Articles - Page 78

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

matt-garrepy

So you've decided that <a href="/why-you-need-document-management-software/" target="_blank">your brand will benefit from having a document management system</a>. That's almost certainly a wise decision.
But adopting a DMS takes more than just installing it or signing up for it. A deployment process needs to take place – an efficient one.
To help you out, here's a guidebook that covers the essentials of deploying any document management system effectively, and with minimal disruption.
<h2>Necessary Questions to Answer Before Document Management System Deployment</h2>
<h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pexels-photo-401201280x734-cropx0y0-is673x0-is.jpeg" /></h2>
If an organization has already gone paperless prior to purchasing DMS, data migration services and structural frame-working of content are enough to deploy a document management system.
However, for organizations that have not already gone paperless, the process becomes lengthier, and it all begins with digitizing all the documents through scanning. Sometimes decision makers within an organization will buy <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/recommended-scanners/">scanners designed to digitize a high volume of documents.</a>
However, the preexisting multi-functional printers that many organizations already possess can also be used if they have the throughput capacity needed to make the scanning process pain-free and quick, but this usually isn’t the case.
Be sure to discuss with prospective DMS vendors what scanning technology best supports their DMS model, as some DMS vendors will usually sell scanners for lower prices than the scanner manufacturer’s MSRP. The increasing number of scanning companies that partner with DMS vendors and other enterprise technology vendors justifies these lower scanner prices.
Furthermore, sometimes scanned images will need de-spotting and other touch-ups before and after uploading them to a document management system. Although these issues typically do not interfere with OCR (optical character recognition) and document search-ability, they may be worth resolving if an organization plans to share this content with clients and customers.
In respect to user accounts, some DMS vendors sell their software under concurrent licensing—which means, for example, that up to 50 users can log in to the system at a given time, but an unlimited number of employees working within the organization may have access to it.
Perhaps the biggest user difficulties that DMS presents are user related, rather than software related. Avoiding these difficulties becomes especially important prior to the stage of DMS deployment.
Is the content structured or unstructured? Where is it stored? What are each document’s retention requirements? Who should have access to this document once uploaded to the document management system? <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/what-is-zonal-ocr/">Zonal Optical Character Recognition</a> answers several of these questions at the deployment stage.
<h2>Choosing the Right Model for Deployment</h2>
Once an organization has chosen a document management system that works best for its benefit and usage priorities, deployment models must be considered, and these deployment models hinge, at least partially, on the preexisting state of the organization’s content and timeline.
If minimal downtime is preferred at implementation, the phased implementation model is preferable, whereas the all-at-once deployment model is preferable for organizations seeking immediate returns on investment.
<h3>Phased vs. All-at-Once Deployment</h3>
Phased deployment is often a smart alternative, and involves implementing the various aspects of the document management system and the files you want to contain within it at different stages, even if buying the entire document management system all at once.
A phased document management system deployment cycle is requisite to any industry using DMS (particularly higher education) that has thicker communication silos often co-occurring with dispersed departments of information (different colleges and departments within a university, for instance).
A phased deployment may also focus on implementing certain aspects of the software in protracted groups, or organizations may implement the entire suite of software features all at once, but separately by department, branch, or office location. However, the latter of these two options can create interdepartmental communication silos within the organization, and these should be accounted for prior to selecting a deployment model.
Although not always necessary, the phased approach is recommended for fast-growing, small to mid-sized organizations and large organizations.
<h3>Localized vs. Dispersed Deployment</h3>
In addition to all-at-once vs. phased deployment options, localized vs. dispersed deployment models must also be taken into consideration. Essentially, whether documents will be scanned and imaged from one location or from multiple locations is an important consideration.
Given the enormity of the document management system market and the fast pace of large organizations’ adoption of the technology, it is much more likely that larger organizations will have offices in numerous areas, and must adopt an organization-wide plan across departments and multiple branches to coordinate the deployment process: Doing so would constitute following a dispersed implementation model.
A localized model would entail scanning everything from one central location, and although small companies with only one office have no other option but localized implementation, large companies must decide between localized and dispersed models, for the larger companies can do either one, but there are benefits and drawbacks to each.
Another prospect for deployment concerns metadata: Organizations must choose whether they will develop their own metadata structure or follow authorities’ suggested metadata structures such as <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/inside/units/bibcontrol/osmc/mccallum.pdf">MODS (Metadata Object Description Schema)</a>.
The longer a metadata model exists within an organization, the more familiar end users will become with it, which will further improve its usability. Therefore, it is important to look at recommended metadata standards like MODS and the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI).
Predicating an implementation model for sustainable and simple metadata structures is important, and this process begins by choosing which verbal identifiers should be assigned to each individual piece of content comprising all of the data and information in an organization—but in a way that makes this information retrievable, memorable, and usable.

Deploying a Document Management System: An eFileCabinet Guidebook

mike-johnston

It's been a great day for Linux geeks (and those of us with <a href="/the-trials-and-tribulations-of-a-distro-hopper/">distro hopping issues</a>) because Canonical has released Ubuntu 16.10 to the public. This version, dubbed Yakkety Yak, is now available for all to download from the <a target="_blank" href="http://ubuntu.com">Ubuntu website</a>.Ubuntu 16.10 will be supported for 9 months until <a target="_blank" href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases">July 2017</a> therefore if you are looking for an OS with long term support, stick with 16.04 for now. Ubuntu 16.10 brings with it the following improvements / changes:<ul><li>MAAS 2.0 delivers robust, highly-available IPAM and bare-metal provisioning</li><li>Hybrid cloud operations with Juju 2.0</li><li>Developer preview of Unity 8 includes desktop, tablet and phone UX convergence</li><li>OpenStack Newton with secure bare metal performance and containers</li><li>Snapd 2.16 delivers apps to a wide range of Linux servers, devices, and desktops</li><li>More than 500 snaps published, with updates directly to end-users from ISVs</li><li>Performance improvements in network and virtualisation for throughput, latency</li></ul>One of the things that Canonical is touting with this release is a sneak preview session of Unity 8 (available if you log out of the desktop and select it before logging in). I'll be honest though, I personally don't like the way it looks or feels but since it's in the early stages, I'm hoping that changes.Here's a quick video showing off the Unity 8 preview: What do you think? Are you impressed / upset / excited for Unity 8? I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments below.

