Articles - Page 64

Brightspot Illuminates the Future of CMS with Human-Controlled, AI-Powered Storytelling 

matt-garrepy

Marketing automation software and content management systems are each powerful tools on their own, but when you are able to strategically combine their strengths you can achieve even greater results with your marketing. In the contemporary business climate it’s not enough to simply excel at email marketing or create content that goes viral. By harnessing the distinct capabilities of each system and combining them into a cohesive strategy you can increase the efficiency of each, gain new insights into your customers, and personalize the experience for them more effectively. 
<h2>1. Enhance the efficiency of each tool through supplementation</h2>
Marketing automation excels at nudging your leads and prospects along and providing them with the best information that will drive them to your website. However, once they reach your website, the benefits of marketing automation end, and it’s up to your content strategy to do the heavy lifting.
Conversely, content management systems make it easy for you to develop and employ value-added content once your lead has clicked through. But, it can’t do anything on its own to encourage them to do so. Each system has its unique attributes and shortcomings, and it’s only by effectively combining the two of them that you can achieve optimal efficiency for your overall marketing strategy.
When the powers of marketing automation and CMS are combined, you can efficiently move your leads through each stage of the buying funnel at the appropriate time, finding unique ways to imbue the relationship with value along the way. You’ll always have the correct tool available depending upon what your customer needs are at a specific moment in their journey. 
<h2>2. Improve your lead nurturing by engaging with precise timing</h2>
When it comes to lead nurturing, timing is everything. In many cases, delivering the exact same messaging to the same lead even minutes apart can be the difference between moving them closer to a sale, and the customer choosing to end the relationship. There really is very little margin for error, which is why you have to use every tool available to you in order to ensure that your timing is accurate.
Many companies utilize digital forms to capture data on their leads and essentially kick off the lead nurturing process. When a lead fills out a form it not only indicates that they have reached a specific stage of the buying journey, but it is also a form of assent that says they are ready to receive your marketing materials and internalize your messaging.
When your forms are integrated between your CMS and your email marketing you have an opportunity to respond and adapt even more quickly. The new data that is collected can quickly be updated across all platforms for consistency. Every employee who goes to access a lead profile, whether it’s a person initiating a new email marketing campaign or someone in charge of content creation, will see real-time data reflected throughout. It will also help you determine whether or not your content is performing up to expectations, allowing you to make adjustments on the fly.
The moment a lead fills out your digital form, a ticking time bomb is set off. If your automation platform isn’t prepared to respond to them with the right information at the right moment, you could be losing out on potential business. Through the integration of these two platforms, however, you’ll be ready to respond with insights gleaned from powerful data at a moment’s notice.
<h2>3. Personalize your messaging with powerful data from your CMS</h2>
The quest for more effective personalization is never-ending for email marketers. You know that it’s absolutely vital to include personalized content in your messaging, but you’re also cognizant of the fact that customers are becoming more skeptical of content that they perceive as being automated.
The looming question is, how do you continue to automate your processes while still engaging savvy consumers on a personal level? And the answer is: with the help of reliable data from your CMS.
One reason to use a CMS is to collect high-quality data about the kinds of content that are effective, and use it to continually refine your content generation program. This is a vital process for any company that hopes to succeed in the 21st century, because customers expect to see customized content that speaks to the realities of their specific buying journey.
But that doesn’t mean that you should simply use this data to make more engaging content for your website and leave it at that. By incorporating this information into your email marketing, you can optimize your content to reach your leads at the right place and right time. 
For example, if your CMS tells you that a certain prospect has viewed posts about two differing models of a product, you could create a comparison piece between the two and email them a synopsis. Or, if you know that they have been interacting with your chatbot and asking questions about product features, you can email them a link to a personalized landing page that has additional info that could help answer their questions.
<img alt="http://media.agilitycms.com/images/marketing/pablo%20(2).png" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/5c3HSQgmR_7kzqUwyllswGL9mlpp_WjkWGEmCYkJwH7jpFsOhrTvgdA3vPGOdtkTXCeRnOY7Mt-KA2ElRhHG8_nkI9AKThnB_-7W72B4vC7aRFH0QopYu-8Bd-Ri7CR6Hxa7WRU_pXHNBVM19w" style="text-align:center" />
<h2>4. Use your automation to build consistent value into the customer journey</h2>
On the flip side, the data you collect from your marketing automation initiative can also help you build a more effective content strategy. If it seems like you can never escape the need for high-quality data to be shared among systems it’s because you can’t. Robust data, and the analysis and management of said data, is the fuel that feeds the lead generation and lead nurturing efforts.
Your marketing automation data tells you what kinds of things your leads are interested in clicking on. It shows you what kinds of personalized messages reach them most effectively. And it denotes their exact position in the sales funnel at a point in time.
Once you know these details, you should be able to create a curated experience for them on your website through your content strategy. You can then use your CMS to deliver targeted content that provides them with real-world value, which is the most important factor in the customer’s decision at each stage of the journey.
They are going to ask themselves at every touchpoint if your organization is providing them the value they are searching for, even if they only ask it subconsciously. The ability to deliver specific value is exactly why an effective content strategy is so important, and harmony between email marketing data and your CMS management will only serve to enhance the relationship between the two platforms.
<h2>5. Put your CMS to use as a marketing automation content repository</h2>
If you’ve put in the time and effort to create unique and valuable content to share with your leads through email marketing, then it would be silly to abandon it after a single use. You never know what kinds of value your old content can have in the future; even if it needs to be repurposed or customized for a new subset of buyers, it will still make the process more efficient.
The issue is that marketing automation systems aren’t designed to be content warehouses, and relying on a method such as email client search can be time-consuming and unreliable. Thankfully, you have a CMS in place that can act as a content repository for everything you create.
Most CMS systems have powerful tools for organizing content, and they make it easy to search and filter in order to narrow down your results quickly. When you need access to quality content that you know provides value to your audience, then you’ll know exactly where to find it.
<h2>6. Collect and analyze micro- and macro-data to refine your strategy</h2>
When it comes to digital marketing tools, certain platforms are more capable of collecting and analyzing either micro-data or macro-data. A good tool should do both, of course, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t strengths and weaknesses at play.
For instance, marketing automation software can tell you exactly how a specific recipient interacted with an email. However, it’s often hard to make broad judgements about the recipients who didn’t open or click through, because there could be any number of root causes for that behavior. Similarly, your CMS can show you the various types of content that are the most popular amongst your users. However, it’s difficult to tell what about a piece of content specifically resonates with one person unless they volunteer that information.
It’s in the marriage of the two systems that the power of data truly shines. When you have access to both micro-data on audience preferences and behaviors, as well as macro-data on content and website performance, then you can create an adaptive marketing strategy that is backed by a commitment to customer value.

