A new report highlights current activity, success and challenges that public sector organizations are facing in using digital channels for citizen engagement. This timely benchmarking survey from GOSS Interactive reports the challenges facing the public sector and is available as a free download.
social media
The End of the Anonymous Comment
Over the years, I have gone on record stating the importance in allowing users the ability to leave comments at this site anonymously. I have always recognized that there is a segment of the online community that likes to submit quality comments online, but they don't want to be required to leave an online trail that can be traced back to personal online accounts. Despite all the trouble I've had with the spammers and bots, the benefits of anonymous comments was always worth it to me in hopes of reading that one life changing comment provided by someone who preferred to stay in the shadows.
After six years of running CMS Report, I've decided too much has changed in the online world to continue allowing anonymous comments to continue here. During the past couple years, I've noticed the quality of conversation taking place at this site and other sites drop significantly. In part, I think the drop in quality comments is due to social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ now providing additional avenues for readers and writers to have their opinions be made known. I also think social media has allowed people to become so comfortable with themselves having an online presence that they no longer are comfortable being in conversations with anonymous people. If my last few months with Google+ has taught me anything, it is that people want to have conversation only when everyone in the room has been identified.
Social Media: Why does Joomla Rock?
Using Facebook and Twitter, Steve Burge has compiled a list of social media responses to the question, "Why does Joomla rock?". It's an interesting list of 40 tweets and FB status messages and he's conveniently categorized the responses into short answers to the question.
Why does Joomla Rock?
- Quality
- Ease of Use
- Community
- Helps make business grow
- Helps make users happy
This is a very cool way to use social media and get a feel for what the fans think about your project or product. If you're interested in the individual responses to the questions, check out Steve's article at Joomla Community Portal.
IBM introduces new mobile software for social business
There is a huge push by companies to emphasize mobile over the traditional PC market. Some of these companies are going to execute well while others are going to fail miserably by rushing into the Post-PC world too soon (like decades too soon). IBM appears to have a plan in place though.
Why is Social Networking Important to Website owners?
When it comes to social networking, websites such as Facebook and Twitter often come to mind. They function as a community for people with similar interests to share their ideas. Similar interests can range from religion, hobbies, to even shoe colors. We are social by nature, It’s our natural need to share knowledge and connect with others. Now more than ever, website owners and online businesses are starting to make use of social networking.
Google+ first week of use review
Editor's Note: CMS Report has only worked with the very new social networking site Google+ for a couple days. Luckily for us, Thomas Svenson, IT Expert and Drupal Mill founder, has allowed us to share his review of Google+ with you. The content of this article first appeared a couple days as a post by Thomas on Google+.
I have used Google+ for about a week and I like it. Compared to other social networking solutions I found it instantly useful, with a clean design. When I started using Facebook it took quite some time to get a grip on what the benefits was for me, but for Google+ I didn't have to look as they were very visible directly.
Features of Google+
Circles is almost perfect, they let me organize both people I know and people I want to follow (Twitter style almost). This helps me to be able to easily be able to filter the stream of information in a very good way.
Circles would be almost perfect if it also was possible to filter the posts on keywords/tags like you can do using TweetDeck by creating a column that only shows posts containing the hashtags/search terms I decide.
With the combination that those filters would only work on the people added to that circle, it would make it a very powerful information filter.
Recommended Feeds for CMSReport.com
While we prefer to promote our primary news feed, you'll find that CMS Report offers a variety of RSS links available on various related CMS topics. Many of these "hidden feeds" can be discovered though the tag links found at the end of most articles. Below is a list of CMSReport.com's five most popular RSS fees.
CMS Topics:
ocPortal 7: A CMS for custom social websites
This week ocProducts released version 7 of the Open Source CMS, ocPortal, making rapid improvements based on feedback from user testing.
ocPortal 7 builds on the user-experience work that has also driven the previous three releases, with the aim of making it easier to build highly sophisticated social web-sites that can be fully customized by regular users.
Quoting IT: Social Media in Government
"Nobody has come up with a blueprint that says this is how social media must and will be used in all disasters, because it changes fast. We're trying to figure out how to get into conversations with the public without getting into one-on-one transactions, which would be next to impossible."
-W. Craig Fugate, Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, The Grill: W. Craig Fugate, ComputerWorld, March 21, 2011.
CMS Expo: Social Drupal
CMS Expo in Chicago last week gave me a great opportunity to learn about a variety of content management systems. I spent most of my time at the conference getting out of my comfort zone by visiting with those companies and open source projects that I knew the least about their products and services. Unfortunately, this strategy also prevented me from visiting with my personal favorite CMS, Drupal. By the end of the conference, I felt I needed to treat myself by attending one of the final sessions in the Drupal track, Social Drupal.