Ubuntu 16.10 now available to download

<a href="https://mautic.com/" target="_blank">Mautic</a> is the totally free, open source, and cloud-hosted marketing automation system that packs all the features of an enterprise-grade marketing suite.
Although, that's probably because Mautic is an enterprise-grade marketing suite.
Mautic Cloud is the free flavour on offer, while their premium package – Mautic Cloud Pro – gives brands more freedom when it comes to the number of records, marketing emails, and user seats that they can make use of.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/unnamed_4.jpg" />
Here's an overview of what <a href="https://www.mautic.org/blog/developer/mautic-2-2-in-good-company/" target="_blank">Mautic 2.2</a>, the latest version, brings to the table:
<ul>
<li>
Dynamic Email Content: Mautic 2.0 brought dynamic email content, but now you can further personalize your emails with ease.
</li>
<li>
Account Based Marketing: With the ‘Companies’ feature, you can now jump on the Account Based Marketing bandwagon by connecting people together in the context of a company.
</li>
<li>
Email Recency/Frequency: Yet more tools to show your contacts that you value their time and attention.
</li>
<li>
Update to Forms: The Mautic form experience has been vastly improved with themes and more.
</li>
<li>
New Plugins: Two new plugins accompany this release – one for Gmail and one for MS Outlook.
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Account Based Marketing &amp; Dynamic Email Content</h3>
One of the most vital elements to B2B marketing is the ability to connect people together in the context of a company. Mautic has created a new entity called ‘Companies’ to help brands do this.
Now, every contact will be associated to a Company and users will have an all-company view of their contacts. This means that marketers will be able to see all contacts associated with a company, as well as create filters and trigger actions based on company criteria. This allows marketers to focus on nurturing, analyzing and converting a targeted group of accounts (or Companies) and implement Account Based Marketing practices. No more contact confusion.
As for dynamic email content, this was introduced with Mautic 2.0 – but now there’s more.
Users now have the ability to vary content in their email based on filters. Instead of creating multiple emails for slightly different messages, users can now save time by creating one email and can insert variations of content into the email! This means that at the time the email is sent, the content will become dynamic. Now that's what you call personalization.
<h3>Update to Forms &amp; Email Recency/Frequency</h3>
The Mautic form experience has been vastly improved with themes that can be applied quickly and easily. Additionally, the results of a campaign form can be sent to a specified email address to help teams analyze the good and the bad.
Syncing data between contact fields and forms has also been upgraded. Changes made to contact fields can now be easily written to forms, and values from a form can be transformed and written to contact fields. You can also further personalize thank you pages using tokens, and page breaks have also been added, making long forms more achievable.
For contacts subject to frequency limits, emails sent to them are now put in a queue to send once the limit timeframe has passed. With Mautic 2.2, marketers can now specify the priority on their marketing emails to help prevent backlogs, ensuring important messages are sent in a timely, and respectful manner.
<h3>New Gmail &amp; MS Outlook Plugins</h3>
Mautic has also announced two new plugins that are coming very soon.
First up will be the Mautic Gmail plugin. It will be a Chrome and Firefox plugin that will reveal timeline data from Mautic right in the user's browser. Also, when writing an email to a contact, the email can be tracked and written to the contact’s timeline in Mautic by clicking a checkbox.
Mautic's MS Outlook plugin is the second plugin in the pipeline, which will allow emails sent from Outlook to be written to and tracked in Mautic.
It looks like both plugins will be free, so that's not too shabby on either front.
To find out more about Mautic 2.2, check out the <a href="https://www.mautic.org/blog/developer/mautic-2-2-in-good-company/" target="_blank">official announcement</a>.

Mautic 2.2: Account Based Marketing and Email Plugins

Acquia, the Drupal digital experience company, has announced some powerful new capabilities for <a href="https://www.acquia.com/acquia-lift" target="_self" rel="noopener noreferrer">Acquia Lift</a>, their personalization platform.
Thousands of brands trust Acquia to handle their web presences and their digital experiences, including the BBC, Cisco, Stanford University, and the Australian Government.
Lift is Acquia’s SaaS solution for creating personalized and contextual digital experiences and is designed for customers to take advantage of personalization faster than ever before. It allows organizations to deliver personalized experiences in Drupal, as well as in any other digital platform.
With this new update, Acquia Lift now includes a simplified card-based, drag-and-drop user experience with the capability to access, unify and personalize content across Drupal and other digital platforms.
Marketers can get started fast by collecting profile data and gaining insight into buyer segments. Lift’s embedded syndication hub unifies content from across these platforms, transforming what was once a labor-intensive and duplicative effort.
With the ability to target prospects and customers in real time, marketers are able to adapt to audience behavior, driving faster conversions and bottom-line results.
<h2>Acquia Lift's New Features</h2>
<ul>
<li>A new card-based, intuitive UI with drag-and-drop content targeting</li>
<li>Merging anonymous and known visitor profiles</li>
<li>Enterprise CMS integration and content syndication from any source</li>
<li>Turnkey integration with Drupal 7 and Drupal 8</li>
<li>Real-time, adaptive segmentation</li>
<li>Behavioral targeting and A/B testing</li>
</ul>
In today's world, a personalized journey throughout a website or app is something that consumers expect by default. Acquia Lift has been known to deliver such experiences before this update, but I think the new user interface will go a long way to helping marketers craft evern better journeys for their customers.
<h2>“Lift Elevates Personalization”</h2>
Because Lift isn't Drupal-specific, brands can leverage this flexibility to capitalize on their existing technology investments and build on what they have. Javascript tags and flexible APIs make Lift easy for the IT team to implement, while an intuitive interface puts the keys into marketers’ hands to orchestrate their organization’s personalization initiatives.
Christopher Stone, Acquia's chief product officer, gave his insights into the newly updated Lift:
<blockquote>“Lift elevates personalization for every organization. Going well beyond the world of A/B testing and experimentation, Lift empowers digital teams to deliver holistically crafted experiences in real time. It’s a game changing cloud solution that redefines and simplifies the user model while providing delivery at global scale.”</blockquote>
To learn more about personalization with Acquia Lift visit <a href="https://www.acquia.com/acquia-lift" target="_self" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.acquia.com/acquia-lift</a>. Plus, check out the pre-recorded webinar, <a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/webinars/unifying-content-data-why-context-future-digital-experiences" target="_self" rel="noopener noreferrer">“Unifying Content + Data: Why Context is the Future of Digital Experiences”</a> at <a href="https://www.acquia.com/events" target="_self" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.acquia.com/webinars</a>.