6 Ways To Make The Most of Marketing Automation With Your CMS

mike-johnston

dotCMS, a leading-edge, open source Java content management software company, announced that its Board of Directors has appointed <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralph-miller-aa235119/">Ralph Miller</a> as Chief Executive Officer effective October 1, 2017. Miller was also elected to the Board of Directors at dotCMS.
“The timing could not be better for Ralph to become the next Chief Executive Officer of dotCMS. We are at a very exciting inflection point as a software product company and we really wanted someone who could lead us in the next phase of our growth” said dotCMS Co-Founder, Tim Brigham. “Ralph is the type of executive capable of accelerating what we're doing well at dotCMS and disrupting what needs to change. He has a unique ability to combine solid financial oversight, vision and strategy into world-class execution. Ralph will move the company forward with the speed required to capitalize on the opportunities in front of us.”
Mr. Miller was most recently President at Authentic, a leading digital agency based in Richmond, where he was instrumental in guiding the rapid growth of the firm and its acquisition of Create Digital in 2016. 
“When the opportunity came up to run the business, I quickly saw what a good fit it was for me, and having been a partner while at Authentic, I've seen first-hand how unique the dotCMS product is and how the market is shifting towards its particular differentiators,” said Miller. “I am excited and grateful for the opportunity the board of directors has given me. The product is disruptive and we aim to demonstrate to the market that you can have an enterprise-class product that doesn't break the bank in total cost of ownership or mandate the massive amounts of technical development that some of today’s legacy products require.”
About dotCMS
dotCMS is a leading , open source content management system for companies that want innovation and performance driving their websites and other content-driven applications. Extensible and massively scalable, both small and large organizations can rapidly deliver personalized and engaging content across browsers, mobile devices, channels, second screens and endpoints — all from a single system.
Founded in 2003, dotCMS is a privately owned US company with offices in Miami, Florida; Boston, Massachusetts and San Jose, Costa Rica. With a global network of certified development partners and an active open source community, dotCMS has generated more than a half-million downloads and thousands of implementations and integration projects worldwide. Notable dotCMS customers include: TELUS, Standard &amp; Poors, Hospital Corporation of America, Royal Bank of Canada, DirecTV, Nomura Bank, Thomson Reuters, China Mobile, Aon, DriveTest Ontario and ICANN.

dotCMS Hires New Chief Executive Officer

<a href="http://www.acquia.com/?utm_source=pr&amp;utm_medium=newsrls" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Acquia</a> today released two new products to help accelerate digital marketing initiatives. Acquia debuted <a href="http://www.acquia.com/products-services/acquia-journey/?utm_source=pr&amp;utm_medium=newsrls" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Acquia Journey</a>, the company's new solution that makes it possible for every marketing organization to create data-driven customer journeys. Acquia Journey overcomes the false promises of omnichannel engagement, where siloed marketing technologies and disconnected customer data make it impossible for a marketer to automate personalized <a href="https://www.acquia.com/blog/marketers-guide-navigating-customer-journey/12/09/2017/3311066?utm_source=pr&amp;utm_medium=newsrls" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">customer journeys</a>.
Acquia also released Acquia Digital Asset Manager (DAM), a modern digital asset manager designed to centralize all of the creative assets within an organization. With <a href="http://www.acquia.com/products-services/acquia-digital-asset-manager/?utm_source=pr&amp;utm_medium=newsrls" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Acquia DAM</a>, assets are created and approved faster, campaigns are launched sooner, and customers can experience a brand consistently at every point in their journey. Together, Acquia Journey and Acquia DAM represent the latest expansion of the <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products-services/acquia-platform/?utm_source=pr&amp;utm_medium=newsrls" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Acquia Platform</a> to date. They build upon solutions for web content management, <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products-services/acquia-cloud-site-factory/?utm_source=pr&amp;utm_medium=newsrls" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Site Factory</a> for multisite delivery, and <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products-services/acquia-lift/?utm_source=pr&amp;utm_medium=newsrls" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Acquia Lift</a> personalization solutions to make orchestrating the customer experience across touchpoints possible for every marketer.
Marketers are frustrated. They plan stellar campaigns, create high-value content, develop powerful brand identities, and spend precious dollars on marketing and advertising technologies. But when they try to make it all work together in a seamless experience, those promises fall short. Targeted campaigns become spam, data silos keep companies from hitting audiences at the right time with the most relevant offer. Meanwhile, consumers prefer to choose where and when they interact, adding to the challenges for brands vying for attention. This keeps conversion percentages down and puts customer loyalty at risk.
Acquia Journey is built to connect marketing automation with customer profiles and journey maps to solve marketing’s greatest challenge and greatest frustration. Acquia Journey combines a flowchart-style journey mapping tool with unified customer profiles and an automated decision engine. Rules-based triggers and logic select and deliver the best-next action for engaging customers at the right time and place.
“Some would call it omnichannel marketing, others call it journey mapping. We call it the end of wasted time,” said Lynne Capozzi, Acquia CMO. “Orchestrating the customer journey has been the dream of every digital marketer who for years has believed in martech’s promises but struggled with execution. Every marketer drafts the perfect customer journey scenario on a whiteboard. Going from a whiteboard spec to full execution remains elusive for most. Acquia Journey takes whiteboard scenarios and pulls them into software, connecting systems, data, and content to yield highly targeted, contextual customer experiences.”
With Acquia Journey, marketers can plan, test, and put into action a portfolio of personalized campaigns, offers, and communications to visitors based on actions happening in real-time across any channel. These help build customer loyalty and lifetime value by ensuring they receive offers based on context and triggered at the right step in the journey. Digital agencies can drive journey-minded campaign strategies that achieve their goals for customer conversion or engagement. Marketers can now detect and deliver new opportunities across channels, bringing in all points of connection including conversational UIs, social media, and more. With Acquia Journey, marketers gain the freedom to target marketing and advertising precisely to each individual customer’s history, context, and profile.
“Today’s launch is a milestone for Acquia as we expand our focus from content management to data-driven customer journeys,” said Dries Buytaert, co-founder and chief technology officer of Acquia. “We are building on our foundation of open source and cloud solutions, bringing new products to market to help organizations build meaningful relationships with their customers through data-driven, one-to-one experiences.”
Acquia Journey unifies decision logic across systems, touchpoints and channels. Its key capabilities include:
Journey Editor, a digital whiteboard for journey mapping, with which businesses and tech teams collaborate using drag-and-drop tools to plan optimal experiences. Graph Editor and Graph Engine, used to design, configure, and deploy journey graphs for real-time decisioning for offers, actions, and experiences. Profile Manager unifies customer data from websites, CRM systems, email databases, and elsewhere while continually enriching profiles based on historical and real-time behaviors. Journey metrics, which allow users to define and measure key performance indicators and view those metrics displayed directly in the journey map in real time, enabling them to see what’s working and make rapid modifications.
“We're constantly looking for ways to make our marketing more effective, targeted, and engaging,” said Ron Myers, corporate vice president of digital marketing and operations at AMD. “We serve our customers and prospects best when we make the right connections at the right time and place, but disconnected systems can make that challenging. We're adopting Acquia Journey to help address the ever-increasing demands for individualized experiences.”
<a href="https://www.possible.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Possible</a> and <a href="https://www.vml.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">VML</a> are two examples of forward-thinking agencies that are helping their clients solve the challenges of omnichannel marketing.
“Consumers aren’t predictable, but their experience with a brand should be consistent wherever they choose to connect,” said Martin Coady, executive director, marketing technology at VML. “We’re working with Acquia on their next Journey. We want to put into our practice the ability to help our clients seamlessly connect their customer-facing systems and turn individual interactions into a continuous journey.”
“Our clients invest millions building out their customer experience. When the systems they use don’t align and work as one, they risk missing the mark in the messages they send. This is especially true of conversational interactions and voice UI,” said John Cunningham, global CTO at Possible. “We need simple ways to bring martech, ad tech, and customer service systems together. We’re partnering with Acquia to help knock down the remaining barriers that get between brands and personalized, omnichannel marketing. To drive the next-best action, we need insights across all channels and interactions, and Journey helps us do that.”
To learn more visit <a href="http://www.acquia.com/?utm_source=pr&amp;utm_medium=newsrls" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.acquia.com</a> or register for the webinar, “<a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/webinars/customer-journey-orchestration-secret-effective-omnichannel-experiences/?utm_source=pr&amp;utm_medium=newsrls" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Customer Journey Orchestration: The Secret to Effective Omnichannel Experiences</a>.”

