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Digital Experience Article

<hr /> What does sustainability mean to you?For those of us in the digital experience industry, it means being more responsible about our carbon footprint and rethinking our web strategies to reduce the impact on the planet. But it's also a word that expresses a deep concern about the future – and how our efforts today can translate into a more stable and fruitful world tomorrow. In early April of this year, Umbraco published its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://umbraco.com/about-us/impact-report/">third annual Impact Report</a>, transparently documenting its vision for sustainable action and its holistic culture to activate change at a global level. Among its peers in the broader industry, Umbraco has long exemplified how a business can tap profitability, build loyalty, and scale to new heights while embracing sustainable practices. In my analysis of the report, I noted how Umbraco synthesized the company’s business and financial performance with its commitment and responsibility to the CMS industry and the world at large. Taken together, it crystallized Umbraco’s successful investment in sustainable strategies and told an inspiring story about how a business can do good in our world.As a next step in shepherding its vision for the year ahead, the open-source .NET CMS provider has revealed the members of its 2025 Sustainability Team, who were culled from its 250,000-strong global community of web developers, designers, content managers, and business leaders.I had a chance to connect with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-w%C3%BClser-larsen-72a6733/">Martin Wülser Larsen</a>, Umbraco’s Business Excellence Manager and new Sustainability Team steward, about Umbraco’s focus on sustainability. He brings a self-described role of “sustainability enthusiast” to his resume, and is squarely centered on managing and supporting this community-based team.<h3 id="why-such-a-deep-conviction-to-sustainability?">Why such a deep conviction to sustainability?</h3>“There is no long-term upside to not focusing on sustainability,” Martin said. “Working sustainably has, for good reason, become a demand from clients, partners, and employees alike.”As Martin indicated, there are compelling forces at play. Some of the need is driven by EU legislation being rolled out (albeit later than first anticipated) with its omnibus initiative. As such, legislative demand for transparency within the supply chain needs to be met. “But that's not the main driver for Umbraco,” he continued. “We believe in creating a sustainable company in the broadest understanding of the word, focusing on the people, planet, and profitability of our company because we believe this is the type of company people would like to engage with as part of the community, do business with, and work at.”As I’ve covered previously, sustainability is a topic many companies are telegraphing to the market. Some are taking authentic actions, others are “greenwashing” for media exposure. I asked Martin how Umbraco isn’t just standing out from the crowd, but leading the way. As you might expect, it comes down to the power of people. “I think a main differentiator is that we’re in a great position to influence a large part of the industry through the Umbraco community and our partnerships with some of the world's leading web agencies,” he reflected. “What we create and share can be utilized by a much larger audience than just our own company, and it’s part of our open source DNA to collaborate and share great ideas.”Much of Umbraco’s current sustainability planning is based on a legacy of interest in this area. The company has long promoted its focus on being more carbon-conscious and taken clear action. Much of its success orbits the early decision to adopt an open source posture and build a strong community of interest.“When it comes to sustainability, I can’t think of a better foundation for having a positive impact than continuing along the open source path that we have been on from the very beginning of Umbraco’s history,” Martin said.<h3 id="sustainability:-a-team-sport-with-agency-players">Sustainability: A team sport with agency players</h3>The Umbraco Sustainability Team was first established in March 2023 as a community-led task force. The collective’s mission was to identify practical ways to reduce the carbon footprint of websites and digital experiences developed on the Umbraco CMS platform. As the world’s most widely used open-source .NET CMS, Umbraco has adopted an internal sense of responsibility to reduce its impact on the environment. To expand the message faster and further, Umbraco is collaborating with digital agency partners and its developer community to make a bigger impact. To achieve a unified front, the Sustainability Team has assembled a bench of people with solid technical experience in developing professional websites using Umbraco or who have the management expertise to guide clients to more sustainable business choices.While technical solutions are key to this initiative, both messaging and education are essential pillars. As such, team members work alongside Umbraco HQ to write blogs, present talks, and host webinars on the latest carbon-conscious web design practices. <h3 id="building-actionable-tools-with-real-world-impact">Building actionable tools with real-world impact</h3>The inaugural Sustainability Team has already made great strides. I asked Martin what tools or resources from their efforts have really resonated with him thus far.“My personal favorite out of the team’s contributions to date is the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://docs.umbraco.com/sustainability-best-practices">Sustainability Best Practices</a>, where they utilized their experience building web solutions and their knowledge of sustainability to create detailed documentation on how to reduce the carbon footprint of web solutions,” he said. “This documentation is available for anyone to use free of charge, and will not only help reduce emissions from web solutions, but could also reduce hosting costs as more energy-efficient solutions are cheaper to host.”The Sustainability Team is also developing a package that provides web content editors with sustainability insights within the Umbraco CMS back office. They also provided technical input to the Umbraco Cloud team during the development of its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://docs.umbraco.com/umbraco-cloud/getting-started/the-umbraco-cloud-portal/sustainability-dashboard">Sustainability Dashboard, </a>which allows web developers to show clients the volume of greenhouse gases generated from running Umbraco Cloud projects – and explain how and where digital operations can be optimized.Giving these tools to agency partners demonstrates their strategic role in executing Umbraco’s big vision. But as Martin suggests, bringing their team members closer to the initiative is another way that Umbraco is reinforcing the importance of community in developing new ways to expand sustainability. “Agencies are getting directly involved by letting their employees participate as members of the team,” he explained. “That alone is testimony that we are doing something right when inviting the people and organizations who are building a business around our products to collaborate with us.”As someone who votes with my own dollars for products and services that meet specific environmental standards, I understand the importance of branding a company’s participation in goodwill initiatives. It raises awareness for programs and potentially motivates further involvement. To that end, I asked Martin how agency partners can communicate their efforts in a positive channel through badging or credentialing. He noted that Umbraco already has a robust <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://umbraco.com/partners/become-an-umbraco-solution-partner/gold/contributing-platinum-gold-partners/">Contributing Partner</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://community.umbraco.com/mvp-program/">MVP program</a>, but liked the idea of granulating it further and enabling the partners to highlight their involvement in creating a more sustainable web industry. <h3 id="the-2025-umbraco-sustainability-team-members">The 2025 Umbraco Sustainability Team members</h3>As Martin noted, the inaugural members of the Sustainability Team have lent tremendous effort over the past two years, illustrating how the Umbraco community has pulled together to share sustainable digital practices with enterprise clients – all with the goal of measurably reducing the web's emissions.The new members of the 2025 Sustainability Team are:<ul><li>Dennis Adolfi, Head of Technology at Danish digital agency <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://knowitexperience.com/about">Knowit Experience</a></li><li>Peter Solow, Lead Developer at Knowit Experience</li><li>Imran Haider, Head of Development at London digital agency <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.wearecogworks.com/">Cogworks</a></li><li>Helen Chaplin, Community Services executive at Manchester digital agency <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.cantarus.com/">Cantarus</a></li></ul>Existing members remaining on the Sustainability team include:<ul><li>James Hobbs, Head of Technology at Wiltshire digital agency <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://aerstudios.co.uk/">aer Studios</a></li><li>Rick Butterfield, Lead Software Engineer at Bristol and London agency <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.wearewattle.com/">Wattle</a></li><li>Thomas Morris, Senior Software Engineer at roadside rescue and insurance company <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.rac.co.uk/">RAC</a></li><li>Amy Czuba, Account Director at Macclesfield and Cambridge agency <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://nexergroup.com/uk/nexer-digital/">Nexer Digital</a></li><li>Neil Clark, Head of Sustainability at global agency and B-Corp, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.msqpartners.com/">MSQ Partners</a> (also a member of the BIMA Sustainability Council)</li></ul> <figure class="image image_resized" style="width:87.67%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/image.jpeg" alt="A collage of a group of people