Acquia Lift Gets New User Experience and Personalization Capabilities

Web portals offer a broad spectrum of valuable services to different groups of people your organization interacts with including:
<ul>
<li>Customers and prospects</li>
<li>Employees and prospective employees</li>
<li>Investors</li>
<li>Partners</li>
<li>Members</li>
<li>Volunteers</li>
<li>And more!</li>
</ul>
Each of these groups have different reasons to learn about your products, services, and company history. It’s great to train these people so they are more knowledgeable about what you do and who you are. Self-service CRM portals have the added value of delivering context-specific training content, while keeping track of their progress, and the effectiveness of the content itself.
Here are some effective ways your company could be getting more value out of your web presence, while educating the members of your stakeholder communities.
<h3>Product Training</h3>
It would be great if you could deliver every customer training session in person, but the realities of availability and travel logistics makes that nearly impossible.
Online training is available 24/7, ensures consistent, current content and costs are limited to the time and resources related to building the content. Having a common training platform between your customer portal and your learning management system makes authentication easier, and helps you extend your brand into your learning content. If you have a subscription-based service, product training can ensure adoption of your offering, and help to grow your customer relationship.
If you integrate your LMS and your self-service portal site into CRM, you can keep track of the courses your customers have completed, collect feedback on the content, and create certification programs on your site. <a href="https://elearningindustry.com/gamification-for-corporate-training-8-questions">Gamification</a> is a great incentive to make online training more engaging, and you can keep track of training points for digital or physical incentives.
<h3>Employee Onboarding and Ongoing Certification</h3>
For new employees, getting up to speed on workplace culture, organizational hierarchy and policies can be difficult to take in all at once. Having the content available for an employee to complete on their own time is a great use of your intranet! For HR matters, acceptable use policies, or standard operating procedures, online training is a great way to make sure training content is available in the office, to mobile employees and for access outside of working hours.
Just as with customer product training, deploying an online learning program on your portal is a great way to deliver a repeatable curriculum to your employees. If you’ve set up HR processes in your CRM system, you can track course completion, have employees sign off on required training courses, and generate reports on which parts of your organization have completed their required training. Further, you can set up role-based training access based on job types, seniority and other criteria. If your company has to comply with industry standards for safety training courses like WHMIS, a CRM self-service employee intranet is a powerful way to do it.
<h3>Learning Communities and Portals</h3>
Online learning is a great way to help employees prepare for in-class training, conference training, and to receive follow-up materials after learning in the “physical realm”.
Let’s say you are a <a href="https://www.magentrix.com/solutions/healthcare">medical association</a> with a group of specialists that want to keep in touch with each other, and share ideas on the topics related to your association’s products and services. An online learning community, with news feeds, <a href="https://www.magentrix.com/products/features/forum?src=customer">forums</a> and other <a href="https://www.magentrix.com/products/customerportal">collaboration opportunities</a> is a great way to maintain relationships with your members, and help to cultivate relationships among members who meet each other at your association’s meetups.
A social eLearning platform is a great way to extend collaboration and information sharing beyond the parameters of a course and related testing.
<h3>Maintaining Digital Assets and Protecting Intellectual Capital</h3>
If training is an important part of your company’s revenue stream, you can ensure customers always have access to the latest content as long as they are entitled to it as a paid member. A self-service CRM portal helps you send out targeted e-mail blasts with landing pages related to the training. Tracking web content performance on courses can help to monitor which topics are most popular, and what courses may not be worth keeping in your course catalog.
A secure CRM web portal with e-commerce functionality allows customers to register and pay online, and you can track transactions online with relative ease. If a member or customer should no longer be entitled to certain materials, it’s simple to change a user’s permissions by role or status.

