My 2020 Vision

This is part of my Executive MBA Self Reflection

My 2020 Vision

I will have transitioned to a globally-focused, business-enablement position, and I will be seen as a leader with unique characteristics and style that is adaptable and congruent with the fast pace of this day and age.

My leadership will be strong on people empowerment where my teams will have the resources and the ability to make decisions without corporate obstacles. Regardless of the size of the organization, teams will be allowed to dedicate time for research and development and to fail fast, if need be. I will have an open door policy with regular, random, meetings scheduled with employees to get the pulse of the population. Colleague engagement will be at least 80% in my organization, a clear reflection of satisfaction with work-life balance, recognition, and career growth in a meaningful way. Employees will be required, once a year to shadow a colleague from a different function or decide to volunteer outside the organization instead. Balance between generation X and Y will be at the forefront of my attention as we adopt systems and solution for better, faster, and more accurate information at the fingertips of colleagues.

Transparency will not be optional. Team’s performance, projects in flight, and metrics of success will be available for all teams. The opportunity to join different project teams will be offered and teams will be encouraged to take in members. No single team will have more than 7 members.

Aside from common shared services, a true matrix organization will be put in place. Projects and resources will be available. Project leadership will be rotated and the proper mentorship will be provided.

Local and regional summits, both virtual and physical will be encouraged. Virtual summits will rely on techniques such as gamification to encourage participation and promote a spirit of positive competitiveness.  I will have priorities aligned between the different business functions. Priorities will be explained and supported in spirit of transparency. Innovation is critical to any company’s success. We are in an economy that is ever changing. Ethics and appropriate business conduct will be at the core of my leadership. There will not be a right way of doing something wrong. Two-way communication will be imperative to the success of my organization. The spirit of openness will be promoted with clear responsibilities and accountability.

How to delete a publication in Tridion

It's often very hard to trace back everything that got published from a given publication.

One easy solution can be done in the backend (note: this may not be supported by Tridion and could void your warranty).

1) Grab the publication ID:

a) through the interface by mousing-over a publication and grab the highlighted number tcm:xx-XX-xx

b) through the backend with a simple: _{select * from publications} and find the ID for the publication you'd like to delete.

2) Now you can delete the publication starting with dependencies first:

_{delete from ITEM_STATES where PUBLICATION_ID = XX}

_{delete from PUBLICATION_ITEM_ASSOCIATIONS where PUBLICATION_ID = XX}

_{delete from PUBLISH_TRANSACTIONS where PUBLICATION_ID = XX}

_{delete from TRUSTEE_RIGHTS where PUBLICATION_ID = XX}

_{delete from PUBLICATION_PRIORITIES where CHILD_PUBLICATION_ID = XX}

_{delete from PUBLICATIONS where ID = XX}

 

Related articles, courtesy of Zemanta:

• Get Child publications in Tridion
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• Delete keywords in Tridion

Adding a computer to a DC: SRV/DNS error

If you are trying to add a computer to a DC, you may run into this error:

An error occurred when DNS was queried for the service location (SRV) resource record used to locate a domain controller for domain *****.com.
The error was: "No records found for given DNS query."

(error code 0x0000251D DNS_INFO_NO_RECORDS)
The query was for the SRV record for _ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.*****.com


There are few possible causes:

1. You explicitly set the DNS server address in your network connection properties, which may not recognize (or able to reach) your DC.
2. You have a firewall (network or on the DC) blocking ports 135 and 139. You can test this by running the command: telnet *****.com 135. You can temporarily disable a firewall to verify.
3. You have a firewall on the server preventing outbound connections.

Note that you can always change your HOSTS file for testing host name resolution.

SDL Tridion: Summary of the Content Management and Delivery Cpabilities

Content Management

Templating

Templates in Tridion are modular and granular. There are templates at the component level (reusable piece of functionality) and the page level. The templating framework separates content, design, and application logic allowing for a better separation of concerns and collaboration between designers and developers. The modules, or building blocks, comprising templates are supported by BluePrinting, which allows for easier management and implementation. These building blocks can be assembled and debugged in Template Builder for functional and performance testing.

The way templates are design in Tridion will cater well to empowering the business and reducing IT’s involvement in regular everyday business tasks.

Tridion supports a number of standard industry tools for building templates including Dreamweaver and Visual Studio.

Workflow

Workflows can be designed using Microsoft Visio. Workflows can then be associated with any manageable asset.

Content Publishing and Delivery

SDL Tridion offers multi-channel support for better content reuse, synchronization, and management of source of records. The architecture enables the concept of “author once, publish many”, where the same piece of content can be published across different channels (Web, e-mail, print).

Tridion offers advanced audience targeting and personalization. It has is the ability to create and manage contacts and build group profiles. It enables content managers to personalize content based on audience characteristics (such as profile information or click stream), and measure effectiveness of content based on audience responses.