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure>Members of Umbraco’s 2025 Sustainability Team. Source: Umbraco. In addition to Martin serving as the new Sustainability Team Steward, this year’s Umbraco HQ team members include Karita Kostiainen and Mikulas Tomanka.<h3 id="what’s-next?">What’s next?</h3>According to Martin, Umbraco has seen increased interest in its Impact Reports over the years, both from agencies and end clients. This seems to indicate that more organizations from across the market are seeking guidance – and ways to take action – to create a more sustainable web.Of course, a big part of realizing this vision is having the right leadership in place. For Martin and Umbraco, that begins with the Sustainability Team. And while the new players have just arrived, he seems ready to hit the ground running. “We’ve only just held our first ‘meet and greet’ with the new members of the 2025 Sustainability Team,” he said. “Now the real work begins.”As Martin explained, it’s important that the Sustainability Team be given latitude in setting goals and establishing relevant benchmarks. He wants to build on the work that’s already been started, bring in new ideas, and ultimately evaluate where the team’s efforts will have the biggest impact.“The inaugural team created a package for Umbraco that allows people to track and reduce emissions from their solutions,” he said. “I expect that we will likely see additions to that, or maybe even new packages, as we have some skilled engineers on the team who are eager to create new solutions.”As part of its ongoing efforts to educate the web community, the Umbraco Sustainability Team just <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://umbraco.com/webinar-sustainability-2025/">hosted a webinar</a> with sustainability champion <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikebernerslee/">Mike Berners-Lee</a> on Thursday, May 22nd, at 3 p.m. UK time. If you're not familiar with Mike, he's the author of a groundbreaking series of books on sustainability, including A Climate of Truth: Why We Need It and How To Get It, There is No Planet B, and How Bad are Bananas? Mike was also one of the first researchers to calculate that the IT industry’s greenhouse gas emissions were equivalent to those of the aviation industry. <h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it matters</h3>I personally believe that doing good in the world is good for business – and that it’s indeed possible to be a good steward of the planet while pursuing growth. To that end, I asked Martin how the broader sustainability efforts are translating for Umbraco’s prospects. Is the messaging resonating with customers – particularly at a time when certain markets are deprecating ESG and DEI regulations and setting back previous policies to address climate change? And how can partners and the Sustainability Team support a beneficial trajectory?“During procurement processes, we see that there's already a demand for data about ESG and sustainability efforts from the market,” he said. “Legislation is making it necessary for more and more businesses to better understand and put demands on the suppliers in their supply chains. The team helps us provide just that."For Martin, the big benefit comes from working openly and collaboratively with agencies and having them well-represented within the makeup of the Sustainability Team. As he pointed out, it ensures that Umbraco gets the necessary “outside-in” perspective to align with what the agencies and end-clients prioritize when looking for new vendors.Umbraco has always marched to the beat of its own drum, and this is another example of how the company isn’t just motivated to improve digital experiences – but our planet as well. I can’t think of a better mission. <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-umbraco?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on Umbraco? <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contact">Talk to an expert.</a></h4><hr /> <h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:33.07%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/contentcon25-logo-1747412490394.png" /><h4 id="contentstack-contentcon-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.contentstack.com/contentcon">Contentstack ContentCon 25</a></h4>June 3-5, 2025 – Chicago, USAThe future of digital is waiting for you! Contentstack presents ContentCon, the premier event for digital teams and industry leaders who are reimagining the future of digital experiences. Join us for two days of transformative presentations and workshops designed to help you put personalization and AI strategies into action. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://contentcon2025.site.zuddl.com/">Register today! </a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