Enhancing Self-Service Portals with Online Learning Content

<a href="/strikingly-websitebuilder">Strikingly</a> is a one-page website builder that I have long been an admirer of. In fact, I included it in my list of <a href="/top-25-cms-to-watch-in-2016/" target="_blank">25 CMS to watch in 2016</a>.
Over the last year or so, they have released <a href="/introducing-strikingly-4/" target="_blank">Strikingly 4</a> and followed it up <a href="/strikingly-custom-colours-html/" target="_blank">with updates</a> to bring about features like the ability to switch templates without losing content, custom colors, more page blocks, and the ability to blog via their ‘Simple Blog' page block.
But now, they’ve enhanced that blogging functionality with an array of features – and I think it’s the kind of move that other content management systems need to mimic.
Here's what they did:
<h2>Blogging With Strikingly</h2>
<a href="/strikingly-websitebuilder">Strikingly</a>’s new blogging features makes it easy for webmasters and bloggers to grow an audience.
Firstly, their ‘Simlpe Blog' feature allows you to write, edit, and publish blog posts in-line, from within Strikingly's interface. Then, built-in blog categories help you organize your content, while the archive page boosts post discoverability.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/unnamed706x0-is.gif" />
Once you publish a post, you can easily push your new content across your marketing channels and contact list by connect to your Gmail, sharing to Twitter, and posting on Facebook – all within the window that pop-ups up when a new post goes live.
And most recently, Strikingly have released a feature that lets your readers subscribe to your blog via email, putting you in a better position to market and re-market to your target audience.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/unnamed671x0-is.png" />
Is it a world-beating blogging solution? No. But it's certainly good enough to give novice website builders and small businesses a fighting chance in the content marketing scene.
And, it's a lot better than some of the other blogging features found on other website builders and even fully fledged CMS – if they even have such features, that is.
<h2>Blogging Is Vital</h2>
Why do I think these blogging features are so relevant, you ask?
Because it’s those same novice website builders, entrepreneurs, and SMBs (Strikingly’s target markets) that so desperately need this approachable avenue into content marketing, which is now considered to be the best form of internet marketing. It just makes sense.
With that being said, I remain baffled as to why more CMS and website builders don’t offer a native blogging feature. Relying on WordPress to fill the gap won’t cut it, guys.
I, for one, am pleased that Strikingly has recognized that.

Strikingly Is Taking Blogging Seriously (And Why That's Vital)

A truly good Document Management System will do more than just manage files and media assets. It will also play an active role in the regulatory system that's engrained into most office workflows.
Here's how a strong DMS achieves that.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/compliance_image507x0-is.jpg" />
<h2>1. It Unifies Authorities’ and Organizations’ Compliance Objectives</h2>
Since the beginning of the millennium, compliance and regulatory requirements have become a particularly difficult territory to navigate, especially in relation to the public use of the Internet, the mobile means of accessing the Internet, and the increasing specificity of compliance standards by industry.
As illustrated throughout this post, many document management system features, when considered in tandem with the laws relevant to industries that can benefit the most from use of this technology, share a symbiotic relationship—one where DMS upholds, simplifies, and ensures compliance inasmuch as the law is written to accommodate the proliferation of the document management system and similar enterprise technologies.
In analyzing this relationship, it becomes clear that various authorities overseeing an array of industries are advocates of document management system use because it generally simplifies, ensures the accuracy of, and expedites compliance processes. However, merely scanning and uploading content to a document management system will not always ensure compliance; sometimes it requires adaptation from either the DMS vendor or the organization using DMS itself.
<h2>2. It Automates Effective Content Retention &amp; Deletion Schedules</h2>
For content and other files needing retention schedules a decade in length or longer to ensure compliance, DMS becomes particularly imperative—especially for organizations worried that storing documents physically (in filing cabinets and folders) will result in damage and spotting to the documents over time, which is usually the case for <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/legal-document-management-software/">document management in the legal industry.</a>
For these organizations and content requiring lengthy document retention schedules, compliance becomes mission-critical yet is stymied without a document management system, because the risk of losing these mission-critical documents increases significantly, as does the time spent retrieving them. The individuals who store them are more likely to forget where they have been placed over time without using DMS, no matter how logical or coherent the traditional data and information storage system may be, especially since most file structures let their users name files in an arbitrary manner.
Given the increasing amount of legislation in many industries throughout 2016, including the increase in the rate of data breaches in organizations not using DMS within the past several years, DMS becomes the means by which increasing legislative demands can be met with poise, ease, and confidence.
<h2>3. The Document Management System Prevents Data Breaches Worldwide</h2>
Internal data breaches (ones conducted by employees who work for the organization) are becoming increasingly common, and now account for more than half of all data breaches.
Therefore, in order to ensure maximal use of DMS’s security features on an internal basis, it is important to remember (because many organizations forget) to apply appropriate user permissions within an DMS to ensure information security, as external auditors can penalize companies for merely letting certain employees within an organization view specific documents and content—especially if these documents and content contain sensitive client or customer information.
Using a <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/securedrawer/">document management system client portal</a> that transcends the breach-susceptible aspects of email via bank-grade, SSL encryption is usually the safest bet for file sharing.
<h2>4. Document Management System Metadata Simplifies and Expedites Compliance</h2>
Although metadata mostly pertains to content retrieving and content search-ability within a document management system, it has another application of legal relevance: classifying data for legal purposes in audits and making the data retrievable by those who are responsible for conducting audits—whether on an internal or external basis.
In order to classify and metatag files compliantly, the metatags must be traceable and contain accurate depicters of the content. Otherwise, an auditor may view incommensurate meta-tagging as an attempt to circumvent e-discovery associated with the auditing process.
Carl Wise of the <a href="http://www.aiim.org/wpfd">Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM)</a> elaborates on the issue:
<blockquote>
“Your content will be a stand-in for information regarding important transactions and internal processes from the auditors’ perspective.
So the metadata included in the taxonomical classification of your information should include the people involved in the activity or transaction, the nature of the activity or transaction itself, the outcome of the activity or transaction, and reference to any other important, and or related records.”
</blockquote>
Visit eFileCabinet’s website to <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/what-is-a-document-management-system/">learn more about its document management system.</a>

4 Ways a Document Management System Simplifies Compliance

Power your CMS on AWS

Manage your websites & apps in the most trusted cloud.