Acquia Delivers Solutions for Data-Driven Journey Orchestration and Digital Asset Management

Liferay, Inc., which makes digital experience <a href="https://www.liferay.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">software for enterprises</a>, today announced the immediate availability of <a href="https://wedeploy.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">WeDeploy</a>, a new cloud platform giving developers the infrastructure, services and hosting capabilities required to quickly build, launch and scale their applications.
“With WeDeploy, we’re releasing a platform designed from the ground up to meet developers’ needs for a powerful, intuitive application deployment solution – and one which we believe also empowers any business to get on the fast track toward meeting their digital transformation and customer engagement goals,” said Brian Chan, Chief Software Architect, Liferay.
WeDeploy removes common backend obstacles so that application developers can focus time and resources on the differentiating features of their products. Businesses creating an application need a fast, reliable deployment method. WeDeploy provides easy application hosting through the cloud with just a few lines of code. By leveraging the Docker ecosystem, developers can use WeDeploy’s powerful hosting capabilities to deploy a fully customizable stack with a preferred runtime platform, application server or database.
Additionally, WeDeploy meets the demands of modern apps for a robust infrastructure, significantly reducing time to market of apps. Through WeDeploy, developers have access to intuitive tools and out-of-the-box capabilities needed for today’s applications, such as GitHub integration, automatic traffic distribution, global DNS routing, application monitoring, log management, application health checks and secure data transfers. Moreover, by offering these services through a unified platform, WeDeploy saves businesses from the consistency issues they may face with multiple service providers.
WeDeploy also acts as an all-in-one platform for prepackaged microservices including user authentication, real-time data and email. From third-party authentication through Facebook or Google to real-time content streaming and search capabilities, these plug-and-play services can be easily implemented with intuitive and versatile APIs.
Liferay’s core enterprise solution – <a href="https://www.liferay.com/digital-experience-platform" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Liferay Digital Experience Platform</a> – allows organizations to achieve digital transformation and provide better customer experiences, and WeDeploy is a natural extension of this vision. WeDeploy can serve to unify a business’s customer experiences across all touchpoints, delivering the real-time data needed to make those experiences consistent. WeDeploy’s advantages in the rapid development and deployment of new tools can also improve business operations and customer service, as well as add agility to the execution of a business’s overall digital strategy.
“Our focus is always on improving experiences, whether it’s the experience of a single developer building an application, or making it quicker and easier for enterprises to execute an omnichannel strategy across every customer interaction,” Chan said.
App developers ready to try WeDeploy can get started here: <a href="http://wedeploy.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wedeploy.com</a>

Liferay Launches WeDeploy, a Powerful Cloud Platform for Fast Deployment of Modern Apps

It took me quite a long time to finally figure this out but thanks to some handy guides out there (and some people that are clearly smarter than me) I did.
My issue was that text in fields was barely visible:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/how_to_fix_dark_theme_issues_with_firefox_in_linux.png" />
To fix this, in your home folder, navigate to:
<code>~/.mozilla/firefox/&lt;profile directory&gt;/</code>
Note: the profile directory will usually be a random set of letters and numbers such as zee4bhai.default or similar. Enter this directory and check to see if you have a /chrome folder. If not, create it with mkdir chrome and enter it.
Now create a new file called userContent.css like so (subbing out your preferred editor of course):
<code>nano userContent.css</code>
Paste the following into the file and save:
<pre><code>input { border: 2px inset white; background-color: white; color: black; -moz-appearance: none !important;}textarea { border: 2px inset white; background-color: white; color: black; -moz-appearance: none !important;}select { border: 2px inset white; background-color: white; color: black; -moz-appearance: none !important;}input[type="radio"],input[type="checkbox"] { border: 2px inset white ! important; background-color: white ! important; color: ThreeDFace ! important; -moz-appearance: none !important;}*|*::-moz-radio { background-color: white; -moz-appearance: none !important;}button,input[type="reset"],input[type="button"],input[type="submit"] { border: 2px outset white; background-color: #eeeeee; color: black; -moz-appearance: none !important;}body { background-color: white; color: black; display: block; margin: 8px; -moz-appearance: none !important;}</code></pre>
Now restart Firefox and you should be good to go!
Happy browsing!
Mike

How to fix dark theme issues with Firefox in Linux

Apart from starting to offer its solution to end customers worldwide, <a href="https://www.payrexx.com/?ref=prus">Payrexx </a>is also available as a white label solution for financial institutions, different types of business software providers and large enterprises that are looking to offer innovative epayment and ecommerce solution for their own customers.
Vision &amp; Mission
The vision of Payrexx is to allow anyone regardless of knowledge and funding to accept online payments and sell physical goods, services and accept donations. According to the internal research, more than 50% of today’s employees are launching their own small business on the side. Since they are very limited in terms of time and resources to set up a complex e-commerce solution, a simple and quick solution to set up is a must for them. With Payrexx, freelancers and sme’s can accept their first online payment within 5 minutes and without any IT background, thanks to its user-friendly and innovative ecommerce tools such One Page Shop, Virtual POS and <a href="https://www.payrexx.com/?ref=prus">Business Paylink</a>. The whole onboarding process happens online as well.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/social_media_selling.jpg" />
Social Media Selling Social media has become an important sales channels for many small businesses since it allows to catch the potential customers in a relaxed mindstate, which dramatically increases conversion rates since relaxed customers are less expense-sensitive. With Payrexx, social media selling is further simplified because One Page Shop tool can be easily shared and appears beautifully on a social media timeline. Once the customer clicks on a One Page Shop link, a simple page with products and payment details opens letting the customer to select the articles and proceed with the payment on one page instead of getting forwarded to a complex online shop.
Customers base, partners and pricing Company customer base proves that Payrexx is a truly universal payment solution fulfilling the needs of any company starting from such as Adidas and Sixt and ending at individual entrepreneurs &amp; freelancers.
Apart from the remarkable customer range Payrexx also partners with worldwide leading payment providers such as Stripe &amp; PayPal as well as important national providers such as PostFinance.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cool_image_20171199x0-is.png" />
Payrexx pricing strategy supports the goal to allow everyone to get started, which is why the service is available for free. Subscription that is suited for medium -and large-size enterprises is priced at 49.- USD/ month and offers the best transaction fees for its users.
<a href="https://signup.payrexx.com/en/?ref=prus">Try Payrexx yourself now</a>. It is totally free and does not require any coding skills!

