be from now on.

Since Sitecore has expanded and grown quite substantially lately, we needed to re-arrange our responsibilities.
Marc Schneider was the previous Channel Sales Manager for Germany and all of Benelux, but since we are opening an office in Holland in two weeks, Marc is now focusing on the German speaking countries exclusively. In fact, I am already booked for an onsite demo in Basel together with Marc on September 9th, but that is a different story.

So with Marc focusing on Germany, Switzerland and Austria - and Holland opening an office of their own, my colleague Sri Carlyle and myself are now focusing mainly on Belgium.

Personally I think that it is an exciting challenge. And since Marc has already done a tremendous job in Belgium and signed partners and customers, Our main task  is to pick up from that goundwork and continue the trend.

belgium

belgiumpartners Some headlines from our trip included meeting up with a good portion of our excisting partners in Brussels and Gent. This time around we met up with
LBi Group, The Reference and One Agency. Lbi is based out of Brussels mainly, while we met up with The Reference and One Agency in Gent. I have to say the centre of Gent is a very nice place with beautiful old houses. One was actually for sale, but i doubt my salary will cover a penthouse in central Gent. We also had a meeting with a prospect on our way between meeting our partners. Of course I can't announce who this was, but I do envy their location with a private lake and beach for the employees.

Next time we go to Belgium we will hopefully be meeting with our other excisting partners De Schutter Neroc and Delaware.

We also met the local CMS expert Christian Daems (CMS Channel) for lunch one day. Christian is a very nice guy that I look forward to meet again on his December event in Brussels. We will actually sponsor that event, but more info about all that once we get closer to December.

 

One last thing to say. Yes, the chocolate is good. Very very good.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Post WPC 2008 and what lies ahead

WPC-2008-Sitecore-boothThis summer featured this years biggest Microsoft partner event as I have previously mentioned. Sitecore had a nice big stand, which I have to say looked really great and given our red color, was easy to spot from far away in the huge convention centre.

In short, we had a really good week in Houston. Many new partners were eager to sign with us, some even after just seeing a 2-minute demo.

 

Obviously WPC 2008 ended about a month ago, but since then I have been away on 2 weeks of holiday, and as a result, simply been so busy following up on WPC related stuff, that I had to down-prioritize writing here. A few issues however, justifies this late post.

 

Sitecore-demo-nicamFirst of all, I have to mention the new demo site (running on version 6.0 of course) that premiered on WPC 2008. The site in itself is actually quite cool (the best demo concept so far in Sitecore IMO) and most spectators find it easy to relate to.

The "Nicam" demo-site, as it is called, does a great job at showing off features which prove the many advantages in having a content-based CMS (as compared to page-based ditto).
More importantly people tend to like our open API very much, since this will help them save precious time as they can reuse existing controls or easily integrate with 3rd party systems.

 

Secondly, I'd like to make another thing clear. Whenever Sitecore International signs a new partner they (the partner) will at some point require a visit from a Sitecore representative. In other words, I might be going to visit new partners in such places as South Africa, Hong Kong, Cairo, France, Belgium, Israel and Mexico in the coming year, just to name a few of the leads we got from WPC 2008.

I can't wait to blog about experiences from such exotic locations, but until then, I plan on going into much more detail about our latest and greatest release and the new features.

 

So what else happened during WPC week? Well, I was right about the no-sleep-on-the-agenda thing. Everyday, after spending many hours at the booth, featured various networking events/dinners/parties which I attended a couple of.
I have to say the UK party was the most amusing, but then again, who ever doubted the Brits can go a bit nuts when their away from home?

I also have to mention my hotel. In particular my room. The dreadful American architecture somehow made it possible for my room to be placed exactly behind the only 2 elevators in the entire building. There was literally only a paper-thin wall between my bed, and the elevator shafts. Nice huh? 
Ironically my jetlag ensured that I actually managed to sleep anyway.