Umbraco Reinforces Commitment to Global Impact with 2025 Sustainability Team

matt-garrepy

<hr /> In today’s competitive business environment, delivering dynamic experiences across multiple digital channels is becoming increasingly important. In the past, a traditional monolithic CMS was the go-to solution for managing website content in bulk, offering a comprehensive approach with integrated frontend and backend functionalities.However, as the importance of web channels for media distribution grew, developers within larger enterprises recognized the limitations of monolithic solutions in managing complex, structured content or delivering unique frontend capabilities. This led to the rise of custom, internal CMS solutions. Performance and extensive customization were possible but at huge engineering costs and time pressure to plan, develop, and uphold these systems.Since 2007, the rise in smart devices has welcomed a new era of content consumption across diverse channels. The move significantly burdened both monolithic CMS technology and content teams.The need for a multi-channel content strategy and a modern tech stack made the limitations of traditional CMS more apparent. Even today,<a target="_blank" href="https://hygraph.com/resources/future-of-content"> 8 in 10 tech leaders</a> think their current CMS holds them back with inefficient developer or editorial experiences.<h3 id="elevating-tech-teams-with-cms-modernization">Elevating tech teams with CMS modernization</h3>The heavy burden developers face with maintaining custom CMS platforms not only leads to burnout – <a target="_blank" href="https://blog.jetbrains.com/team/2023/11/20/the-state-of-developer-ecosystem-2023/">experienced by nearly 73% of developers</a> at some point in their careers – but also acts as a significant restriction. Consequently, organizations are increasingly looking to modernize their CMS to alleviate these pressures.An in-house CMS requires ongoing maintenance, like keeping an orchestra in tune and ensuring all musicians play harmoniously. It’s also less scalable as it’s often built by a small group of people, so they are the only ones who can access and make changes to the system. Subsequently, it’s hard to manage as the project scales, and the small group of developers who built the solution will be stuck maintaining the code base. Modern headless CMS platforms can greatly enhance the capabilities and efficiency of tech teams, freeing them from the constraints of maintenance around custom platforms and empowering them to focus on driving innovation. There are many other benefits to consider, too: <h4 id="1.-increased-developer-velocity">1. Increased developer velocity</h4>Accumulated technical debt from maintaining custom middleware can reduce developer velocity, slow release cycles, and hinder an organization's ability to maintain a continuous release schedule. <h4 id="2.-improved-app-performance">2. Improved app performance</h4>Performance is a key indicator of your project's success. It's also closely connected to your business since you lose revenue when your performance is poor. A CMS failure can be detected by business metrics such as lost revenues, which are influenced by poor performance indicators such as slow page load speed and low core web vitals. <h4 id="3.-stay-current-with-the-latest-tech">3. Stay current with the latest tech</h4>The technology landscape is ever-evolving. Naturally, some of the latest technologies work better than outdated ones. The advantage of a headless CMS is that you can choose any technology you like and easily switch the front end without changing your CMS. <h4 id="4.-future-proof-technology-strategy">4. Future-proof technology strategy</h4>A tech leader should choose IT vendors that can adapt quickly to an unknown future. A headless architecture with content federation puts data in one place so teams can scale the digital experience. Developers get all the flexibility of headless without having to build, host, secure, and ensure the performance of custom middleware.   <h4 id="5.-talent-acquisition">5. Talent acquisition</h4>Legacy systems are hard to understand, making developers less productive and less attractive when recruiting new team members. It’s much easier to handle things in-house if everything needed to work with the CMS can be easily found in any tech stack. <h4 id="6.-heightened-security">6. Heightened security</h4>Unlike a traditional CMS, a modern headless CMS decouples the backend content repository layer from the frontend presentation layer. This separation allows for greater security because the content management layer is isolated and can be protected independently.<h3 id="why-headless-is-the-way-forward">Why headless is the way forward</h3>Adopting a headless CMS with content federation can offer flexibility, scalability, and streamlined content distribution across multiple channels. Furthermore, by separating the frontend and backend, this approach lays the foundation for organizations to meet their technical and content requirements swiftly, allowing technology teams to develop with any technology for any platform.At a time when content is king, your CMS needs to be a gateway to digital transformation rather than a barrier. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-conferences">Upcoming conferences</h3> <img style="width:29.67%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-connect-2024-logo.png" alt="CMS Connect 24 logo" /><h4 id="cms-connect-24---sold-out"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect24">CMS Connect 24</a> - SOLD OUT</h4>August 6-7, 2024 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present our first annual summer edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community. Join us this August in Montreal, Canada, for a vendor-neutral conference focused on CMS. Tired of impersonal and overwhelming gatherings? Picture this event as a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. <img style="width:29.58%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-kickoff-2025-logo.png" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-25"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25/tickets">CMS Kickoff 25</a></h4>January 14-15, 2025 – Tampa Bay Area, FloridaJoin us next January in the Tampa Bay area of Florida for the third annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, so secure your tickets today.