Payrexx Launches the First One Page Shop Software in the US

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ar_vr_visual_search_0.jpg" />
Nowadays, millennials who grew up with smartphones in their hands are the economic force of our time. As a result, digital technologies are stepping in to take over customer service.
In this article, I will be sharing information about the latest digital technologies such as VR, AR, Voice search, and Image search and their impact on customer experience along with vivid examples of each.
First, let's talk about the customer experience and why it is so important for businesses. Are some transformations needed here?
<h2>Digital Technologies &amp; Customer Experience</h2>
Customer experience (CX) is not the same as user experience (UX). CX is a broader notion. It represents every step of the journey from when users compare prices to when they try the product, including when they resort to customer service if their needs aren’t met.
The influence of the customer experience should not be underestimated when it comes to a company’s success.
Harvard Business Review writes that organizations that can skillfully manage the entire experience reap enormous <a href="https://hbr.org/2013/09/the-truth-about-customer-experience" target="_blank">rewards</a>. Among them are enhanced customer satisfaction, reduced churn, increased revenue, and greater employee satisfaction.
With the tough competition, customer experience changes tremendously. Only ten years ago customers were happy to see smiling and pleasant sales people and were open and satisfied with being sweet talked.
They were ready to buy products if polite people presented different products. Now, these types of tricks do not work anymore because almost everyone knows that it’s a trick.
When internet banners appeared many companies started to use them as their primary source of marketing, but nowadays people have banner blindness. 54% of users don’t click on<a href="http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/top-reason-users-dont-click-banner-ads-they-dont-want-be-diverted-from-their-current-1504178.htm" target="_blank"> banner ads</a> because they do not trust them, and a whopping 33% of internet users find them <a href="http://downloads.pagefair.com/reports/adblocking_goes_mainstream_2014_report.pdf" target="_blank">utterly intolerable</a>.
The customer’s attention is hard to catch. A <a href="http://advertising.microsoft.com/en/cl/31966/how-does-digital-affect-canadian-attention-spans" target="_blank">study</a> from Microsoft Corp showed that the average person’s attention span has dropped from 12 seconds to 8 seconds. As a result, our attention span is now shorter than that of a goldfish.
New technologies help to attract people to products and build a great experience.
While competitors make vivid product presentations using Virtual and Augmented reality, a company may remain disconnected and lose clients.
<h2>Virtual Reality</h2>
According to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality" target="_blank">definition</a>:
Virtual Reality (VR) – is a digital technology that uses <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality_headsets" target="_blank">Virtual reality headsets</a>, sometimes in combination with physical spaces or multi-projected environments, to generate realistic images, sounds and other sensations that simulate a user's physical presence in a virtual or imaginary environment.
VR is changing the customer experience in such fields as retail, education, healthcare, and others.
The Chinese retail store Alibaba launched a <a href="https://twitter.com/AlibabaGroup/" target="_blank">VR-campaign</a> where customers, with the help of headsets, can visit shopping centers in different countries and buy products they need.
<figure><img title="Click and drag to move" />​<figcaption>Source: twitter.com/AlibabaGroup</figcaption></figure>
Companies in the automobile industry such as <a href="http://www.autonews.com/article/20170123/RETAIL07/301239817/jlr-bringing-virtual-reality-to-showrooms" target="_blank">Jaguar</a>, Volvo, Audi, and others launched virtual showrooms. Viewers can enjoy different destinations from inside and outside of a new automobile with the help of headsets.
<figure>
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<img title="Click and drag to move" /><figcaption>Source: autonews.com</figcaption></figure>
With VR headsets customers can choose the location inside and outside of the car, look around, and perform limited test drives. This technology reduces physical space at stores, travel expenses, and logistics costs while differentiating the customer experience.
VR technologies are also applied in real estate. Customers do not have to drive to another city to find the right estate. Photos within ads usually don’t provide enough information about the property. The technology gives a prospective buyer a “feel” for the property by providing customers with a 3-D picture of the estate or even a virtual tour.
The application of Virtual reality in healthcare has therapeutic value. It may transport clients to a calm beach or silent forest to rest and meditate, or they may enjoy some virtual activities such as swimming, for example, while waiting for treatment.
<figure>
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<img title="Click and drag to move" /><figcaption>Source: medicalfuturist.com</figcaption></figure>
As seen above, Virtual reality can open new horizons for customers. It lets them undergo a unique experience which was unlikely some years ago.
According to <a href="https://www.statista.com/topics/2532/virtual-reality-vr/" target="_blank">Statista.com</a>, the total number of active Virtual reality users will reach 171 million by 2018.
VR provides an opportunity to drive luxurious cars or chose new real estate from home. It also improves job fields such as healthcare and education.
<h2>Augmented Reality</h2>
Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that adds different computer-generated elements such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data to a real-world environment.
AR technology became familiar to many people thanks to the Pokémon Go mobile app. However, since that time, it has found other uses outside of games.
Let’s have a look at how Augmented reality influences the customer experience.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9rf9GmYpM" target="_blank">Pepsi provided</a> an excellent example of the power of AR advertising when they installed digital HD screens on bus shelters to portray events such as a rampaging robot or a prowling tiger using AR technology.
Snapchat is an image messaging and multimedia mobile application that adds funny masks to people’s faces using Augmented reality. This app is very popular. It has 13,364,113 <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.snapchat.android&amp;hl=en" target="_blank">downloads</a> in the Google Play market.
<figure>
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<img title="Click and drag to move" /><figcaption>Source: itunes.apple.com</figcaption></figure>
AR is also used in E-commerce. For example, Gap displays its “DressingRoom” app where people can “try on” clothes without ever entering a store.
<figure>
​
<img title="Click and drag to move" /><figcaption>Source: engadget.com</figcaption></figure>
The Augmented reality market is growing, and the global market for AR products will surge 80% to $165 billion by 2024, according to researcher <a href="https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/augmented-reality-ar-market?utm_source=globenewswire.com" target="_blank">Global Market Insights</a>.
Research firm IDC predicts that 30% of consumer-facing <a href="http://www.investors.com/news/technology/click/advertising-marketing-to-invade-virtual-augmented-reality-in-2017" target="_blank">companies</a> in the Forbes Global 2000 will experiment with AR and VR as part of their marketing efforts in 2017.
<h2>Visual Search</h2>
The Visual search mechanism works by сomparing the pixels in an uploaded image to millions of other images to identify and return results that are similar. Facebook determines who’s in the photo by applying this technology in addition to Google’s image search.
Instead of typing in a query such as ‘black case’ which may return thousands of general results, users can upload an image to narrow it down to something specific.
Visual search is making it much easier for consumers to find exactly what they are looking for.
Here are some examples of how visual search is applied by some companies:
<h3>Amazon</h3>
Amazon <a href="http://www.techrepublic.com/article/amazon-visual-search-integration-will-make-it-even-easier-to-shop-on-the-samsung-galaxy-s8/" target="_blank">introduced</a> a visual recognition mobile app, integrated into the Samsung Galaxy S8, giving consumers the ability to snap a picture of something, search for it online, and then buy it if they want among Amazon's catalog of products.
<figure>
​
<img title="Click and drag to move" /><figcaption>Source: ibtimes.com.au</figcaption></figure>
<h3>Facebook’s face detection</h3>
You may have noticed a square box that appears on everyone's face that lets you tag a person in a picture. Facebook uses a facial recognition software called “DeepFace.” This software calculates a unique number (“template”) based on a person’s facial features such as the distance between the eyes, nose, and ears. DeepFace detects whether two faces in different photos are the same person with 97.25% accuracy, regardless of lighting conditions or angles.
Visual Search makes the life of a customer much easier. Now people can find something that they like with a single click, compare prices, and then buy it if they want.
<h2>Voice Search</h2>
Voice search is a technology that allows users to find what they need on the Internet by speaking on a mobile phone or computer.
Thrive Analytics <a href="http://www.thriveanalytics.com/blog/?p=361" target="_blank">showed</a> that a compelling number of people are using digital personal assistants:
<figure>
​
<img title="Click and drag to move" /><figcaption>Source: moz.com</figcaption></figure>
The report revealed that 56% of adults use Siri, Google Now or Cortana.
These numbers will only rise according to the technology development which will better interpret and understand user’s requests and commands.
The rising interest in voice search pushes brands and companies to take Voice search seriously as it might fit into their customer experience strategies.
Consumers now expect faster, more relevant, personalized, and frictionless experiences. Voice search, powered by machine learning, will play an integral part in how brands go about meeting these expectations.
Some brands are already succeeding in implementing voice search.
Domino's Pizza has<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/markets/article-4729438/Voice-command-Domino-s-pizza-Amazon-s-Alexa.html" target="_blank"> launched</a> an app that allows consumers to order pizza with voice command via Amazon's Alexa, removing the need to go through a menu and click to order their choice.
Thanks to this, the company is increasing the number of channels by which consumers can get what they want.
<h2>Conclusions</h2>
To win at customer experience is becoming harder. The latest technologies such as AR, VR, Visual search, and Voice search have an excellent opportunity to grasp the customer’s attention for a longer period of time and influence their decision towards purchasing a product.
<ol>
<li>Using the latest technologies such as AR, VR, Voice search, and Visual search you provide new ways to connect with customers and offer unique, memorable interactions.</li>
<li>The newest digital technologies are already here. VR can transport customers to wherever they want to go, or it can engage them in super realistic games.</li>
<li>AR now helps people choose what to wear and find out which staff is the most suitable for their home using a single smartphone.</li>
<li>Voice search lets us find things we need without searching by hand, and visual search allows us to find things we like by using a single picture.</li>
<li>Many people are impatient and don’t want to type their query; they would rather ask Google to find everything for them.</li>
<li>To provide customers with the best experience, a company should make the best of itself by using these growing technologies.</li>
<li>Customers are more cautious than ever; they will turn away from brands that don’t align with their values and needs.</li>
</ol>