#ffffff

So I'm a big fan of IndieGoGo and Kickstarter. I tend to back interesting projects all the time and one such project was something I thought sounded promising, the <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cowatch-the-most-affordable-high-end-smartwatch-fashion-technology#/" target="_blank">CoWatch</a>. I recently received and decided to share my experiences with everyone in this CoWatch Review.
Here's the video that, sadly, convinced me to back this device:
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vf2S4-2-H1g?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The <a href="http://imcowatch.com/" target="_blank">CoWatch</a> (not cow watch, although that would have been pretty funny) is a device that is powered by Cronologics OS (some kind of weird Android based OS that should have just been called “dumbed down Android”). The watch comes with a metal strap that is difficult to adjust and feels cheap and rough on the skin. It's claim to fame is the integration with Alexa (which is spotty and not at all useful in Canada, where I am located).
According to the CoWatch website:
<blockquote>
“When you look at your CoWatch, the intuitive Cronologics Watch-Like UI shows you the information you need to see the most in a traditional but efficient watch-like interface, it even allows quick access to various watch apps right from your fingertips. Pair your CoWatch with your favorite mobile phone and unlock the full flexibility and power of the iMCO Hardware and Chronologics OS. CoWatch is compatible with both your iPhone (iOS v9.0 and above) or Andriod Phone (v5.0 and above).”
</blockquote>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/img_00000_burst20161008113611_cover551x0-is.jpg" />
That's pretty funny because when I personally look at what they consider an intuitive interface, I expect to be able to touch the icons and have the watch respond. Unfortunately, that's not how this smartwatch is supposed to work. You have to either push the side button (but not too long or you'll launch Alexa) to enable the screen (which takes far longer than it should to respond) OR you can furiously smack the screen with your finger (should be a double tap but that only works some of the time and only if your double taps are timed JUST right.. hint.. double tap quickly). Oh and also, the screen timeout is super quick so if you wake the screen and don't touch it within a second or two, expect to wake it again as it quickly slips back into sleep mode.
To launch Alexa, as mentioned, you have to long press the side button. Setting up Alexa for the first time was a weird experience, during the set up process of the watch, I was asked in the CoWatch app to setup Alexa, which launched a browser window on my phone and prompted me to authorize CoWatch by signing into Amazon. Why was this weird you ask? Well mostly because I had to do this something like 3-4 times before the notification finally cleared and the watch responded. In fact, I still get these “Setup Alexa” notifications in the CoWatch app randomly and then they disappear as soon as I hit the Setup button even though I've already set it up numerous times.
Ok, I've authorized Alexa and paired the watch with my phone. I should be good to go now right? Nope. Launching the Alexa app will fail and ask you to login (or at least for me it does) because you apparently have no internet connectivity enven though you are paired to your watch. Even if your phone is connected to Wifi, your watch isn't “smart” enough to make use of this, instead it will ask you to enable bluetooth tethering on your phone. Wait.. isn't this thing already connected to your smartphone with bluetooth? Why yes it is but hey, CoWatch forgot to enable internet over bluetooth by default so now you have to enable bluetooth tethering every time you leave the house and suck your watch (and phone) battery dead. Yep, they must have paid their engineers extra for that spectacular “feature”. Even when connected , however, Alexa will still fail most of the time because of a processing error. Your watch also isn't smart enough to connect to the same Wifi your phone is connected to, unliked Android and Apple watches, but instead you must manually connect to Wifi directly on the watch. So in a nutshell, the one killer feature of this watch, the Alexa integration, is generally useless unless you are at home or bluetooth tethered and lucky enough to not get a “processing” error. I was told by support that because Alexa is a cloud service, bluetooth tethering and / or Wifi are necessary and while the bluetooth tethering does have an “activate only when needed” option, it ends up making Alexa so slow that even if I could get it to work, it wouldn't be any quicker than simply saying “Ok, Google” and my query.
As mentioned, the key feature of this watch is supposed to be it's integration of Amazon's Alexa, the smart assistant akin to Siri on the Apple Watch. What they don't tell you is that outside of the US (or at least in Canada, I can't speak for the rest of the world) Alexa is pretty useless. So useless in fact that even their support doesn't realize how useless it is. In back and forth emails with support, I was told to “download the Amazon Alexa app and configure Alexa” but in Canada, this app is not available in the Google Play store. I was then told to configure my settings via the web at http://alexa.amazon.com but again, all of the settings only accept US addresses and nothing is available for Canada.
So with the default settings, when I finally did get Alexa to work, I asked for the weather and was given the weather in Seattle. That's great, except I live in Edmonton, Canada, nowhere near Seattle and considering there's nowhere on the watch to set my geography, nor can I use any of the configuration tools to specify Canada, that's not very helpful. I'd have expected Alexa to use the details in my Amazon account to know where I live, but it didn't. To get my local weather I have to specifically request the weather in Edmonton, which then works. From what I have figured out, this is also the issue with the Alexa specifically so not watch specific but still super annoying and something I would have liked to have been told BEFORE backing the watch. When I asked for the news, Alexa replied with “Here's your flash briefing. In NPR news from Tune-in” followed by nothing. Huh, I guess nothing is happening. Anywhere. At all. Good to know. As you can tell, Alexa is immensely useful to me and I use it frequently to reassure myself that the world is at peace and nothing is going on I need to know about.
The watch also has a built in heart rate monitor sensor with a vibro motor. What is a vibro motor? I have no idea nor do I understand why they felt the need to tell us it had one. Also, that heart monitor? It “monitored” my heart for 5 minutes without giving me a reading, it must have sensed my rage or couldn't count how fast it was beating). It's also apparently dust and water resistant and since I almost threw it in the toilet, that's good to know. I'll apparently have to use a hammer if I want to truly rid myself of this device.
Other features of this watch include: Alarm, Alternate Timezone, Calendar, Music Bluetooth Control, Notifications, Step Counter, Stopwatch, Timer, Weather, Speed Dial, and If-This-Then-That (IFTTT) Integration. Some of the apps work fine but the watch disconnects so frequently from my phone that most of the time I just give up and use it instead.
Notifications do come through and I can dismiss them by swiping to the right but I can't reply to emails or texts so it's basically just a notification device. To access notifications, you have to swipe down from the top. They look like this:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/img_20161008_123550551x0-is.jpg" />In some emails from Support, I was told that I could enable tilt so that I could view notifications when the watch vibrated simply by tilting my wrist. Even following all of their instructions, this did not work once. Not after a reboot, not after an update, not after a factory reset. Not one time.
There's also a settings menu which you can access from swiping up from the bottom.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/img_20161008_113632551x0-is.jpg" />
Within it you can access volume, battery level, put the watch in airplane mode (don't worry, most of the time it's not connected to anything anyway, so it's kinda like being in airplane mode permanently and yes, that is sarcasm) as well as settings and connectivity options.
That's about it. If you can't tell (which would be remarkable) I don't like this watch. The band feels scratchy and cheap to the touch, the watch is not very responsive to touch actions, it doesn't stay connected and it doesn't do me much good here in Canada whereas my Android Wear Huawei Watch does. I've gone through a ton of smartwatches since they came out. I've used all of the Pebble Watches, I was one of the first to buy and use an Apple Watch, the Samsung Gear S2 and I've had numerous Android Wear watches. My current favourite is the Huawei Watch which absolutely is night and day the best thing on the market. This watch, not so much.
Since I am clearly not a fan, I've decided to give it away to one of you. If you've made it this far and think this watch might be useful for you, then please leave a comment below letting me know why you should win it. I'll pick one (un)lucky winner at random and ship this feat of modern technology your way. I take no responsibility, however, for the watch or it's poor performance NOR do I know if it has a warranty of any kind since I'm now giving it away. Once it leaves here and gets to you, it's your problem. I will send it in the original box, undamaged and with the original stuff and charger. Again, don't complain if you hate it. I couldn't have warned you more if I tried.
*As a quick side note and in fairness to CoWatch, they did work hard to try to help me get this watch working but that doesn't excuse the issues. While I do appreciate their support and consider it very good and responsive, you can't fix the unfixable so sadly, none of my issues could be resolved.

