Every year industry pundits predict data and analytics becoming more valuable the following year. But this doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict. There’s actually something much more interesting happening that’s going to change everything in the analytics world: the rise of a new hero, the software developer.

If the past is any indication of the future, then what we are seeing is a major transformation unfolding across every industry: a changing of the guard, so to speak, of the ones who are creating value from data.

The third feature release of Drupal 9 recently became available. New features and improvements in Drupal 9.3.0 include:

This is old news but I thought still worth mentioning. Last month Drupal 8 reached its end-of-life. This means that all versions of Drupal 8 core and Drupal contributed project releases that are compatible with only Drupal 8 have been marked unsupported and are no longer supported by the Drupal security team.

Drupal 8.0.0 was first released on November 9, 2015. The last version was released on November 17, 2021. With the end of life approaching, I also updated my two websites from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9.

Blogging has always been a way for me to express myself creatively as I hide away in my home office for "me time". Unfortunately, the COVID-19 Pandemic changed all that with my day job requiring maximum telework which in turn transformed my creative personal space into a remote office that work owned eight hours a day. For my mental and physical health, once those work hours are up I have made the conscious decision to walk away from the computer. I now find it more necessary to find something else to do that doesn't involve screen time. This shift in priorities unfortunately reduced my writing time.

Your content offers users a glimpse into the heart and soul of your brand. When it’s on-point,  you establish yourself as an authority in your field and become the first one people turn to when they have a related question. As a result, your brand becomes the best known source to solve customer pain points. 

HubSpot's State of Content Marketing report found 82% of marketers used content to promote their brands. Content marketing saw a whopping 70% increase from the previous year. With more consumers shopping online, digital marketing has become more important than ever before for brands wishing to remain competitive. 

Life has a way of distracting us from our goals. Four years ago when I decided to retire CMS Report, I did so in the hope for opportunity to find a new voice in my online presence. It didn't work out so well. Instead of being more creative in my writings, I spent more time maintaining the nuts and bolts to my websites and publishing other people's articles than I did expressing my own thoughts and ideas. I know for many of you, you find yourself in a similar predicament.

Graphic design, while practiced by many, is often misunderstood especially in the business and marketing worlds. That’s because a lot of people believe it simply refers to visual marketing, particularly through images. But that’s only a small part of the, quite broad, concept.

It’s unfortunate too because graphic design is an instrumental component of creating captivating digital marketing campaigns. What’s more, it’s integral to creating all kinds of materials including social media content, blogs, and news articles, websites, and even company branding.

The next question is what kind of benefits practicing graphic design can bring marketing teams? What rewards can you reap by doing so?