Digital Technologies That Will Transform the Customer Experience in the Future

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You probably remember the moments in the movies when the girl with whom the main character is in love rejects him for a more beautiful and successful guy.The main character is embarrassed, he cries, and we all feel sorry for him.Does this relate to the world of business? Should anyone in business have the right to take offense at customers who decide to go with more attractive and successful companies?This can happen with any enterprise that delays the development and implementation of new technologies.After all, why should customers stay with an outdated company when they can turn to an enterprise that will make their life much more easy and comfortable?One such technology on which customer satisfaction nowadays depends is called Visual Search.The truth is that not that many CMOs know how useful it is for business, and how it can help their companies remain competitive.In this article, I will share what Visual Search is, how it is applied, and exactly what it can provide for businesses.<h2>What is Visual Search?</h2>Encyclopedias <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_search">will tell you</a> that Visual Search is a type of perceptual task that involves an active scan of the visual environment for a particular object or feature among other objects or features.Simply put, this technology allows a machine to understand what kind of object it is seeing, and to select it from a number of other objects.To clarify, there are some differences between things like Image Search, Reverse Image Search, and Visual Search. Because of the similarity in names, sometimes people confuse them.<ol><li>Image Search is a simple process. You type a keyword or follow a link, and that takes you to the picture.</li><li>Reverse Image Search is very similar to Image Search. You input an image and that leads you to a result that is related to the picture.</li><li>Visual Search is a more complex technology. While image search technology is based on the simplest search algorithms, Visual Search actually imitates the processes occurring in the human brain.</li></ol>The machine parses each image by pixels and performs a comparative analysis at a micro level.Visual search technology is constantly <a target="_blank" href="https://searchenginewatch.com/2016/10/13/the-new-wave-of-visual-search-what-it-can-do-and-what-might-be-possible/">becoming</a> more and more complex, and experts are attempting to get closer to imitating the neural connections of the human brain.When you think about it, our brain performs visual searches every day without much discernible effort.Imagine that you are standing in the street and you need to find a particular building amongst a variety of other buildings. Or you are trying to find a blue sock in a heap of socks of different colors.During this process, neural connections activate, and our brain identifies the necessary object by color, shape or size.This is natural visual search technology in action.<h2>Why This Technology Is Important and Needs to Be Known</h2>Because Visual Search has already had an influence on the world of business and commerce for almost 20 years.Since the realization of how the visual search mechanism works, businessmen have managed to achieve the strongest tool of psychological influence on customers.One of the best examples of this can be found in a book called <a target="_blank" href="https://rampages.us/duboissa/wp-content/uploads/sites/1543/2014/10/Visual-attention-during-brand-choice.pdf">“Visual Attention During Brand Choice”</a> by Rik Pieters and Luk Warlop, both of whom are European scientists and professors of marketing.Pieters and Warlop used eye tracking devices to analyze eye movement and fixations of consumers while they looked at an array of products on a supermarket shelf.They concluded that certain shapes, colors, and sizes of products attract the eyes of consumers, and the more visually distinct a product is from the surrounding products, the more likely the consumer is to notice it.This study confirmed the idea that producers of goods should attempt to alter their product's appearance so that people will be more likely to choose it instead of competing products.The results of research like this have eventually led to an evolution in the world of business. There are now new types of interaction between businessmen and consumers.Because Visual Search is very popular, it continues to develop rapidly, and will remain strong going forward.If we are talking about the technological trends of recent years, then immediately things like Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, or Internet of Things come to mind.Visual Search deserves to be included in this group – this type of technology is rapidly gaining popularity.According to Markets and Markets, the image recognition and visual search market will <a target="_blank" href="http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/image-recognition-market-222404611.html">grow</a> to $25.65 billion by 2019, a growth of 216 percent from $9.65 billion in 2014.Moreover, it has attracted the attention of the largest and most innovative corporations for several years, and continues to do so.Everyone knows the good old Bing search engine from Microsoft.In 2009, the company <a target="_blank" href="https://searchenginewatch.com/2017/07/05/everything-you-need-to-know-about-visual-search-so-far/">experimented</a> with Visual Search within the Bing framework. But it didn't catch on.This year, Microsoft plans to return to Visual Search and make it better and more useful. Source: Bing.com (Bing’s current interface)For example, with the help of Bing’s visual search, it is possible to choose any piece of an interior in the photo of the apartment a user likes, and the search engine will give him or her all the nearest shops where they can buy that item.This video <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=20&amp;v=mRfIPh3sB7A">shows</a> how it works.One of the companies most closely related to visual search technology is Pinterest.In March, they <a target="_blank" href="https://blog.pinterest.com/en/and-you-get-lens-and-you-get-lens-and-you-get-lens">released</a> their new product, Pinterest Lens.Users of the program can direct the camera on their phone to any item; the program will scan it, and provide any useful information connected to it.​Source: blog.pinterest.comThis product has became so popular that the number of Pinterest Lens users <a target="_blank" href="https://business.pinterest.com/en/blog/new-updates-lens-beta-gets-better-and-better">has tripled</a> from April to May.These two companies are not the only ones who are working with visual search technology.Entire articles can be <a target="_blank" href="https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/17/google-lens-brings-ai-understanding-to-assista">dedicated</a> to Google’s work with Visual Search.To conclude, it is safe to say that a great number of companies plan to continue to develop their use of Visual Search because it is beneficial for them and their customers.<h2>Real Life Uses of Visual Search Technology</h2>Let's look at a few specific examples of how Visual Search can help a consumer using large E-commerce businesses.<ul><li>The “Search by Image” option. This feature allows consumers to use image search instead of keywords.</li></ul>​Source: chrome.google.com (Here's how it looks on AliExpress)The introduction of this feature makes the search for products much simpler and more concise.<ul><li>The “You May Also Like” option</li></ul>A very handy feature that shows similar products next to the product that a consumer is currently looking at.The machine reads the visual characteristics of the product and offers similar examples based on external similarity.​Source: lightinthebox.comThere are two advantages to this feature.First: The consumer will always have something to consider for purchase. Second: There will never be a situation where the consumer reaches a “dead end” in a webstore.<ul><li>The “Find Similar” option</li></ul>This feature allows a consumer to ask the program to show him products similar to the product he likes.It also increases customer satisfaction, because the consumer can narrow down his/her search and have a much better chance of locating exactly what they need.Let’s see how it works with a real example.<a target="_blank" href="http://findsimilar.com">FindSimilar</a> is a searching website that offers searches for similar items based on visual search technology.Users can simply put the mouse on the object they like and ask to find similar ones:​Source: findsimilar.comThe program gives users a list of similar items with links to the stores where they can be purchased:​Source: findsimilar.comThere are many additional examples – it depends only on the sphere of an enterprise or CMO’s imagination.How Enterprises Can Benefit From Visual SearchIn the last section of this article, let's discuss in general how companies can benefit from visual search technology.Enterprises can become more competitiveThe first and most obvious advantage that visual search provides is that an enterprise will be ahead of companies still offering people the old text-based search system.According to the “Visual Search: Who Uses It, How &amp; Why?” survey, 74% of consumers <a target="_blank" href="http://slyce.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Visual_Search_Technology_and_Market.pdf">say</a> text-based keyword searches are inefficient in helping them find the right product online.It is logical to assume that if these consumers have a choice between an enterprise offering innovative search algorithms and an enterprise using outdated text-based options, they will choose the former.Of course, if it should be understood that in all other respects these companies are operating on the same level.Visual Search greatly facilitates the consumer search process and shoppers will appreciate any enterprise that makes life easier for them.A survey from Business2Community <a target="_blank" href="http://b2c.news/ZVW6VD">says</a> that consumers process images 60,000 times faster than text.So why should they choose an enterprise that uses slow and outdated search technologies?Enterprises can attract many new customersIt is a fact that most customers search for images to make a purchasing decision, so an enterprise that uses visual search technology will immediately expand its customer base.According to an eMarketer survey, around three-quarters of U.S. internet users regularly or always <a target="_blank" href="https://www.emarketer.com/Report/Visual-Commerce-2017-How-Image-Recognition-Augmentation-Changing-Retail/2002059">search</a> for visual content prior to making a purchase, and only 3 percent do not.Thus, after implementing visual search technology, the company's website might receive all the customers who previously used only the sites of competitors that had already implemented visual search.<h2>Conclusions</h2>CMOs who do not want to get left behind and see potential customers go to competing enterprises should at least familiarize themselves with this technology.Here are the main thoughts of this article:<ol><li>Visual Search allows a machine to understand what kind of object it is looking for, and to select it from a number of other objects.</li><li>Sometimes people confuse the ideas of Image Search, Reverse Image Search, and Visual Search. In reality, these are all different things.</li><li>Visual Search has had a strong influence on the world of business and commerce for almost 20 years.</li><li>We can conclude that visual search technology is trendy, it is developing rapidly, and it is the future.</li><li>This technology can be actively used in E-commerce. Such features as “Search by Image”, “Find Similar”, and “You May Also Like” increase consumer satisfaction by making it easier for users to find the product they want.</li><li>Visual Search benefits enterprises by making them competitive and attracting new customers.</li></ol>

