Blogs - December 2011
Below are the blog entries for December 2011
Betting Big on our Clients
By Holly Wright
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 at 2:00pm
As the Marketing Manager for Hannon Hill, I don’t get to interact directly with our clients very frequently. However, based on our annual User Conference, my twitter interactions with you, and the client webinars that many of you have hosted, I have come to one conclusion about our user base: You’re a smart bunch! The fact that each of you chose Cascade Server as your CMS only reinforces my conclusion ;)
You bet on us, so I’m betting on you!
Now, I don’t gamble much, but it is a tradition in my family to put a small amount of cash on the overall bowl season in a pick ‘em style game with confidence points. This year, in every matchup that includes one of our clients, I chose our client to win.
For fun, here's a list of Hannon Hill clients that have football teams playing in bowl games this year:
- University of Wyoming
- Florida International University
- University of Missouri
- North Carolina State University
- University of Texas (College of Liberal Arts)
- Texas A&M University
- Georgia Tech (College of Management)
- University of Utah (Health Sciences Center)*
- Auburn University
- University of Houston
- Michigan State University
- Clemson University
- Northern Illinois University
Congrats to all of you for being selected for bowl games this season! Stay tuned, and I’ll let you know how it all turns out!
*Unfortunately, University of Utah was matched up against another client, Georgia Tech. Fortunately, there was an easy tiebreaker--I'm a yellow jacket! (Sorry, Utah!)
Category
- Commentary
New Year’s Resolution: Free training sessions beginning in January 2012
By Penny Harding
Monday, December 19th, 2011 at 3:30pm
As the end of the year quickly approaches, it seems fitting to reflect on the events of the past year. Personally, I often do this with the ultimate goal of determining how I can improve next year. Our CEO, Kat Liendgens, also recently tasked the entire company with a similar question. What did we accomplish this year and what can we do better next year?
Our accomplishments were many, probably going to be in another blog, so I will save those details. Instead, I wanted to focus on how the Hannon Hill Services Team can improve.
Since Cascade Server caters to higher education and government agencies, our users have been working with much tighter budgets in recent years. To add to that strain, turnover means that people who were trained and specialized in using Cascade Server are no longer with their organization, often leaving people who have never even logged into the system to fill in the gaps.
Coming from the public sector, I know firsthand how daunting this can be. With no budget for training and being asked to learn how to use a new tool with literally zero direction, what can you do? Often, these people reach out to our support folks who are great at pointing them to documentation that they can read to get ramped up and to my group, the services team, to consider scheduling a training session.
And here is where the problem lies--they have no budget for training. A year ago, we created the Cross Organization Bootcamp Training to make it more affordable. Only $800/person would allow these users to have a hands-on technical training and make it affordable by splitting the cost between organizations. The sad thing is that $800 still seems to be too high for a lot of our users, so we want to help! Our resolution for next year is therefore bold: Get all Cascade Server users who want to be trained trained, regardless of their budgetary restrictions.
Our plan: Free monthly training sessions!
I want to stress that these sessions will NOT be webinars. They will be hands-on technical training, often referred to as the Cascade Server Bootcamp. We have formulated some rules to have the biggest impact and make each training session a success. Those rules are listed on our Free Training page.
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Customizing the Twitter Feed Module in Cascade 7 Beta
By Adam Griffis
Friday, December 16th, 2011 at 3:30pm
One of the new features of Cascade Server 7.0 is the Twitter module. With it, end users can easily create a dynamic block of tweets that will update automatically. These tweets can be from a specified account or tweets returned for a specified search term. Please see the knowledge base for full details on how to create a Twitter Feed Block.
The Twitter Feed Block is the first example of a new type of Block in Cascade: modules. Modules provide dynamic content that might normally require significant time and techical knowledge to put together, quickly and without programming experience. Twitter Feed Blocks allow a content author with no technical experience to set up a feed of tweets from a managed Twitter account. Also, since they are quick and easy to create and modify; a marketer could make a feed about a trending topic or a conference hash-tag in time for the content to be relevant.
Twitter Feed Blocks differ from other blocks in that the content that is displayed to users is not available at the time of publishing the page. This means that using traditional formats on these blocks won’t really work. Traditional formats use Velocity or XSLT to transform the XML or XHTML in blocks into the published HTML. However, with the Twitter feed block the actual content rendered during publish is JavaScript, meaning that while formats can be applied to the blocks, they would have to make changes to the JavaScript with string replacement. However, this should be unnecessary as every element of the HTML created by the Twitter feed block has a distinct class, meaning that Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) formatting can customize the look and feel extensively.
A diagram outlining the different HTML classes for the Twitter Feed Block
A short guide on styling the Twitter Feed Blocks is available on the knowledge base. It outlines how the default style transforms the undecorated Twitter feed block into something that resembles a typical Twitter feed that one might see on many websites.
The transformation of the unstylized Twitter Feed HTML with the default CSS
While this transformation is impressive in the extent to which it changes the look of the feed block, it is relatively sparse and doesn’t change the actual content of the block. But since every distinct element of the Twitter feed block has its own class, you can actually customize the content that is displayed to the user. For example, by adding the style “display:none” to the classes “twitter_avatar” and “twitter_author” we can hide the author of tweets. This could be used if all tweets were coming from a single managed account and you wanted to have a header with the account name / info instead of repeating it along with each tweet.