 Roadmap to Digital Experience Success: Six Ways to Future-Proof Your CMS While Elevating Your Tech Teams

michael-lukaszczyk

<hr /> For the past seven years, <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/kentico">Kentico</a> – a composable hybrid headless platform – has been at the forefront of recognizing and honoring exceptional achievements in digital innovation and user-centric design with its signature ‘Site of the Year’ Awards.The company just published the list of winners from its 2023 program, and it's once again impressive. We did a deep dive analysis of last year's winners, which you can <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/kentico-site-of-the-year-competition-proves-custom-web-design-is-alive-and-thriving">check out here.</a> As the company noted in its press release, the examples reflect the pinnacle of creativity, dedication, and technological prowess in delivering extraordinary online experiences – as well as the continued relevance of good web design and digital experience in the modern era.  “As a member of the evaluation committee, I am thrilled by both the quantity and, more importantly, the exceptional quality of submissions we received for Site of the Year 2023," said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-tucek/">Debbie Tucek</a>, Director of Product at Kentico. "The diversity and ingenuity showcased in these projects truly highlight the incredible possibilities achievable with Kentico.”To qualify for the Site of the Year 2023 contest, websites or apps must have been a first-time contender (unless significantly redesigned), launched during 2023, and built on Kentico Xperience 13 or Xperience by Kentico. <h3 id="meticulous-evaluation-standards-for-excellence-">Meticulous evaluation standards for excellence </h3>With over 100 submissions received, Kentico's evaluation committee meticulously evaluated each entry against a comprehensive set of criteria: <ul><li>Achievement of business goals: The extent to which the website or app contributed to the attainment of the organization's objectives, such as increased conversions, sales, or brand awareness. </li><li>UX (User Experience): The overall quality of the user experience, including ease of navigation, intuitiveness, and responsiveness across various devices and platforms. </li><li>Interactivity: The degree to which the website or app engages users through interactive elements, such as animations, forms, quizzes, or personalized content. </li><li>Graphic design: The visual appeal, aesthetics, and coherence of the design elements, including layout, typography, color scheme, and imagery. </li><li>Innovation: The originality and creativity demonstrated in the implementation of unique features, functionalities, or approaches that set the project apart from competitors. </li><li>Content: The relevance, quality, and effectiveness of the content in communicating the organization's message, engaging users, and driving desired actions. </li><li>Use of Kentico capabilities: The effective utilization of Kentico's features, tools, and functionalities to optimize the website or app's performance, scalability, and customization capabilities. </li></ul>Following a rigorous evaluation process, the committee identified the most exemplary entries that demonstrated exceptional proficiency across these criteria.  <h3 id="‘site-of-year’-award-winners-for-2023-">‘Site of Year’ Award winners for 2023 </h3>According to Kentico, these projects have not only met but exceeded its stringent criteria – showcasing innovation, successful business outcomes, user-centric experiences, interactive design, graphic excellence, inventive content, and a masterful utilization of Kentico's capabilities.  B2B Category<ul><li>BlueModus emerged victorious with its website transformation utilizing Xperience by Kentico, delivering seamless migration and advanced SEO tools (implemented by BlueModus).</li><li>Honorable mentions go to Advanced Energy (implemented by EETech) and BDO Digital (implemented by BizStream). </li></ul>Commerce Category<ul><li>Nowy Styl's Kentico-powered site, implemented by Infinity Group, offers streamlined processes and enhanced engagement for stakeholders. </li><li>Honorable mentions include Crowley Energy, Buxton Oil, Ayer &amp; Goss (implemented by Fuseideas and NITTIN), and Fenerbahçe SuperApp (implemented by PortalGrup). </li></ul>Consumer Goods Category<ul><li>Škoda Elektromobilita takes the spotlight with its immersive Kentico website captivating potential customers with its electromobility showcase (implemented by BiQ Bluesoft). </li><li>Honorable mentions include Niveko (implemented by PUXdesign) and Alcohol Detection Systems (implemented by BlueModus). </li></ul>Education &amp; Careers Category<ul><li>Blanchard's Kentico site revamp enhances user experience, boosts traffic, and refines content strategy (implemented by Americaneagle.com).</li><li>Honorable mentions go to Driestar Onderwijsadvies (implemented by Aviva Solutions) and Yapı Kredi Yarınlara Kartopu (implemented by PortalGrup). </li></ul>Entertainment, Hospitality &amp; Tourism Category <ul><li>Mainz 05's website launch on Xperience by Kentico optimizes user experience and internal workflows (implemented by kuehlhaus and BiQ Bluesoft). </li><li>Honorable mentions include Good Eats (implemented by Ridgeway) and ACF Fiorentina (implemented by EXETERA srl l Thinking Digital). </li></ul>Financial Services Category <ul><li>HawaiiUSA Federal Credit Union's Kentico-powered site delivers personalized experiences and seamless site management (implemented by ZAG Interactive). </li><li>Honorable mentions include NinjaTrader (implemented by Americaneagle.com) and Forvis (implemented by SilverTech). </li></ul>Government &amp; Municipal Category<ul><li>City of Swan's Kentico site enhances user experience and introduces self-service options for residents (implemented by ALYKA Pty Ltd). </li><li>Honorable mentions include Texas Association of Counties (implemented by BlueModus) and Ohio Lottery (implemented by Marcus Thomas, LLC). </li></ul><h3 id="blanchard-takes-the-coveted-community-choice-award">Blanchard takes the coveted Community Choice Award</h3>Among the exceptional entries in the 2023 ‘Site of the Year’ Awards, Blanchard took home the coveted Community Choice Award, chosen from the successful Industry winners via public vote. Built by Americaneagle.com, Blanchard's stunning new website stood out for its remarkable achievements in digital innovation and user-centric design. Blanchard's decision to leverage Kentico's intuitive interface, robust CMS functionalities, adaptability, scalability, integration capabilities, and multilingual support proved instrumental in realizing its vision for the project. The primary objectives included enhancing user experience, revitalizing branding, boosting conversion rates, refining content strategy, and optimizing performance.  The results speak volumes for the success of the project. The revamped site showcases improved user experience, heightened traffic, enhanced brand perception, mobile responsiveness, refined content strategy, and streamlined navigation. Blanchard's commitment to excellence and Americaneagle.com's expertise in execution has truly set a new standard in the industry.  All the winners of ‘Site of the Year’ 2023 represent the pinnacle of digital innovation and user-centric design, embodying Kentico's commitment to empowering businesses and organizations to deliver exceptional online experiences.   <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-conferences">Upcoming conferences</h3> <img style="width:29.67%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-connect-2024-logo.png" alt="CMS Connect 24 logo" /><h4 id="cms-connect-24"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect24">CMS Connect 24</a></h4>August 6-7, 2024 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present our first annual summer edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community. Join us this August in Montreal, Canada, for a vendor-neutral conference focused on CMS. Tired of impersonal and overwhelming gatherings? Picture this event as a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. <img style="width:29.58%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-kickoff-2025-logo.png" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-25"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25/tickets">CMS Kickoff 25</a></h4>January 14-15, 2025 – Tampa Bay Area, FloridaJoin us next January in the Tampa Bay area of Florida for the third annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, so secure your tickets today.