The Ultimate Guide to Visual Search

Today Zoho unveiled Cliq, chat software that blends instant messaging with video, audio, and group conferencing to create a unified communications system for organizations of any size. Available immediately in native, web and mobile versions, Cliq integrates with Zoho and third-party applications to bring relevant data from those applications into the Cliq window, providing chat participants contextual information about the topic being discussed.
“More companies around the world are turning to chat for real-time, internal collaboration,” said Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho Corp. “But sometimes text isn’t enough, and chat software must also be able to handle voice and video communications as well as the documents, images, and other data related to the work at hand. Cliq supports this kind of dynamic, company-wide collaboration. And it provides a degree of future-proofing thanks to its unprecedented extensibility and strong developer community.”
Inside Cliq
Through Cliq, Zoho provides users with real-time messaging between team members and different departments to foster rapid decision making. Files of any format can be shared via the chat window in seconds. Separate channels can be created for individual teams, specific projects, company-wide discussions, and other collaboration. Channels can reduce the need for time-consuming meetings, while still keeping everyone in the loop.
In addition to its messaging capabilities, Cliq raises the bar for enterprise chat with a wealth of built-in features, including: 
Group video calls – Cliq’s unique group video calling feature, PrimeTime, removes the chaos of a normal group video call and lets people take turns speaking to the other video callers. Before they can speak to the group, participants must click the “Request to speak” button, and during the video conference.
Audio and video calls – In addition to PrimeTime, Cliq also supports standard, one-on-one and group calls — both audio and video — which users can start right from their chat window. During the call, users can send texts or share files whether they are using the Cliq native or web application as well as one of the mobile apps.
AI-driven communications administration – Cliq delegates administrative tasks to Zoho’s Intelligent Assistant, Zia. Users can create event and meeting reminders in Cliq, and participants receive reminders before their meeting. Additionally, Zia creates the group chat before the meeting, adds all the participants, reminds them of the meeting, asks them to share files, takes notes, shares minutes of the meeting, and archives the group chat for future reference. 
Zoho and third-party integrations – Cliq works with most Zoho apps, fetches information from the other Zoho apps and lets users view it in their chat window. Additionally, Cliq is available as a chat tool inside other Zoho apps. Cliq also works with popular third-party apps including YouTube, Google Drive, Eventbrite, Crashlytics, and 20 more.
Animated emojis – As part of the Cliq launch, Zoho is rolling out nearly 100 new, animated emojis – Zomojis – that have been created exclusively for Cliq. The Zomojis take animated emojis to a new level with their vibrant color and rich detail.
Cliq for the Developer
Beyond its rich, out-of-the-box functionality, Cliq can easily be extended to support the unique collaboration demands of any organization. It offers a platform built with Zoho's own scripting language, Deluge, which allows users to create chat bots in Cliq and use them to automate internal processes.
Similarly, developers can create integrations for Cliq and publish them in the Zoho Marketplace and charge customers to use them. There will be no server requirements, and therefore no maintenance costs. Zoho does not collect any commission for promoting these integrations to customers.
The company is also open sourcing its library of Zomojis under the GPL v3 license, so the animated emojis can be freely integrated with third-party apps. Zomoji keyboards for iOS and Android will also be open sourced and published on Github.
“Developers can use the Cliq platform and integrate Cliq with any software that has an open API,” said Vembu. “It takes no more than 15 minutes to integrate. Once it’s integrated, Cliq bots and commands fetch information for users when needed. For example, users can check traffic in their area with a traffic bot and Cliq gets you all the info you need.” 
Pricing and Availability
Cliq is available immediately as a web application; a native application for Mac, Windows and Linux; and mobile apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone. In addition to the Free plan, Cliq is available in an Unlimited plan, which starts at $3 per user per month and goes down by volume. Cliq is also included as part of Zoho One. Additionally, it will also be a part of Zoho's Workplace, an integrated suite of productivity and collaboration apps. 
For more information on Cliq, please visit <a href="https://www.zoho.com/cliq" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.zoho.com/cliq</a>. To learn more about Zoho, visit <a href="https://www.zoho.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.zoho.com</a>. For Zoho news, follow the company on Twitter at @zoho and on Facebook at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/zoho" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.facebook.com/zoho</a>. The latest news about Zoho products is available on the company blog, <a href="http://blogs.zoho.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://blogs.zoho.com</a>.