 

Next weeks schedule features a 3-day roadshow in Belgium, and the week after that has Helsingfors and Stockholm on the agenda. Till then please check out the many blogposts about Sitecore and the new .Net 3.5 Service Pack.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Countdown to Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

Next Monday (July 7th) the 2008 WPC event kicks off in Houston, Texas.
This is not my first trip to the US, but will be my first time participating in this giant Microsoft event.

I have been to a couple of IT tradeshows/conferences already this year. However, I don't really know what to expect from WPC at this point, apart from meeting a lot of fellow IT professionals, and that sleep is not really on the agenda.

I am very much looking forward to participate, as this is probably one of the most important Microsoft events of the year.

Sitecore is a Gold Sponsor for WPC, so beside being on display at the various WPC marketing material, we also have a huge booth at the conference. To back that up, we will be present with around 30 people from our various offices.

 

Checklist of stuff to bring for my trip to the US:

 

See you there..?

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Sitecore SEO module revisited

It seems like the old-school marketing people (no pun intended) are starting to understand that Search Engine Optimization is extremely important if you want global exposure for your website. This didn't seem like the case just 5 years ago, at least back then, the SEO consultant companies we're few, and using advertising channels like AdWords were uncommon for most non-tech individuals. You may correct me if im wrong.

Nowadays it is all about having "google-friendly" URLs and optimized content.

Having done some of SEO work myself*, I hereby present my list of steps which I find important, logic and fairly easy to comprehend for any marketing person:

  • Logik URL's (like www.mysite.com/mycompanyinfo/contact-us/)
    The URL should reflect the content.
  • Make sure you are cross linking between your pages.
  • Information available in PDF (and other document type) files should also be available on your site, at least as short summaries.
  • Search engines doesn't like Flash, so stay clear of using this on your frontpage if you can. If not, make sure the links and bulletpoints within the Flash content is also available on the frontpage. Generally Flash on corporate websites should only contain video demos.
  • Get external sites to link to yours! Either exchange links with other sites, or have external blogs pointing to you. Link popularity is key for high ranking on most global search engines. Send out press releases etc with links pointing back to you etc etc.
  • And last but not least, make sure to repeat important words that you want to rank well with.

I realize that there are alot more factors to take into consideration, but these headlines cover the basics and are also, given the right tool, quite simple to work with for most online marketing novices.


Search Engine Optimization module overview

seo-overview-tab With the above input in mind, I can finally start my walkthrough of the SEO module. One of the things I really like about the module, is how it blends into a site. As you can see on the screenshot, you got your actual page (needing optimization) in front of you, with the addition of the SEO tools. These are displayed below the page-layout. Does it get any better?
The information gathered by the tool is of course based on the data for this specific page. When you navigate to any other page, the SEO module will render data from that page and so on.

The tool has 8 tabs of data available: Page Information (overview), Text Only View, Keywords, Search Engines, Headings, Images, Links and Meta Tags.


Page Information

seo-page-tabThis tab returns some overall data based on the page content. A green checkmark means the bullet is ok, a red x marks an error. Typical erros can be images lacking Alt-tags, links being broken or a missing standard object, faulty html declaration etc. In general make sure your pages fulfill at least the bullets listed on this page. You may not see a need for providing a keywords meta-tag, but remember: You are not making the site for yourself, you are making it for your visitors. A statement which is often forgotten in the pursuit of cool branding and/or over-achieving Flash empowered websites.


Text Only View

seo-text-only-tabThis tab returns the page as it looks like to a web-crawler. Everything but the text content is stripped. This is a very important piece of data, since you get a simple overview of how a crawler would rank the content on your page. Important content should be at the top, since most global search engines tend to reward the top content the most. Notice how this view returns the text using the actual styles and headings. Images are represented by their alt-tag values.


Keywords

seo-keywords-tab Once again, we get some very important information back from the SEO module. This tab lists all keywords used on the current page, with the number of repetitions next to it. This specific page has the word 'printer' repeated 9 times, and the word 'business' repeated 4 times. To a global search engine a repeated keyword indicates, that a page is emphasising on the specified subject, thus rewarding the page with more points (to rank with). Another nice service provided by this tab, is the option to test your keyword in one of 3 major search engines simply by clicking the icons next to the keyword.