CoWatch Review - Not a Very Smart Watch So We're Giving it Away!

After the <a href="/ez-conference-day-one-cms-is-alive-digital-transformation-is-tricky/" target="_blank">success of day one</a>, day two of the eZ conference kicked off with an interactive presentation hosted by Yann Gourvennec, the CEO of Visionary Marketing.
Throughout his talk, he asked the crowd a series of questions directed at the IT and marketing teams within most modern organizations.
The audience got to cast their votes for each question via a website accessible by short URL or QR code, with separate URLs being provided for Team IT and Team Marketing in order to compare the answers coming out from the two camps. The answers were presented as they came in via pie chart on the big screen.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/img_6514577x0-is.jpg" />
It was certainly different, and it was cool to see what the audience was thinking in real time – even if there were far more IT guys than there were marketers!
<h2>Content &amp; Commerce</h2>
Later on in the day, Roland Benedetti, the Chief Product &amp; Marketing Officer at eZ Systems, opened up the discussion of eZ Systems bringing together content and commerce.
He stressed that eZ was all about content – and although it has been used as a framework in order to build stellar online selling solutions for big brands – eZ didn't want to focus too much on churning out eCommerce features.
It simply isn't their field, and they're showing intelligence by sticking to their strengths.
<blockquote>
“<a href="https://twitter.com/eZSystems">@eZSystems</a>‘ focus is:
• Content management • Content personalisation • Content delivery”
– <a href="https://twitter.com/rolandbenedetti">@RolandBenedetti</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ezConf2016?src=hash">#ezConf2016</a>
— CMS Critic (@cmscritic) <a href="https://twitter.com/cmscritic/status/784004905153560576">October 6, 2016</a>
</blockquote>
During the breaks, I was back to my finger foods and games. <a href="/ez-conference-day-one-cms-is-alive-digital-transformation-is-tricky/" target="_blank">Yesterday it was Candy Crush</a>, but today, I got to play Super Mario Bros between sessions. A proper classic.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mario446x0-is.png" />
As the event went on, I also got to learn a little more about the evolution that eZ Systems has undergone over recent years. They've moved on from being that software company that only has content publishers for clients. Instead, they have branched out into various verticals, and now boast clients like BMW and the European Space Agency.
So, it's still all about content, but that doesn't mean it's all about content publishers.
I managed to grab eZ's Roland Benedetti for a chat on this subject after he delivered his presentation. I'll be sharing the full interview with you guys at a later stage.
<h2>A Belter from Paul Boag: Defining Digital</h2>
To bring the two-day event to an close, Paul Boag of <a href="https://boagworld.com/" target="_blank">BoagWorld</a> – a renowned public speaker and consultant – delivered the closing keynote. He was enthusiastic about digital transformation, and he addressed some of the more real problems surrounding the struggle that most traditional businesses face when it comes to embracing digital.
He spoke about how going digital involved far more than just embracing technology, and then asked us if we could actually define ‘Digital' if we really had to. Nobody gave him a solid response.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/img_6529469x0-is.jpg" />
<blockquote>
‘If it [Digital Transformation] was just about the technology, we would all be sorted by now. But it’s not about the technology, it’s about the impact of the technology.’ – Paul Boag
</blockquote>
He said some pretty profound things, and he left us thinking about digital transformation in a very different way. It wasn’t a talk designed to wind the crowd down, it was a talk designed to intrigue us – and it did.
It was a great end to a brilliant event. An event which I thoroughly enjoyed.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/img_6530460x0-is.jpg" />
The atmosphere was friendly, the venue was amazing, and I felt entertained throughout. A big thank you – and a big congratulations – goes out to the eZ Systems team. I don’t envy you in your quest to top this event next year!
To catch up on everything as it happened, be sure to check out the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ezConf2016?src=hash" target="_blank">#eZConf2016 Twitter hashtag</a> for our live tweets. As usual, we rocked the official hashtag with videos, images, quotes, and polls.

