Newsletter for 2008, Vol. 3 - March - Web Content Management Systems by Hannon Hill

Redefining 'Best Practices' for CMS Vendors

In light of recent events in the CMS industry, being comfortable with your vendor is a task often easier said than done. On March 12, 2008, CMSWatch.com broke a story regarding Serena's decision to discontinue development of its content management product, Serena Collage. Serena Collage, along with Hannon Hill's Cascade Server, was one of only a handful of systems on the market with a stake in Higher Education. While Cascade Server is the CMS of choice amongst many of the nation's leading colleges and universities, Serena's decision left institutions running Collage with numerous questions regarding the future of their websites' continuous and successful operation.

Hannon Hill remains committed to the development and support of Cascade Server for institutions of Higher Education; our community refers to more than just the company's employees and clients. The individuals and organizations involved with Cascade Server are passionate about the product, and passionate about creating and managing web content with ease. Sharing their knowledge and best practices through outlets such as Hannon Hill's Higher Ed listserv and user's forum has brought not only users from Higher Education together, but has also allowed this niche to interact with the larger Cascade Server and Web 2.0 communities as a whole.

As Blaine Herman, Director of Strategic Accounts with Hannon Hill, confirms, "making a commitment to a CMS system is a big decision for many organizations. Deciding to put that kind of time and energy toward any one investment takes time, patience, and trust. We believe we would do ourselves and prospective clients a terrible disservice by not being completely upfront about what the process entails; it is hard work, but we are committed to sticking with it from your start date, to your finish date, not ours."

CEO Insights

Hannon Hill founder and CEO David Cummings recently spoke at Tallahassee’s TechExpo 1.0 on the topic of Marketing Streamlined: Using Social Media and Web 2.0 Tools for Facilitating Community Collaboration. Hannon Hill's Elizabeth Starkey spoke with David to learn more about his presentation on the collaborative benefits of Web 2.0 tools such as wikis, blogs, and RSS feeds.

Elizabeth: What social media tools do you feel are currently making the biggest impact on online collaboration and in what ways?

David: Some of the biggest ones right now are the blogs and the wikis. Blogs are great for publishing quick, informal pieces of content, opinion pieces, commentary on industry happenings, and what not. And then on the wiki side is the idea that there are these collaborative pages of content that are free-form, obviously with Wikipedia being the greatest example out there. This idea that people can collaborate and update information in real time and share that removes a lot of the overhead and structure that was typically inherent in sharing Microsoft Word documents, and having file shares, and only having one person be able to edit content at a time. A wiki really takes all those types of friction that occurred previously and makes it much more seamless for the collaboration to occur.

Elizabeth: What are some unique ways in which you have seen these innovations utilized?

David: Well, of course, on the consumer side and the public-facing side, Wikipedia is phenomenally successful. Then you also have, on the blogging side, companies like Blogger, which is now part of Google, really making it so that anybody can do a blog.....The collaboration comes in by making it really easy to publish the content, but then also having the comments section on the blogs so people can actually comment on and discuss the opinion piece or whatever was posted in that blog entry......You’ll see systems where you can rate information. Amazon.com does a really good job of this, allowing you to rate different products on their website, and then that information is shared back with the community....

News & Events

Newsletter for 2008, Vol. 3 - March

Redefining 'Best Practices' for CMS Vendors

CEO Insights

New Clients