Another feature that Tridion offers is WebForms. It’s a tool that enables business users to create and update online forms quickly and easily and have them integrated within pages. The highly reusable modular architecture allows for these web forms to be reused across the site.

Given some of the limitations of the web content management systems, you often find numerous forms that have been built and deployed with little to no oversight, resulting in hundreds of duplicate forms that are unmanageable. The WebForms offering from Tridion would help in alleviating some of these typical issues with web forms management. As technology is only an enabler, the business would need better processes in place for web forms and lead generation management. Remember that forms can be a critical piece of a lead generation process. Solutions such as Eloqua serve the same purpose with a lot more out of the box for lead nurturing and gated and/or progressive profiling.

Localization and Internationalization

Content in Tridion is stored in Unicode. APIs and GUIs are Unicode compliant. Content can be managed and published in double-byte and bi-directional languages.

The Translation Management System (TMS) provides Tridion with full translation management and a language repository for reuse of previously translated content. Business rules and workflow can still be applied (with role-based security giving users access to authorized functionality only).

Blueprinting and the reusability of components and content will allow for better management of brand and message, while enabling local regions to localize that message.

It is also worth mentioning that SDL Tridion has a number of sites in their portfolio that clearly demonstrate these features.

As companies look to expand their global footprint, especially in emerging markets in south east Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, the translation and localization capabilities of Tridion would be a corner stone to our success.

User Interface and Usability

Content managers can use a variety of interfaces to manage content and assets. SiteEdit allows for client-side/browse-based for quick content editing and publishing. Content Manager Explorer is another browser-based tool for advanced users. Office applications (Word) and Adobe Dreamweaver can also be used to create templates and manage content.

Tridion’s interfaces can be extended to provide more functionality (such as custom screens to manage integrations with other line of business applications).

Despite its feature-rich interface, Tridion’s interface (Content Manager Explorer, to be specific) is overwhelming and very demanding (system resource-wise) of the end-user’s machine. It is memory-intensive (given all the code that runs client-side) and it is often the case that end-users have to restart their browsers. This was experienced by Tridion presenters on site as well and was highlighted in the CMS Watch report as one of the weaknesses of the platform.

It is therefore important to understand the minimum system requirements for the potential business users to avoid any dissatisfaction with the system and its responsiveness.

SDL Tridion: An Impressive Web Content Management (WCM) System - Part 1

I did a quiet in-depth analysis of the SDL Tridion platform a while back. I'll be sharing my assessment over a number of blog posts. I'll cover the architecture, content management, content publishing and delivery, content migration methodologies, search, analytics, documentation, and extendability aspects of the platform, so stay tuned!

Architecture

The underlying architecture for SDL Tridion is modular, de-coupled, and based on industry standards (underlying technologies and protocols) and best practices.

Tridion supports both .NET and a Java-based deployment.

Content is stored in XML for better reusability and separation between content and presentation. The use of XML Schemas allow for more flexibility in structuring content. XLink manages relationships between schemas and documents. XSLT can be used to render content in native formats (HTML, PDF etc.). This XML foundation is the underpinning for Tridion’s content reusability and modularity.

Tridion also supports Web services for reuse, extension, and integration with other platforms.

Content delivery is decoupled from content management. This decoupling allows for easier content distribution, better demarcation of logical and physical architectural components, and more flexibility in how the platform is deployed and scaled.

Tridion supports standard application servers such as IIS and WebLogic. The Presentation server provides storage management (published content and related assets and their metadata), link management (across all assets to prevent broken links), and cache management (for better performance).

As for publishing models, SDL Tridion provides 5 models with the ability to combine them (for example, pages with high hit rate can be static, while areas behind the login can be dynamic and personalized). These models give us extreme flexibility in how we design our physical architecture.

One of the unique features of SDL Tridion is BluePrinting. It’s a modeling mechanism for content and processes. It provides the ability to separate the management of content, layout, applications, and profiles. This allows for better alignment to functional roles and the ability to reuse or localize content without compromising the corporate branding standards.

SDL Tridion has a developer community and a framework for developers to submit components for other SDL Tridion customers to use.

In summary, the product’s architecture is truly impressive and manifests a great technical aptitude on the Tridion engineers’ part. It lends itself well to potentially any physical architecture requirements and will likely meet most of your functional and technical requirements. But remember, there is no silverbullet with WCMs; you can never find a platform that meets ALL your requirements. Custom development should be expected.

Note: I relied on published documentation from SDL Tridion as well as meetings with their architects.

Social Computing: Building Contexts for Interaction (Part 4 and last)

By: Adnan (AD) Al-Ghourabi

Enterprise Architecture, IHS

9.    Selection of Technology

The technology aspect of a social-computing implementation compliments the social/cultural aspect and is also critical for a successful adoption.