What key activities should you integrate? In what scenarios might you be smarter to leave the heavy lifting to an outsourced solution? What elements are critically important right now when building your social relevance in the market? Find this out and more at this practical advice session on how you can be using Drupal to capture the Social Media audience which awaits.
My hope for the session was that it would give me good pointers for how to connect my Drupal sites better to the social web. Lullabot's Blake Hall led this information packed session. Blake began the session by pushing his vision that this session should not just be called "Social Drupal" but also "Community Plumbing (without the crack)". The proposed rewriting of the title for this session is a reminder to the audience that Drupal has always been social.
Blake started the session reminding that one needs to take a look at the bigger picture by taking a look as your site's Social Media Strategy. This strategy would include the following elements:
- Authentic Story
- Honest Dialogue
- Engage your audience
- Activate the social media
While the big picture is always nice consider it's the details that help determine whether your site is going to succeed. From this point forward Blake focused on specifics and I feverishly did my best to keep up. Some of the notable remarks from Blake that caught my attention:
- First step is to take a look at your business goals and the resources you have available when building/supporting your site. Blake of course sees Drupal as being able to address both ends of this equation.
- Some of the social modules for Drupal he recommends include Feeds, Flag, Twitter, Dashboard, Fivestar, Messaging, Radioactivity (gotta check this one out!), and Organic Groups.
- Speaking of organic groups, take a look at groups.drupal.org: especially Social Networking Sites group to tap into Drupal community's expertise on social publishing.
CMS Redefined: Cloud. Mobile. Social.
Back in December I participated in a podcast with Alan Shimel from Network World where I was also joined by Kathleen Reidy, Senior Analyst from The 451 Group and Todd Barr, Chief Marketing Officer for Alfresco. The topic of the podcast was “Open Source CMS” but we also talked about “crystal ball” predictions for the CMS market in general for 2011. In the podcast, I mentioned that from DotNetNuke’s perspective, innovation in the content management market in the coming years will all be centered around 3 major disruptive industry trends…Cloud, Mobile, and Social. Conveniently, these 3 hot trends redefine the C.M.S. acronym:
Based on the influence of cloud, mobile and social, the on-line needs of users and customers have changed significantly in recent years. The days of simple brochure-ware websites targeting traditional browser devices with one-way communication are quickly coming to an end. The web has evolved to become much more sophisticated medium. A business website is no longer a destination; rather, it is a hub of web engagement (credit to Barb Mosher from CMS Wire for summarizing this so elegantly).
To help emphasize this point in visual terms which everyone can understand, I constructed a diagram which attempts to identify the complex requirements for a modern business website. I first shared this diagram at the keynote of the DotNetNuke Connections conference in Las Vegas in November 2011, and it received such a good response that I have been using it in most of my conference presentations in 2011.
Quoting IT: Scott Abel on Help 2.0
"Help 2.0 is about letting go of old-school, preconceived notions about our role as content providers. Help 2.0 forces us to realize that by leveraging the knowledge of the crowd we can help users find the right information quickly and easily, whether we created the content ourselves or not. And perhaps most importantly, Help 2.0 is about creating support experiences in which users can help us learn what they want and need, while also allowing them to assist one another, in ways that are meaningful to them."
-Scott Abel, The Future of Technical Communication Is Socially Enabled: Understanding the Help 2.0 Revolution, Intercom.STC.org, April 2011.
Quoting IT: Throw caution to the wind with Enterprise 2.0
"The more I learn about Enterprise 2.0, the more inclined I am to encourage companies to throw caution to the wind: buy (or build) some well-designed lightweight tools that take advantage of emergence and game mechanics, find a few leaders willing to lead by example, and go live."
- Andrew McAfee, Enterprise 2.0 the Indian Way, AndrewMcAfee.org, April 7, 2011.
JFBConnect v3.2 - Adds Multiple Features for Enhanced Integration of Joomla and Facebook
With Facebook recently announcing it surpassed the 500 million user mark, and Joomla powering over 2.5% of all websites, the integration of both is a natural fit for growing your site and brand both easily and organically.
The newest release of JFBConnect, version 3.2, now makes that integration even more powerful! Updated features include a rich wall posting feature on registration and login, full Facebook Open Graph support, automatic comments and like boxes throughout your Joomla site, and additional profile fields during registration.
These enhancements are all in addition to existing features such as one-click registration, customizable profile import into multiple 3rd party extensions, automatic logging in of Facebook users, and all of the Facebook social widgets such as Like, Comments, Fanbox and more.
WordCampTV: From Personal Blogger to Professional Marketer
From WordCamp Portland 2010, Melissa Lion & Julie Yamamoto session how how to evolve your career from blogger to professional marketer. I'm always fascinated when I hear people's professional career evolved over time, especially when it is a career that is immersed in information technology, the social web, and Enterprise 2.0.
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