Kentico Announces Winners of 2023 'Site of the Year' Awards

cms-critic-staff

<hr /> <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/optimizely">Optimizely</a>, a digital experience platform provider, just announced a new operating system for marketing practitioners built on its industry-leading DXP: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.optimizely.com/products/">Optimizely One</a>. Comprised of Optimizely’s seamlessly integrated, best-of-breed capabilities – all built with modern SaaS – Optimizely One offers a highly composable architecture, giving organizations the flexibility to choose exactly what they need in their marketing ecosystem. Optimizely One is enriched through a single, unified workflow accelerated by AI, making it simple for marketers to create, manage, deliver, and optimize content all in one place. Secure and scalable, Optimizely One provides teams with the future-proof stack they need to create and optimize digital experiences for their customers.“Marketing is the only remaining enterprise function that doesn’t have a go-to platform, so we designed Optimizely One to be the operating system for marketers,” said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/aatzberger/">Alex Atzberger</a>, CEO of Optimizely. “Content is at the core of every digital experience, and Optimizely One provides exactly what marketers need to orchestrate their content, monetize experiences and experiment across all touchpoints – all enriched through smart workflows and accelerated by AI. The time is now for companies to seize the opportunity to reinvent how marketing, product and growth teams work together to create content-driven digital experiences.”The announcement was made during <a target="_blank" href="https://www.optimizely.com/opticon/">Opticon 2023</a>, the company's annual conference, which is being held this week in San Diego.<h3>Creating choice in a composable world</h3>Up until now, the market has had to make a difficult choice: build a stack that caters more to developers (think open and highly customizable but complex) or practitioners. This challenge has resulted in disparate point solutions that create a lot of overhead costs and disjointed workflows. Additionally, with AI rapidly evolving and its value exponentially growing, it has never been more important to streamline the way content gets created and data gets actioned.   With Optimizely One, customers now have the ability to build a truly composable stack. The platform is fully SaaS, fully decoupled, and highly composable – empowering teams to compose what they need on their own terms. One of the new capabilities is a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.optimizely.com/insights/blog/unveiling-optimizelys-fully-composable-solution-for-content-orchestration/">CMS SaaS Core</a> for designing entire web experiences with a low/no-code interface. Users benefit from automatic upgrades, SLAs, and managed services. Optimizely One also features <a target="_blank" href="https://www.optimizely.com/insights/blog/content-graph-announcement/">Graph</a> capabilities for aggregating content from any source, managing it from a single hub, and delivering it to any channel, app, or device.Additionally, users will have access to a Visual Experience Builder, where they can apply pre-built templates and customer data to create and preview engaging experiences via an all-new, user-friendly editor. A Unified Workflow also connects teams via a fully integrated workflow – from planning to analysis – all based on a single, unified platform. This allows users to log in once and seamlessly navigate across all Optimizely applications. The new Workflow features <a target="_blank" href="https://www.optimizely.com/insights/blog/announcing-experiment-collaboration/">Experiment Collaboration</a> for managing every aspect of your testing and optimization programs with a purpose-built tool, and Omnichannel Authoring for creating content once and pulling it into multiple content types and formats for delivery across channels. <h3>Accelerating digital experiences with the power of AI</h3>While AI has been weaving its way into Optimizely over the last year, it's making a big splash in Optimizely One. The platform embeds both native and external AI capabilities into the entire marketing lifecycle, helping teams work faster and make better decisions. One of the big reveals in Optimizely One is the introduction of Opal, a new identity for Optimizely's AI. By engaging with this service, users can surface insights, review recommendations, create new content, and leverage an AI co-pilot when needed. Optimizely also announced a solution partnership with <a target="_blank" href="https://writer.com/">Writer</a>, a full-stack generative AI platform for enterprises. Combined with the Optimizely Content Marketing Platform (CMP), Writer will provide customers with sophisticated language learning models (LLMs) within the context of their existing marketing workflows. With a strong AI offering that meets B2B needs, the partnership will allow joint customers of Optimizely and Writer to finally harness the power of AI by leveraging the Writer platform to develop content that is relevant, compliant, and consistent with their existing brand tone and voice. <h3>Expanding leadership in experimentation and optimization </h3>Optimizely leverages powerful experimentation capabilities, comprehensive digital commerce tools, and intuitive content management to enable exceptional customer experiences for over 10,000 of the world’s top brands. Proven by its 8 leader recognitions from analyst firms in the last 24 months, Optimizely continues to deliver the industry’s best digital experience solutions With the addition of Optimizely One – and the introduction of new AI capabilities – the company sees tremendous potential for customers across the marketing and digital lifecycle.“We’re continually reinventing the way marketers work, so they can more easily deliver exceptional digital experiences to their customers and drive maximum business impact without having to make any tradeoffs,” said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rupali/">Rupali Jain</a>, Chief Product Officer at Optimizely. “Optimizely One is a shared operating system that gives teams unprecedented levels of transparency, flexibility, and simplicity to manage their entire marketing lifecycle. With the guidance of Opal and the power of experimentation data, every part of the lifecycle is rooted in science.”