eZ Conference 2016 Day Two: Content, Commerce, and Defining Digital

I've been a Linux user for as long as I can remember. Pretty much since I was a kid (I'm now 41) and there was a Linux distribution I could find. I didn't start with just Linux though.. I was installing OS/2 by floppy disk (30 or so of them) which was basically akin to punching oneself in the face for hours on end, especially when the last or next to last disk failed repeatedy and you had to start over.
Oh OS/2. How I hated your many disks and the install time of 2+ hours.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/os2_box.jpg" />
I even messed around with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS" target="_blank">BeOS</a> for a while. I purchased every release and loved it.. such a shame it didn't survive.
Remember this beauty?
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/beos5741x0-is.jpg" />I first got started with Linux either with Red Hat or SuSE. I remember Mandrake Linux when it first came out and being hugely excited. I remember falling in love with Slackware and feeling like a purist for using it. I remember stubbornly fighting with Red Hat to get Quake running on it and, once successful, bragging to my friends about the extra 2 frames per second I got over there Windows desktops.
The biggest problem I've always had with Linux or any operating system was the desire to move on once I got it to where I was happy with the way it performed and completed all of my self assigned goals. This, I suppose, makes me the type of person who just loves to mess with software and love challenges. I suppose that makes sense given that I now do exactly that on this very website but I've never been able to run anything for longer than a week without either reinstalling it or something else or the latest thing that just came out.
For a long time I didn't know what to call this affliction until I saw some others using the term “Distro Hopping”. In fact there's actually a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/distrohopping" target="_blank">/DistroHopping</a> subreddit full of people with the same inability to keep a stable desktop / laptop running without wiping it and reinstalling something else. I don't know how much time (or data) I've spent downloading ISOs and burning them to CD, DVD and finally USB so I can once again wipe my poor computers hard drive and run through yet another install process. Over the years though, I've learned quite a bit. I remember battling with Slackware, ArchLinux (when it first came out), Gentoo (that one was tough to get going) and many others. I remember the feeling of accomplishment when I finally managed to surpass all of the issues that arose and was finally satisfied with a functioning desktop environment that properly made use of my graphic card, had functioning sound and made proper use of all of my mouse and keyboard buttons.
What's truly amazing, however, is how far things have come and how much easier it is now to install and get up and running with minimal configuration required. In some instances, it's also disconcerting how far behind some systems are but I can also appreciate the need to satisfy the purists. The problem with the ease of installation and configuration is that some systems have gone the route of simplifying things so much that they are actually restricting configuration capabilities and making it harder to access some of the administration functions that make Linux such a joy to work with. While I understand the need to try to make things simple and easy and will always be a champion of improving the user experience, I don't support the removal or restriction of functionality in order to do so.
As an admitted Distro Hopper, I secretly yearn for challenges and while I do love to see a smooth and easy install process, part of me still loves it when I have to fight a bit to get things “just right”. The same applies for my desktop environment which is probably why I'm now a Plasma user (it still has more configurability than anything else out there, IMHO).
How about you? Why do you Distro Hop? What drives you to have fifteen USB drives standing by and a never ending stream of ISO or torrent downloads going?

The Trials and Tribulations of a Distro Hopper

KDE Neon, the newly popular distribution produced by KDE and Kubuntu developer Jonathan Riddell and based on Ubuntu is now available in version 5.8. The best part of this latest release? It includes the latest long term stable release of Plasma 5.8. You can get additional details about this release from <a href="http://jriddell.org/2016/10/04/plasma-5-8-lts-now-in-kde-neon-time-to-look-again-at-comprehensive-features-gwenview-plugins-install/" target="_blank">Jonathan Riddell's blog</a>.
Speaking of Plasma 5.8, for those who weren't aware of the release, the details are below.
Plasma 5.8 proves how far along the desktop environment is coming by further polishing the user experience from start to finish. Some changes in Plasma 5.8 include:
<ul>
<li>Unified Boot to Shutdown Artwork</li>
<li>Right-to-Left Language Support</li>
<li>Improved Applets</li>
<li>Simplified Global Shortcuts &amp; More.</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.7.5-5.8.0-changelog.php" target="_blank">Read the full changelog for the Plasma 5.8 release</a>. Here's a screenshot below:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/plasma-5_8-wee.png" />
To get a more in-depth lowdown on what you can expect from Plasma 5.8, check out the video here:
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LgH1Clgr-uE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
You can get the latest release by downloading the <a href="http://files.kde.org/neon/images/neon-useredition/current/" target="_blank">User Edition ISO</a>.