Another example might be if you wanted each tweet to be displayed in a visually distinct element. We can give each tweet a rounded border and background by applying a style to the “twitter_item” class, along with padding to separate the tweets from each other. We got rid of the list’s bullets by applying “list-style:none” to “li” children of the twitter_stream class and kept the Twitter avatars hidden to keep the avatar’s backgrounds from clashing. Download the full CSS file for curved borders here.
One more customization option is a horizontal Twitter feed along the bottom of a page. This could be fixed to 4 or 5 items, or it could be put into an iframe, so it could be scrolled by the user at will. The CSS for this is slightly more complicated, so I’ll leave out the explanation, but the CSS file for a horizontal twitter feed is available here and you can also check out the guide to setting up horizontal unordered lists here.
So while the configurability of formats is sacrificed with Twitter Feed Blocks, this is compensated for with an ease of creation of content which might normally take more time and technical knowledge. Moreover, the structure of the HTML generated by the Twitter Feed Block allows engineers to create CSS to customize the look and feel of the Twitter Feed Block dramatically.
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Category
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User Administration Tips and Best Practices
By Joel Baxter
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011 at 11:00am
User administration always seems to be a popular topic amongst our clients, and I can certainly see why. Universities and large organizations alike are notorious for having large, sometimes unorganized LDAP servers and authentication systems within their environments. Some clients want to simply import a select few of their LDAP users from a specific Container (typically being an Organization Unit but not exclusively) and have those users authenticate against their LDAP server via Cascade Server. Other clients have more elaborate scenarios that need to be addressed, like tying their Single-Sign-On service in with Cascade Server, which also authenticates via LDAP. Regardless of your current or desired authentication method, Cascade Server can accommodate it.
Authentication Methods
1. Normal Authentication
In this method, users are authenticated via their stored credentials within the Cascade database. This would work well for you if you are looking to do one of the following:
- Create your users manually within the CMS and let Cascade Server handle authentication.
- Automate this user creation process via a custom web services script via Cascade Server’s web services API.
- Merely import your users via LDAP sync but have them authenticate via normal authentication handled by the CMS.
2. LDAP
You can authenticate your users via your LDAP server if you have one currently within your environment. This method would work well for you if you are looking to accomplish the following:
- Create and import your users into default groups and roles within the CMS.
- Have LDAP manage the synchronization schedule for those associated Containers (which will most likely be Organization Units) or Groups (Active Directory only) with their default groups and roles within the CMS.
Here are some of the key considerations about using LDAP authentication that clients often ask about:
- If your users exist within other groups defined within the CMS but not the LDAP configuration, would you want to remove them from those other groups and roles?
- How would you like to handle orphaned users, which are users that were imported via LDAP into the CMS at one time but no longer exist within the LDAP server?
Both of these issues are documented and described in greater detail within our Knowledge Base.
3. Custom Authentication
This refers to any third-party authentication system or single-sign on framework that your organization may be using. This method is a good option for you if you are looking to do one or more of the following:
- Use the Cascade Server API to provide a way for developers to authenticate your users via a third-party authentication system or single-sign on framework, such as Shibolleth.
- You also want to tie LDAP authentication into your Custom Authentication system to work together with Cascade Server.
Typical New Client Scenarios
1. You have just a handful of clients (20-100)
- Best Solution: Import the users via LDAP using the configuration <authentication-mode> element set to use "normal". If this route is taken, you will still need to provide each user with a password as Cascade will not use the LDAP password nor authenticate via LDAP.
- Good Solution: Create the users manually via Cascade Server’s interface.
2. You have one large LDAP server with an unorganized Organizational Unit ("OU") and need to import 1k-2k users
- Best Solution: Move all users that you're wanting to import into their own OU and sync against that OU.
- Good Solution: Create a free-form filter based of off a unique attribute that all of the soon-to-be-imported LDAP users possess to sync from, and place them into individual user-policies for their specified default group and role.
3. You have a large and well organized LDAP server with smaller OU’s
- Best Solution: Create individual user-policies for each OU that you want to import.
- Good Solution: Create a free-form filter based on a unique attribute that all of the soon-to-be-imported LDAP users possess to sync from, and place them into individual user-policies for their specified default group and role.
4. You have a Custom Authentication System and Single-Sign On Service already in place
- Best Solution: Import and create the users via LDAP, then authenticate all users through the Single-Sign On system for uniformity, but authenticating users via LDAP for aggregate control over users.
- Good Solution: Manually create users via the interface, then authenticate all users through a third-party authentication system.