Optimizely Debuts Industry-First Marketing Operating System At Opticon 2023

Today, <a href="https://conscia.ai/" target="_blank">Conscia.ai</a>, the Digital Experience Orchestration (DXO) platform, announced <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/bartomlo/" target="_blank">Bart Omlo</a> as its new Global Head of Sales. 
According to its <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/consciaai-the-pioneer-of-digital-experience-orchestration-dxo-appoints-bart-omlo-as-global-head-of-sales-301812271.html?tc=eml_cleartime" target="_blank">news release</a>, Omlo will be responsible for driving Conscia.ai's revenue growth and expanding its customer base by leveraging his knowledge and expertise in an evolving digital experience space. He will work closely with the executive leadership team to identify new market opportunities, develop partnerships, and build a world-class sales organization.
"We are beyond excited to have Bart join our team at Conscia," said <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/from-legacy-to-composable-whats-the-best-way-forward/">Sana Remekie</a>, CEO of Conscia.ai. "We are truly impressed with his track record of building world-class sales organizations, his in-depth understanding of the evolving digital experience space, and [we] are confident about his ability to help scale our business globally. We look forward to reaching new heights together and taking the headless and composable industry by storm."
<h2>Deep experience in enterprise content management, headless, and more</h2>
Omlo brings nearly two decades of experience in enterprise content management to his new role at Conscia. Most recently, he served as vice president of sales at <a href="https://www.kentico.com/" target="_blank">Kentico</a> and later as CEO at <a href="https://kontent.ai/" target="_blank">Kontent.ai</a> – where he was integral to <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/kontent-ai-raises-40-million-to-bring-the-power-of-ai-to-content-management/">raising $40 million</a> in Series A funding for the startup.
<h2>A bright outlook at Conscia.ai</h2>
With Omlo’s experience and Conscia’s movement to build best-of-breed architectures to deliver connected, omnichannel digital experiences for customers, Conscia believes they can take DXO to new heights. Conscia.ai's zero-code, API-first, DXO platform empowers businesses to orchestrate consistent and connected user experiences throughout the customer journey.
Conscia says organizations that have taken the first step towards modular and headless architectures are grappling with a lack of business user control to orchestrate experiences – and wish to reduce their day-to-day reliance on IT teams to deliver personalized customer experiences.
"I am excited to join Conscia and work with such a talented and passionate team to drive growth in the Digital Experience Orchestration space," said Omlo. "Composability is the future and I am thrilled to be a part of a company that is at the forefront of this trend by offering an innovative solution which allows organizations to stay in control of their omnichannel digital experiences while future-proofing their tech stacks."
<h2>About <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3852302-1&amp;h=3995890254&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fconscia.ai%2F&amp;a=Conscia.ai" target="_blank">Conscia.ai</a></h2>
Conscia is the pioneer of the Digital Experience Orchestration (DXO) platform that facilitates assembly of intelligent, data-driven experiences within a composable tech stack. It provides a centralized UI to manage personalized, omnichannel experiences with intuitive control for A/B testing, performance tracking, and integration with best-of-breed tools for business teams. For IT teams, Conscia offers a frontend and backend-agnostic, zero-code API 'Orchestration as a Service' that simplifies the frontend code and enables a truly headless architecture. With powerful features like a universal backend API connector, a native decision engine, observability, monitoring, analytics, and legacy modernization, Conscia.ai offers the most comprehensive solution on the market to accelerate the move to and adoption of composable architectures for business and digital teams.
Conscia has created 'Composable Recipes' showcasing connections to Contentstack, Contentful, Storyblok, Kontent.ai, Agility CMS, Segment, Talon.One, Cloudinary, Commercetools, BigCommerce, AWS Opensearch, Elasticsearch and many more best-of-breed solutions over the last few months. Conscia is a validated partner of AWS and now available for purchase on AWS Marketplace.

Conscia.ai Appoints Bart Omlo to Global Head of Sales

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Conscia.ai logo with a black-and-white headshot of Bart Omlo