Search Engines

seo-search-engine-tab This simple function provides an easy way to check how many incoming links a specific page has in one of the 3 major search engines.

Cross-linking to other relevant sites as well as having many external links pointing to your own site is very important for improved ranking. The paradigm is basically, if many sites are linking to your content, then your site must be important, and deserve higher ranking.

Clicking one of the 3 icons, will return the number of incoming links you have from the chosen search engine.


Headings

seo-heading-tab Another way of putting weight on specific important keywords for your organisation, is to highlight these in headings on your pages. For that specific need, HTML code have supported "Heading" tags since the dawn of Internet.

These tags (eg. <h1>My heading one tag</h1>) emphasize that the inline content is important. If you have used any of these headings on your page, the SEO module will list them in a hierachy based on their importance (heading 1 through heading 6). The search engines generally put more emphasis on keywords being highlighted by these simple tags.


Images

seo-images-tab Do you know how many images is used in the layout on your page? Even so, the module will give you a full overview including related info like URL, alternate text and dimensions. This may not be super important, but at least use this tab to make sure that your image file-names correspond with the alt-text values. Of course the values from the different images are also available as mouse-over information on each seperate image.




Links

seo-links-tab Something which quickly gets confusing, is getting an overview of all links and their targets on a page. Links can be to the same page (anchors or querystrings), to different sites, or to other pages on the current domain. Each type is represented by a different icon in the list. Every link also has their inline text value displayed, if any, next to the icon. The target URL is of course also available in the list.




Meta tags

seo-meta-tags-tab The final tab returns values from all the meta-tags that are defined for the current page. Allthough meta-tags are sometimes considered old-old-old-school and not used directly for ranking anymore, they still serve some purpose. Defining properties for your page using meta-tags can be very useful, if not for search engine ranking, then at least for aiding to other important tools on your website. If you have local site search running, then you can definately benefit from using meta-data on your pages. Web-shops should also make use of metadata.


That ends my presentation of the SEO module for now. But since I realize that action speaks louder than words, I am already planning to provide a screencast of the module in action. This should hopefully give a clearer view of why you should get the SEO module - and use it..


*One of my most noteworthy SEO accomplishments was pushing a site from page #42 on google, into the top ten results for a very competitive keyword (40+ million results on average). Please note, this was back in 2004 before I started working at Sitecore.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

New Sitecore version revealed

news_bulletinI hereby interrupt the transmission of
on-the-road stories and module presentations with a special news bulletin:
It is now official, Sitecore will release the upcoming version 6.0 June 30th 2008.


This upcoming release is mainly focusing on simplicity and improved usability. Editors especially will have new tools available such as in-line editing, instant validation and simple layout control. Adding to that is a security enhancement based on the latest .Net security model allowing for roles-in-roles inheritance plus improving the already flexible Sitecore security layer. More information available in the officiel press release.

The current feedback from various sources point out some of these very interesting features:

CMS-Wire mentions the usability, the support for 64-bit systems and more.

Jukka-Pekka Keisala lists some of the overall changes from the previous version including the switcth from .Net 2.0 to 3.5.

Chris Wojciech goes into more technical detail listing many of the new options and features in the Sitecore framework and API.


Personally I really like the new version. It's even faster than the previous one and the UI is, in lack of better words, very sexy. But the biggest plus is definately the improved usability (with patents pending might I add) that will enable editors to create fully W3C (including accessibility) compliant content without even thinking about it.

I'm certain my upcoming posts from the road will contion reactions on these specific features, so stay tuned.


End of transmission.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Round trip to Madrid

Very recently I went to Madrid to participate in a meeting together with Claes Larsson from Guide Market Solutions and a customer prospect (which I for obvious reasons will not name in this post).