Zoho Announces Cliq - Unified Chat Software

<a href="https://www.myhubintranet.com/intranet-design/"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/intranet-design-1638x0-is.jpg" /></a>
A CMS intranet can be a pain to set up. We’re not all technology experts, and sometimes rolling out a new system is daunting, to the point where we avoid it all together.
MyHub have just released their free guide to <a href="https://www.myhubintranet.com/intranet-design/">designing an intranet</a>, and we’re here to give you the rundown on it. Overall we think it’s bang on, and well worth a read if you’re struggling with implementing a CMS intranet design, or even contemplating the task. Given that our aim is eliminating the feeling you can get when you don’t know where to start, we see this as an awesome guide to help to get going as well as taking you right the way through to launch.
<h2>Why Bother With A Guide?</h2>
So you’ve decided you might want an intranet. Great! You see the value of a connected environment, but don’t understand all the IT jargon. Time is of the essence and you don’t have the hours to read through every piece of information out there. The idea of winning over your CEO and your ground staff, then deciding on what type of intranet, which provider, how to train staff, how to manage content… It’s all a bit much. 
That’s why you need to read this intranet design guide. Setting up an intranet may seem like a very simple task from a high-level perspective, but when you sink your teeth into it, there are complexities to navigate. From SSL to HTML, trying to implement an intranet from scratch can be a daunting project! Instead of going it alone, use the guide as a light for the path. 
<h2>How Can The Intranet Design Guide Help?</h2>
Simplicity is the main reason, written by experts, the design guide takes decades of experience and puts it all in one place, in words normal folk can understand. It’s been written with non-technical staff in mind, as well as time poor executives, so while being comprehensive, it’s all structured in a manner to save you lots of precious time. No weighty jargon, just a practical resource for staff at all levels.
Essentially, the guide ensures your intranet is fit for purpose, from a design, usability and functionality perspective. Instead of spending valuable time and resources on a trial-and-error set up to find out what works for your organization, MyHub’s guide provides you with a tool to look at your organizational issues, and match this with the correct design from day one. The result? An intranet implementation that is smooth, and successful.
Whether you’re introducing an intranet for the first time, or re-doing an existing solution, this guide is a useful resource. Its principles and quick tips mean that regardless of your unique situation, some value is added.
<h2>What Does It Cover?</h2>
Everything you need to know. If it’s related to setting up an intranet, and you need to know it, it’s all covered. From intranet types, through to design, templates and hosting options, you’ll find practical tips and advice to ease the implementation process. Here’s a quick look at a few of the areas touched on:
<ul>
<li>how to get started</li>
<li>planning your intranet</li>
<li>different issues an intranet can solve</li>
<li>hosting options</li>
<li>launch costs</li>
<li>different types of intranet</li>
<li>standard intranet features </li>
<li>intranet design best practice</li>
<li>making the most of intranet design templates</li>
<li>intranet security </li>
<li>best practice examples</li>
</ul>
It’s true, much of this information is already out there on the web. What we like about this guide is that it’s all in one place. Not 14,440,000 different search results.
<h2>Who’s It For?</h2>
If you’re implementing or designing an intranet, this is for you–especially if you’re an executive or manager overseeing the implementation by staff. Saying that, it’s also really useful for the team members who are dealing with all the details. 
It’s clear enough that it could be used by people who’ve never had an intranet before, but doesn’t dumb things down, so if you’ve got some good background knowledge and are looking to revamp your intranet, this could still be useful. The MyHub team aim to show that an intranet doesn’t have to be implemented by IT experts, so it’s a lot more accessible than most intranet guides for non-technical personnel.
<h2>Where Can I Find It?</h2>
The guide is free to download from the <a href="https://www.myhubintranet.com/intranet-design/">MyHub Intranet website</a>. We all know how useful a CMS intranet is, so this will help you begin the process of setting up your company intranet, and participate in the many benefits. Like many others before, you’ll soon find the intranet becomes an indispensable organizational tool.
Included in the guide is a fantastic reference section, linking other useful information, as well as more detail around specific intranet topics such as creating engaging content, governance, performance management and security.
As well as this, there are a range of links to wider intranet issues. From how they can support employee engagement initiatives and improve internal communications, to enhancing opportunities for joint working and collaboration across organizations… The list goes on. This is a great area to spark ideas around maximizing the return on investment for your intranet.
The team at MyHub, are always happy to provide advice and assistance wherever possible. <a href="https://www.myhubintranet.com/book-demo/">Get in touch</a> with them today for an informal discussion about any aspect of the guide or indeed implementing an intranet generally. They’d love to hear from you.