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5 CMS Predictions for 2012
By Kat Liendgens
Thursday, December 8th, 2011 at 11:45am
As 2011 comes to a close, it’s a good time to think about and discuss what the new year will hold in store for us. As the CMS arena is constantly and rapidly evolving and becoming increasingly sophisticated, we can see several emerging trends and brace ourselves for a few surprises as well. Here are some of my content management predictions for 2012:
- CMS providers will focus more on collaboration. These days, collaboration has become a more integral part of people’s work than it has ever been. The “de-silofication” of organizations has commenced and will continue to gain momentum. As a result, content management systems need to be flexible, provide easy and at the same time granular user administration, and, from a licensing standpoint, increase the number of users allowed in the system. In addition, CMS providers will need to look at workflow with fresh eyes. While the need for linear workflow will not completely go away, it’s safe to say that systems also strive to accommodate the way most people work these days - by collaborating in real time and in a less rigid manner.
- Accessibility will continue to be a priority. Accessibility has always been a top priority for organizations, but now more than ever, it has become more than just something that the webmaster takes care of. It is crucial that content contributors gain a more thorough understanding of accessibility, because their knowledge directly affects the way they create the web experience. It will be interesting to see how content management providers will facilitate this process moving forward.
- Mobile is going places. Most organizations have either already implemented a mobile site or are at least planning their mobile strategy for the near future. Therefore, it’s no surprise that in 2012, the ability to manage mobile sites with minimum effort and overhead will become a mandate. Which content management systems will provide the easiest way to re-purpose content for mobile use? How will they address Responsive Design?
- Content strategy will capture the spotlight. Content management is only the first step. Most organizations have the human resources (IT, web team, content contributors, etc.) and the technical resources (CMS, social media accounts, and analytics) in place to create, update, and promote their content, but how many of them actually have a content strategy in place? Providing value with original, helpful, and interesting content is the best thing you can do for your website and for your target audience, which is why we will see an increased emphasis on quality content, content strategy, and tools to help contributors identify which type of content works best.
- Stronger focus on inbound and content marketing techniques. There's more to content management than just being able to easily create pages. These days, organizations need to be empowered to leverage modern marketing best practices with regard to campaign management, SEO, keyword analysis, social media, and comprehensive reporting on trends and ROI. We understood these needs fairly early on, which is why our solutions help our customers meet those emerging challenges. I believe and hope that more companies will seize the opportunity to provide tools that really help organizations optimize their content marketing and their campaigns.
Of course, there are many more trends to look forward to. We are excited about the future of content management systems in general, and about our Cascade Server roadmap in particular. (Check out the Cascade Server roadmap video from the User Conference.)
Let’s hear from you. What are your predictions for 2012? Please add your comments below.
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Category
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Funtime Bowling Hannon Hill Outing
By Holly Wright
Tuesday, December 6th, 2011 at 9:00am
Friday afternoon, the Hannon Hillers took a brief break from our computers and ventured over to Funtime Bowl down the street. We’re a competitive bunch for sure, but as the trash talking shifted to ball rolling, I was surprised to see that the talent that is usually seen in our office does not translate directly to the bowling alley. Don’t get me wrong, there were some semi-pros out there, showing off their skills at putting english on the ball or turning a 7-10 split into a spare. But the general consensus afterward was that, as a whole, we’re not nearly as good at bowling as we might have hoped.
We didn’t keep track of the scores over the weekend, but I took an office poll today and there was a clear winner of the Best Perceived Bowler award: Congratulations, Bradley Wagner!
Photos
Want to be a part of the team?
Check out the current Hannon Hill job openings.
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Viewing Content as an Asset Rather than an Expense
By Holly Wright
Monday, December 5th, 2011 at 2:30pm
Many higher education professionals--marketers and non-marketers alike--view marketing activities as an ongoing expense rather than a mid- to long-term investment. However, not all marketing activities are created equal, and some are more accurately described as assets rather than expenses.
For higher education, paid search, print brochures, direct mail and other traditional (and usually costly) advertising activities are short-lived marketing events that result in potential applicants in the short run and hopefully enrolled students after some period of time. These marketing tactics are not bad, but after an ad runs--whether or not it results in higher application or enrollment rates--it is over. It does not continue to bring you value afterwards. It is an expense.
Content marketing is different. After a content piece has been created, it continues to provide value to the organization for a long time afterwards. The simplest explanation of a content marketing strategy goes something like this: Your organization produces valuable content for your target market (potential students), which they read when they are looking for useful information related to your organization. By doing this, you increase the likelihood that when your target students get ready to apply to college, they will choose to apply to your school because they already know you, like you and trust you. Trust is an asset that is hard to buy with any advertising budget and can return benefits to your organization for years to come.
Building trust takes time, and writing quality content to help build that trust is not cheap or easy. But the point is that after you make the investment to create content, that content is an asset that can appreciate over time. Fresh quality content targeted to your audience does amazing things for your SEO in addition to helping you build trust. And once you’ve made the initial investment to create a really good, really valuable piece of content, you can find creative ways to derive additional value from it with little extra effort.
For example, a piece entitled Students’ Guide to Applying to College can be re-purposed into several high school presentations, ten different blog posts, some visual graphics, a webinar or two, and even some very brief, distilled tips communicated via your social media accounts. Meanwhile, the Guide itself also continues to deliver value to high school students looking for helpful information about applying to college for months or years to come.
By its virtue of lasting longer and providing value for your organization long after its creation, content is an asset, not an expense. Do you disagree? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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