<a href="http://www.progress.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Progress</a> is making progress.
And that says a lot given their long history in the business applications marketplace. Founded in 1981, it’s fair to say that the software vendor has “seen it all” and helped shape the current BA landscape. But such longevity can result in a paleolithic perception, especially when technology "years" are measured in days.
But that hasn't been the case for Progress. More recently, the company has focused on deepening its innovation across an expanding digital experience portfolio – starting with its acquisition of <a href="https://www.progress.com/blogs/progress-software-announces-agreement-of-intent-to-acquire-telerik" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Telerik’s Sitefinity CMS</a> in 2014.
With the accelerated pace of digital transformation felt throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Progress has experienced steady growth, even <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/progress-software-stock-surges-as-fiscal-q3-results-crush-expectations-raises-year-view/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">crushing analyst expectations</a> for Q3 2021. This comes on the heels of another key <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/09/23/2302618/0/en/Progress-Announces-Acquisition-of-Kemp-Adding-Application-Experience-to-Industry-Leading-Product-Portfolio.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">acquisition of Kemp</a>, a leader in the burgeoning Application Experience (AX) space, for a tidy sum of $258 million in cash.
Progress, yes. But not just for the sake of progress. There’s a plan in play, and there’s nothing “old guard” about this market leader’s vision for the future.
<h2>A shifting digital experience platform (DXP) marketplace</h2>
While Progress evolves their broader BA stack, Sitefinity continues to be a bellweather brand in the CMS and DXP storm of fragmentation and consolidation. This has been a critical advantage given the seismic shifts rippling across the DXP market.
As people and businesses move to more digital-first and contactless solutions (again, a by-product of Covid-19), having a solid digital strategy is essential. The demand for partners with proven experience and digital maturity has helped accelerate the pivot by streamlining technology adoption, reducing operational complexities, and eliminating many IT and compliance challenges.
This has been true for the entire DXP sector, which has experienced unprecedented growth.
But it’s not all rosy: Progress’ <a href="https://www.progress.com/campaigns/sitefinity/whitepapers/dxp-needs-to-be-less-complicated" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent research</a> shows that 35% of organizations haven’t implemented a DXP solution because the products on the market are too complex, expensive, and monolithic – resulting in underutilized features that add to a bloated pricetag.
<h2>What to expect from Sitefinity DX 14.0 </h2>
With the release of <a href="https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms/dxp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sitefinity DX 14.0</a>, the company is injecting greater agility, flexibility, and extensibility into their digital experience platform (DXP) – providing a host of new capabilities for low-code integration, chat-driven engagement, and enhanced headless content delivery.
“As the core of a composable DXP, Sitefinity DX 14.0 puts pieces of the puzzle in place, giving organizations a powerful solution – without being overly complex or costly – for creating digital experiences that drive businesses forward,” said John Ainsworth, SVP, Core Products, Progress. “Organizations can be confident that through integrated content and commerce, combined with advanced marketing insights and headless experience delivery, they can create omnichannel experiences that deliver the right content, at the right time, on the right channel. This is no longer a choice, but a must for those who want to stay competitive.”
Along with the aforementioned enhancements, Sitefinity DX 14.0 will enable integrated, tailored experiences delivered and managed at scale. In that sense, organizations can fashion their own unique DXP solution by choosing which functionalities meet their unique business goals and challenges – and empower them to create composable digital experiences.
<h2>Sitefinity DX 14.0 features</h2>
With the new release, users will be able to:
<ul>
<li>Execute strategic, data-driven marketing: Create and execute marketing campaigns that are informed by interaction history via comprehensive touchpoint attribution modeling to drive more conversions and increased ROI.</li>
<li>Capitalize every channel in less time with multichannel experience management: Engage visitors across every stage of the funnel and customer lifecycle. With the hybrid content management capabilities of Sitefinity DX, comprising its headless content-as-a-service API framework, marketers can seamlessly execute a consistent and personalized experience across audiences’ key touchpoints. Additionally, organizations can drive visitors to positive outcomes by incorporating Progress’ powerful AI-driven chatbot platform, NativeChat®, into their Sitefinity experiences.</li>