There are three principles that define a good implementation:

1. Beneficial actions
2. Responsiveness
3. Simplicity

Tagging is a great example to explain these three principles. Using AJAX, the process of content tagging becomes extremely simple and light-weight. A sound user experience design complemented by the responsiveness and the ease of interaction encourage further engagement from end-users. As more content is tagged, all users benefit from this action as it makes content discoverable, organized, and helps identifying interests, credibility, and expertise. [4]

10.    Available Solutions

10.1    External

The following solutions are the most common platforms of external social networks:

1. Jive Software
2. Blogtronix
3. KickApps
4. SocialText
5. Telligent

10.2    Internal: NewsGator

Newsgator is at the forefront of social computing and the most elaborate solution with respect to integration with MOSS.

 The proposition of Newsgator’s Social Sites 2.5 is to introduce a Facebook-like social community for the enterprise to allow bottom-up innovation and increased productivity by driving “knowledge-sharing”, an evolution from collaboration and organization by “project-teams” or geography to communities based on areas of interest or focus. [7]

One of high-profile adopters is McCann, a global media company that helps companies like J&J, Coca Cola, and MasterCard in their digital strategy, consumer insight, and media planning (about $13 billion in annual billings with 90 offices in 66 countries, all using MOSS and Newsgator). [6]

It’s important to mention that McCann has taken this solution to the next level by allowing customers to access to these communities and contribute, hence providing a different perceptive. [9]

10.2.1 Summary of Features

 1) Colleague activity feeds, network building, social network graphs (recommendation, introductions, associations).

2) Content discovery by surfacing relevant information, tagging, and tag clouds for emphasis of “frequent” tags or topics of interest.

3)      Allow creation of ad-hoc communities with support for social bookmarking (shared bookmarks), rich discussion and collaboration capabilities, all based on an interest or a focus.

4)      Enhanced profiles (that extend My Sites).

5)       

10.    Samples Online Communities

10.1    By Topic - Thomson-Reuters

The Thomson-Reuters online communities are one of the most successful implementations of “business-oriented” social networks the author has come across. These communities offer the following features: [11]

1)      A Community is centered on one topic of interest, such as Carbon Market.

2)      It highlights announcements, events, sponsorship advertisements, jobs postings, top stories. It also promotes editors picks and most discussed postings or news.

3)      E-mail newsletters include snippets of content to drive traffic to the community. It’s apparent that navigation paths and click streams are recorded (how links with e-mail messages are crafted).

4)      The top section is reserved for promotion of premium content (shop). It also allows users to navigate to other communities.

5)      A survey section to elicit feedback and ideas.

6)      A user profile displays connections, education, and work history. It shows other members or colleagues with similar profiles and interests and offers the ability to send and receive messages.

7)      A user can invite others, create posts, subscribe to alerts, participate in surveys, ask questions, vote on or rate content.

8)      Each member can have a blog. Thomson-Reuters postings are promoted and can be easily identified. Any content can be voted and commented on and members can contact the author of a post.

9)      Cross-promotion is prevalent: “content you might like”.

10)   Featured contributors.

11)   Mash-up of related news from the Web or Reuters.

Note: built on Blogtronix.

10.2    By Product - ATG

The ATG community is a good example of a community that’s centered on a product. Some of the features it offers are: [12]

1)      Discussion forums around technology, business, or for feedback

2)      Ability to share documents, create a post, create or join a group

3)      Highlight of top participants, popular discussions, popular tags

4)      Track of things users read for easier access later on

Note: built on Jive Software

11.    Future Trends

11.1    Fremium: The New Business Model

Despite the fact that most of the social computing offerings are available free of charge, businesses have managed to create tremendous business value and generated new and sustainable revenue streams. Welcome to “Fremium.” [1]

Fremium is a business model that consists of “free” and “premium” offering. Another name that has been used to signify the importance of Web 2.0 and how business models are adapting to it is “Business 2.0” (there is a magazine with this name now). [1]

The way these models work is by providing a free service for the community at large while generating revenue from “value-add” services from a number of streams. These streams cover the costs of the free service offering.

11.2    Semantics Web: Web 3.0

The following excerpt is taking from: Social Semantic Web: Where Web 2.0 Meets Web 3.0 [14]

Emerging Web 3.0 applications, driven by semantic web technologies such as RDF, OWL and SPARQL, offer powerful data organization, combination, and query capabilities.