Intranet Design Guide Released & It's Completely Free

<a href="https://www.nuxeo.com/?utm_source=Nuxeo&amp;utm_medium=PR&amp;utm_campaign=Simflofy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nuxeo</a> today announced a strategic partnership with <a href="https://www.simflofy.com/?utm_source=Simflofy&amp;utm_medium=PR&amp;utm_campaign=Simflofy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Simflofy</a>, provider of Content Integration Services. The partnership enables Nuxeo’s customers to intelligently meet their ECM objectives by connecting to content where it lives, whether in legacy Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems or business applications, and removes the cost, pain and risk of content migrations typically associated with ECM implementations. 
“Traditional ECM involves storing all of your content in a single repository. But, enterprises have found that this approach simply doesn’t work and are left with a patchwork of business applications and processes built around different silos. With all those existing applications and processes connecting to content, migrating to a new system represents a huge undertaking,” said Eric Barroca, CEO, Nuxeo. “The partnership between Nuxeo and Simflofy takes a more intelligent approach. Organizations get all the benefits of an ECM system without having to move their content. And, when the organization is ready, they can move their content at their own pace, avoiding the pain of a huge migration.” 
Nuxeo is a complete, cloud-native content services platform that streamlines content-intensive processes by presenting information in context. Nuxeo leverages advanced metadata modeling to ensure that knowledge and case workers only see the information they need, facilitating efficient, informed decisions. Simflofy provides connectivity to a broad range of siloed content repositories, including legacy ECM systems, business and productivity applications, cloud storage and Electronic File Sync and Share (EFSS) solutions. Together, Nuxeo and Simflofy help organizations intelligently achieve their ECM objectives.
“Customers around the world leverage Simflofy to break down silos and consolidate content repositories. We help customers that need to manage billions or even tens of billions of documents, and Nuxeo is the only Content Services Platform we’ve found that scales to the numbers that Simflofy’s Content Integration Server was designed to support,” said Mark Lugert, CEO, Simflofy. “We're excited about working with Nuxeo because it is a modern Content Services Platform, built for the Cloud and the world of big data.” 
About Simflofy:
Simflofy breaks down content silos. Simflofy’s Content Integration Services provides access to content from over twenty different Enterprise Content Management and Electronic File Sync and Share platforms through a single service. Those same Content Integration Services can be used to migrate content from over sixty different ECM, EFSS, email servers and other document platforms. Simflofy was designed to support federations and migrations with billions to tens of billions of documents. Simflofy has customers around the world in various verticals including Finance, Insurance, Manufacturing and Government.
About Nuxeo:
<a href="https://www.nuxeo.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nuxeo</a>, developer of the leading, cloud-native content services platform, is reinventing enterprise content and digital asset management. Nuxeo is fundamentally changing how people work with both data and content to realize new value from digital information. Its cloud-native, hyper-scalable content services platform has been deployed by large enterprises, mid-sized businesses and government agencies worldwide. Customers like Verizon, Boeing, Electronic Arts, and the Department of Defense have used Nuxeo's technology to transform the way they do business. Founded in 2008, the company is based in New York with offices across the United States and Europe. Additional information is available at <a href="https://www.nuxeo.com/?utm_source=Nuxeo&amp;utm_medium=PR&amp;utm_campaign=Simflofy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.nuxeo.com/</a>

Nuxeo and Simflofy Partner to Help Organizations Intelligently Achieve Their ECM Objectives

<a href="http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blueconic.com%2F&amp;esheet=51685495&amp;newsitemid=20170919005188&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=BlueConic&amp;index=1&amp;md5=f5f59d42303e50dd86d2c39d288f392d" target="_blank">BlueConic</a> today announces a free customer data platform (CDP) assessment tool for marketers. The tool, <a href="http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blueconic.com%2Fproficiency%2F%3Futm_source%3Dpress%26utm_campaign%3Dproficiency-assessment-pr&amp;esheet=51685495&amp;newsitemid=20170919005188&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=available+here&amp;index=2&amp;md5=fb716321292a27a83e2691864cb1a6ed" target="_blank">available here</a>, will help marketers understand organizational maturity for implementing a CDP and craft a roadmap for adoption.The $300 million CDP market is growing at an estimated 50% annually, according to the CDP Institute. 
The Institute defines a CDP as a marketer-managed system that creates a persistent, unified customer database accessible to other systems. These systems ingest data from first-party sources such as a company’s website, CRM, point-of-sale systems and mobile apps and differ from data management platforms (DMPs) in their support of real-time data and persistent (longer than 90 days) storage to support omnichannel, personalized marketing campaigns.
CDP distinctions are important because they meet consumers’ expectations of brands and how they want to interact with them. <a href="http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.avaya.com%2Fen%2Fdocuments%2Fthe_autonomous_customer_survey_2013.pdf%3Ft%3D0&amp;esheet=51685495&amp;newsitemid=20170919005188&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=Research+shows&amp;index=3&amp;md5=39d34d581ba17f4191831850a733b8f5" target="_blank">Research shows</a> that nearly 70% of customers expect their data to be shared across channels.
How it works
BlueConic’s CDP assessment tool consists of four questions and should take just a minute or two to complete by a marketer or anyone with a solid grasp on the company’s marketing resources, budget, and technology. The assessment score places organizations in one of three levels of maturity: Experimenters, Accelerators, and Visionaries. Among BlueConic’s customer base, 30% are visionaries, the most mature category. One such visionary is <a href="http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.randallreilly.com%2F&amp;esheet=51685495&amp;newsitemid=20170919005188&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=Randall-Reilly&amp;index=4&amp;md5=bdbfa55f03f99d0530bc45ed5c0c423f" target="_blank">Randall-Reilly</a>, which has so far been able to integrate first, second, and third party data sources at the customer and account levels, enabling new audience discovery for micro-campaigns. “We had this picture of trucking entities across multiple databases and wanted to marry it together in a 360º view, not only for our own marketing but for our advertisers’ business intelligence and CRM purposes as well,” says <a href="http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Fgeoffdeakin%2F&amp;esheet=51685495&amp;newsitemid=20170919005188&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=Geoff+Deakin&amp;index=5&amp;md5=4d41a1120dc2425ca6c2b8ce250e7e14" target="_blank">Geoff Deakin</a>, product director, enterprise solutions, Randall Reilly.
“As marketers derive greater value from customer data modeling efforts and resulting personalization initiatives, the challenge to unify and manage customer data is more pressing than ever,” according to Gartner authors in the July 2017 Hype Cycle for Customer Experience Analytics, 2017. “The customer data platform promises to provide the necessary connective tissue between and among tools in the marketer's stack and help marketers harness and activate their first-party data.”
“We’ve seen marketers’ awareness and knowledge of CDPs skyrocket in 2017,” says Bart Heilbron, Founder and CEO of BlueConic. “But many still struggle with knowing where and how to get started. This assessment is the first step in knowing a company’s actual readiness for a CDP, which then allows us to work together to tailor a roadmap that produces early wins and sets them up for long-term success.”

BlueConic Unveils Free Tool to Help Marketers Determine Readiness for Customer Data Platforms

NodeBB, the Canadian company with the goal of modernizing Internet forums, is proud to announce version 1.6.0 of their software, which features a completely re-written rendering system to dramatically improve performance.
“While our customers have generally been happy with the speed of NodeBB, in our hearts we always knew we could do even better,” says NodeBB co-founder Julian Lam. “This is a complete rewrite of our templating system, a faster engine that allows us to handle twice the concurrent users without any noticeable lag.”
The majority of the template system work was completed by Peter Jaszkowiak, who joined the NodeBB team earlier this year. “Peter's fresh viewpoints allow us to leverage the latest technology only recently made available to end users, in order to better deliver that rock-solid experience we promise to all of our users,” says Lam.
In addition to these performance improvements, NodeBB v1.6.0 features design updates for automated emails such as address confirmation and topic digests, as well as improvements to the IP blacklist functionality to help fight spam. A complete list of updates and fixes can be found on the NodeBB blog at <a href="https://blog.nodebb.org/nodebb-1-6-0-release-faster-rendering-and-prettier-emails/" target="_blank">https://blog.nodebb.org/nodebb-1-6-0-release-faster-rendering-and-prettier-emails/</a>
NodeBB was launched in 2013 as the next evolution in Internet forums. Unlike many older forum systems, NodeBB works perfectly on smartphones and tablets, and provides connections with a range of social web services. NodeBB is also easy to customize for a completely branded experience. “Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have large user bases and have gained a lot of popular attention, but they don't always provide the depth of conversation between consumers and companies that is possible in a community forum environment. We felt that forum software was due for a revival, and apparently lot of people agreed,” says Lam.
NodeBB was the 2014 CMS Critic People's Choice Awards for Best Forum Software, and community members can vote for NodeBB as this year's award winner at https://www.cmscritic.com/awards/2017-web-nominations/

Latest NodeBB release offers 200% speed improvement, better email templates & more

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