<li>Boost efficiency through simplified system integration with low-code tools: Automate marketing operations and reduce implementation efforts through expanded connectivity between the systems necessary to deliver a well-orchestrated omnichannel experience. Leverage simplified workflows, service hooks, and low-code integration with components of existing tech stacks.</li>
<li>Scale global content and campaign delivery: Deliver content quickly and efficiently across channels with enhanced content synchronization capabilities. Improve content governance for multisite experiences across several business departments, units, locations, and brands with comprehensive multisite user group management.</li>
<li>Ensure delivery of a smooth page experience: Ensure an engaging and pleasant visitor experience and optimize SEO rankings, user engagement, and conversion. Marketers can get dedicated, out-of-the-box support for the newest Google Page Experience requirements.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Forging a leadership role in the DXP space</h2>
The last two years have seen a constant battle for enterprise dominance in the digital experience platform space. While both <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Gartner</a> and Forrester have incrementally shifted the players on the board, few disruptors have made the treacherous climb to compete with the likes <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/adobe-experience-cloud-adds-new-headless-cms-capabilities-updates-to-commerce-integration/">Adobe</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-widens-its-dxp-stack-with-widen-acquires-dam-and-pim-capabilities/">Acquia</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/episerver-rebrands-as-optimizely-following-acquisition/">Optimizely</a>, and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-acquires-boxever-and-four51/">Sitecore</a>.
Still, there’s lots of room for growth in the DX market. <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/870924/worldwide-digital-transformation-market-size/#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20spending%20on%20digital,almost%207%20trillion%20U.S.%20dollars." target="_blank" rel="noopener">According to Statista</a>, global spending on digital transformation is projected to reach $1.78 trillion next year – and between 2020 and 2023, that number balloons to almost $7 trillion.
Those figures are driving more opportunities for platforms to “progress,” and that certainly seems to be the case with Progress as they launch a broader vision of completeness around their DXP offering. This began with CMS many moons ago and has hence evolved into a confluence of marketing and optimization capabilities.
Sitefinity has managed to adapt and thrive throughout the course of these changes and seems poised to continue its growth. While it hasn’t shed its mantle of being a core CMS, the DXP moniker – and its now composable nature – should provide greater control to users and businesses as they tackle the unrelenting needs of digital transformation.
"Content management was the underlying piece of any DX platform until organizations realized that it alone wasn't enough,” said Paul Nashawaty, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. "The increasing need for flexibility and integration with other systems led to the emergence of the composable DX platform. What makes this technology powerful is the flexibility it provides – organizations can integrate only the components and systems they need and customize them as consumer behavior and market trends change."
In the past year, Sitefinity DX has earned multiple recognitions and reviews. Most recently, it was named a “Leader” in <a href="https://www.progress.com/campaigns/sitefinity/whitepapers/dxp-grid-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">G2’s Spring 2021 Grid® Report for Digital Experience Platforms</a>. The recognition was based on a variety of factors, including features and functionality, market presence, and customer satisfaction. Sitefinity DX was also named a “Major Contender” in Everest Group’s Digital Experience Platform (DXP) PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2021.
You can check out Sitefinity DX 14.0 at <a href="https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms</a>.
<h2>About Progress</h2>
<a href="http://www.progress.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Progress</a> (NASDAQ: PRGS) provides the leading products to develop, deploy and manage high-impact business applications. Our comprehensive product stack is designed to make technology teams more productive, and we have a deep commitment to the developer community, both open source and commercial alike. With Progress, organizations can accelerate the creation and delivery of strategic business applications, automate the process by which apps are configured, deployed and scaled, and make critical data and content more accessible and secure – leading to competitive differentiation and business success. Over 1,700 independent software vendors, 100,000+ enterprise customers, and a three-million-strong developer community rely on Progress to power their applications.

Progress Launches Sitefinity DX 14.0, Enhances Digital Experience Delivery with Global Scale

Progress Sitefinity logo with 14.0 version number

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