Initially the meeting was planned so I could fly in, have the meeting, and return home the same night. But since the only available flights out of Madrid required transfers through what seemed like a random selection of all of the worlds airports, I choose to book a hotel instead and fly back (direct) the next morning.

Soon this solution would prove very convinient and interesting, but before I get ahead of myself I have to start from the beginning.

The trip
On Wednesday morning May 14 I get ready and call for a cab.
Note to self: When cab drivers in your own city try to hustle you on your way to the airport, it may be a bad sign for the rest of the trip...
After taking what seems like the worlds longest shortcut, I finally arrive at the terminal, now focusing on the next important things: check-in and coffee.

Madrid cab
My plane arrives in Barajas airport in Madrid fashionably late.
Nothing to declare. I make it to the exit and find myself a cab (this time expecting to be hustled) and arrive at the office in good time for the meeting, even with the detours.

The meeting
Attendees at the meeting includes the resident webmaster, a consultant (project manager), Claes Larsson and myself. The deal in question consists of a handful servers, extranet functionality and a shop.
I start out presenting the editing functionalities, versioning control, device control and language handling before talking about the backend stuff.
They have a userbase with close to one million customers, so scalability and perfomance is key. However, before I get so far, the webmaster interrupts asking about SEO and what we do to support this important marketing issue. A very valid question, and luckily we already have a state-of-the-art module which handles this in a userfriendly and logic way. (More about this specific tool will be available in my next post). Naturally I present the tool right away. The webmaster seem very pleased.

After more chit chat about how to solve specific issues like handling lists, we get into talking about how we deal with that many user accounts and personalization. The answer is quite simple, their existing user database will be integrated and connected into their desired extranet setup, re-using the existing user profiles. We have done this sort of thing many times before, just take a look at bwin.com (an online bookmaking company) with their 13 million user-accounts - all built on Sitecore.

The meeting was scheduled to last 2 hours, but we ended up spending 3 hours talking about the solution and various scenarios, only interrupted by the decision maker taking a short break to postpone some other meetings he had that day. Bottomline, it was a very promising and a most interesting meeting.

Madrid by night
After the meeting Claes and I agree to meet later in the city. I get to my hotel by cab with a driver who both looks a bit like Ronaldo and talks about 'futebol' when we pass some football training facility. I almost throw the Michael Laudrup card but decide not to, since I don't speaks Spanish anyway.
Hotel. Check in. Internet access is 5 Euro for 1 hour. Dang.

I make a few calls, check my mail and get a quick shower. New cab ride back into town, no funny business except for the driver being unable to successfully use his creditcard machinery. He gladly accepts cash however. Sigh.

nightlife We have dinner at a nice cosy tapas place with excellent food, but the highlight of the evening has got to be the city-wide party going on. May 15 is the day where Madrid celebrates their patron saint San Isidro Labrador with a holiday. Naturally you use this chance to party the night before, which was indeed the case here. The streets were literally filled with people including a batch of Claes' friends. And the bars served cheap beer and drinks in 1-litre cups. Wow.

Returning to Copenhagen
With 4 hours of sleep and no breakfast at the hotel, I make it to the airport in good time before departrure. 3 hour flight, laptop, batch of dvds. Oh sweet battery life.

Thanks alot to Claes and his friends, and of course to the customer prospect which I hope to hear more from very soon. See you next time Madrid.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Going into uncharted territory

Working in Sitecore as a Solution Architect means quite some travelling around to our many regional partners and customers. Often I present our solutions to prospects along with the involved partner at their location. Occationally I also get to speak on seminars for groups of selected individuals which can be quite a fun challenge.

Bottomline I am most definately meeting a lot of people in need of content management solutions, looking for advice and inspiration. And on this blog, I will be sharing my experiences with you, along with presentations of some of the many cool features that Sitecore provides.

I come from a background working for a Sitecore technology partner, where I among other cool projects improved the visitor experience on the Vatican's website. I have worked with the Sitecore products for 2+ years and counting.

I already have a growing list of things to share, so stay tuned for posts about my recent trip to Madrid, info about SEO solutions and much much more...