Plasma 5.8 LTS now available in KDE Neon

Unless you’re one of a handful of IT executives at Fortune 500 tech companies, ‘Big Data’ and ‘CMS' platforms do not work together. You're managing a majority of your online presence through your CMS which stores immense amounts of realtime data. You're sitting on millions of dollars worth of oil but you lack the rig to access the value that is Business Intelligence gleaned from Big Data.
So what is ‘Big Data’ and why is it so valuable? By aggregating and analyzing large sets of data included but not limited to product data, site usage, financial transactions, inventory, locations, customer behavior and more, unprecedented insights can be leveraged to enable businesses to make data-driven decisions. Big Data companies make a fortune by building ways to display that data in an intuitive and interactive dashboard, totally customizable by you and built to make sense of all the data. The question is, how do you connect the two together?
Some solutions have emerged that involve too much manual work. Everything in your CMS is in a database that you’d need to analyze so connect your database(s) to a tool like Periscope and utilize their API to keep the data flowing? Sounds easy but it's not. If you have a fortune and the manpower to set up and manage that process, you wouldn't be reading this. The connection between Big Data and Content Management Systems is the next step in the evolution of the enterprise. Something has to give.
Thus far, no one has come up with an efficient way to leverage the tremendous amount of data that most CMS instances store. It is our opinion that the CMS provider(s) that find the way to leverage Big Data sitting in CMS databases in the most efficient and useful way possible will become the next giant in the CMS space.
Big Data has become a buzz word but unlike most buzz words it actually means exactly what it’s called, there is so much data about humans, earth, commerce, an endless web of transactions and information that can be analyzed to find patterns that provide unparalleled insight into our respective interests. As a species, we can avert crises — even war, natural disasters, and economic collapse — and make global advancements in the realms of science, technology, government, energy, and business.
In the world of business, critical decisions can be made based off of intelligence gleaned from pattern analysis and data mining of large data sets in their organization. Imagine leveraging all of your data using Business Intelligence to make the most informed decisions in brand awareness, marketing, sales, product development, strategic positioning, vendor selection, and content authoring, all tied into your CMS platform. Wouldn't it be nice?

How Can Big Data and CMS Platforms Work Together?

It was a mild yet sunny October day in Paris, and just a short distance from the world famous L’arc de Triomphe, the eZ Conference 2016 was about to kick off.
Before I get into the conference itself, let me just take a moment to comment on the superb venue.
The Châteauform' City Le Cnit is a relatively small building in comparison to the stunning skyscrapers that surround it, but its architecture is remarkable nonetheless – both inside and out. Kudos to the eZ Systems team for their venue selection.
<h2>“CMS Is Not Dead”</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/img_6465733x0-is.jpg" />
The opening keynote was delivered by the founders of eZ Systems, Bard Farstad and Aleksander Farstad. Together, they shed light on the vision of eZ Systems, hammering home their content-centric approach.
Interestingly, they saw it fit to also mention that:
<blockquote>
.<a href="https://twitter.com/eZSystems">@eZSystems</a> founders <a href="https://twitter.com/bardfarstad">@BardFarstad</a> &amp; <a href="https://twitter.com/AleksFarstad">@AleksFarstad</a>:
“CMS is not dead, it's just not the CMS you knew from the past.” <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/eZConf2016?src=hash">#eZConf2016</a>
— CMS Critic (@cmscritic) <a href="https://twitter.com/cmscritic/status/783643953530798080">October 5, 2016</a>
</blockquote>
What they meant of course, was that the way in which consumers consume content has changed drastically over the last ten years – and eZ Systems is prepared to help brands take their content to audiences through every available channel in a way that's consistent.
It was a solid opening keynote which settled everybody in for the day ahead. There was a business and technical track running simutaneously, so every attendee would have felt catered to.
Mark Brincat from The Economist was next up, and he showcased some of the benefits that eZ Systems had afforded the global publishing company. At one point, he walked us through the astonishing array of channels that The Economist's content can be found through.
<blockquote>
From Amazon Echo to Apple TV; thanks to some help from <a href="https://twitter.com/eZSystems">@eZSystems</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/TheEconomist">@TheEconomist</a> has a seriously long list of distribution channels.
<a href="https://t.co/QUJMhJZJ8f">pic.twitter.com/QUJMhJZJ8f</a>
— CMS Critic (@cmscritic) <a href="https://twitter.com/cmscritic/status/783658710577061888">October 5, 2016</a>
</blockquote>
Coffee and snacks were available throughout the day, and there was some fun to be had, too.
A wacky photo competition was in full flow during break time, and an interactive table made it possible for attendees to squeeze in a quick game of Candy Crush before the next presentation.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/img_64622482x2448-cropx458y0-is384x0-is.jpg" />
Kieron Sambrook-Smith from <a href="https://platform.sh/" target="_blank">Platform.sh</a> also presented, and he used his time to walk us through the benefits of Platform, which enables enterprise-grade software to embrace the power of the cloud. So far, they have partnered with large brands such as Orange, Magento, Microsoft, and most recently, eZ Systems
<a href="/ez-systems-partners-with-platform.sh-to-accelerate-development-of-content-rich-websites-and-applications/" target="_blank">Platform's partnership with eZ Systems was only recently announced</a>, and naturally, that announcement came as the eZ team unveiled their plans to offer a cloud based PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) solution.
<h2>The Pitfalls of Digital Transformation</h2>
Dietmar Schantin from OwnWay Media capped the day off by taking us through his personally selected, ‘7 Pitfalls of Digital Transformation (And how to Avoid Them)'.
He touched on the lack of resources, poor management, and lack of efficiency that so often plagues the digital transformation process of a brand or organization. He also offered some sound advice on how to combat each issue.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/img_64712048x1335-cropx0y223-is580x0-is.jpg" />
It was an insightful and highly relevant presentation which I thoroughly enjoyed, and the live Q&amp;A session that came afterwards went down a treat, too.
To polish off the day, eZ hosted their annual awards ceremony later in the evening. There was plenty of pre-award food, hype, and entertainment (the master of ceremonies was seriously good at his job), and the awards themselves were handed out with a few jokes. It was effortlessly casual, and that felt perfect after a day of formalities.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/img_64842048x1344-cropx0y404-is576x0-is.jpg" />
Now that I'm back in my hotel room, I can safely say that day one of the eZ Conference 2016 was a success. The atmosphere was jovial, the food was good, and the presentations were useful. Plus, the awards ceremony was pretty damn entertaining.
Here’s to an even better day two!

eZ Conference 2016 Day One: CMS Is Alive & Digital Transformation Is Tricky

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