The social web and the semantic web complement each other in the way they approach content generation and organization. Social web applications are fairly unsophisticated at preserving the semantics in user-submitted content, typically limiting themselves user tagging and basic metadata. Because of this, they have only limited ways for consumers to find, customize, filter and reuse data. Semantic web applications, on the other hand, feature sophisticated logic-backed data handling technologies, but lack the kind of scalable authoring and incentive systems found in successful social web applications. As a result, semantic web applications are typically of limited scope and impact. We envision a new generation of applications that combine the strengths of these two approaches: the data flexibility and portability of that is characteristic of the semantic web, and the scalability and authorship advantages of the social web.

The following excerpt is taken from: Wikipedia 3.0, the end of Google [15]

The Semantic Web requires the use of a declarative ontological language like OWL to produce domain-specific ontologies that machines can use to reason about information and make new conclusions, not simply match keywords. However, the Semantic Web, which is still in a development phase where researchers are trying to define the best and most usable design models, would require the participation of thousands of knowledgeable people over time to produce those domain-specific ontologies necessary for its functioning.

Social Computing: Building Contexts for Interaction (Part 3)

By: Adnan (AD) Al-Ghourabi
Enterprise Architecture, IHS

6. Potential Obstacles

According to the Burton Group, one of the major obstacles for implementing social networks is the uncertainty with regards to the business case and ROI.

From the research they have done, most of the discussions were mainly around the business case, metrics, policies, roles, participation, and cultural dynamics.

Perception of the intended solution is very important to the success of the initiative. Some companies have shied away from the term “social” altogether or used terms such as “online communities” or “corporate social network”. [2]

Another obstacle is the change in the mindset. In order for such initiatives to be successful, individuals need to be actively participating to keep the content fresh. This may seem as “yet another system to access to do my job.” [2]

The Burton Group report stressed the importance of making these initiatives relevant to the business and presenting them in a way that garners people’s support. This requires a careful management of perception and the engagement of other groups earlier in the project. “Governance should be outlined from the beginning. Policies need to be established or updated. Usage procedures need to be agreed upon. Groups such as HR, Legal, Compliance, and Security are vital in ensuring the success and the sustainability of such projects.” [2] Having them engaged early would create a sense of ownership. It may even be wise to underscore the value such solution may bring to these groups and have them become one of the earliest adopters.

In any case, such an undertaking requires multiple sponsors across the organization. As the benefit of social networks or online communities can be hard to ascertain, a proof of concept may be critical in providing tangible results for SMART goals; specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.

7. Ensuring a Successful Adoption

7.1 Before Implementation

As people are the consumers and will guide the requirements process, the technological solution is more about providing the right tools for the desired context. [3]

The following is a list of best practices for successful social-network implementations (internal and external):

1. The need to engage legal, HR, security, and compliance teams earlier in the process to address any “loss of control” concerns but without stringent policies and guidelines that will discourage participation. [2]

2. Garner acceptance from management by providing a business case and articulating scope, goals, and purpose.

Note: it’s often hard to quantify the return of investment (ROI) in internal social network implementations. Metrics, such as adoption rate, number of active (and also passive) users, or reduction in e-mails (numbers and size) is often used to gauge the success of such an implementation.

EMC, for example, is using an internal implementation on Jive software to gain the expertise for launching an external-facing community. [17]

Another metric for measuring value is how much such an application would help process improvement.

3. Finding the first champion.

As a white paper by NewsGator puts it, the champion provides “the needed push at the beginning of the project to keep usage up and discover more advocates among users. The champion needs to keep helping and encouraging users until this initial base of power users is created.” [3]

A champion can also be very influential in putting together the business case. As possibilities for process improvements are identified, a business case will be much easier to put together.

4. Identifying the initial group of adopters, such as a research group or customers of a product.

Amy Shuen, the author of Web 2.0 Business Strategies, describes the initial adopters as those who “provide the critical momentum that powers the whole system.“ [1]

5. Setting modest expectations. [17]

6. Providing tools that are easy to use to contribute content and establish channels for providing feedback.

7. Encouraging openness of communities and knowledge sharing between employees and avoiding “gated communities.” [17]

Internal implementations have some unique criteria for success: [2][3]

1. Tackle the business and cultural issues that may be raised and create a positive perception based on analyzing inhibitors, advantages and the perceived-value of such an implementation.

2. Encourage “self-monitoring” and develop a policy for inappropriate content without impeding adoption. This would likely be different for customer-facing implementations.

3. Understand the need for an “element of enjoyment” to encourage adoption within the enterprise.

4. Looking at existing business processes used by internal adopters and how the social-network implementation aligns with it.

5. Integrate with existing systems so it doesn’t appear as yet another system or task than employee has to access.

6. Considering new incentive systems to encourage and recognize participation.

7.2 After Implementation

One interesting observation about social networks is that they are self-evolving and provide persona-driven content. The more content there is (and participation), the more relevant content is surfaced, and the more meaningful relationships and associations are deduced and introduced, which further drives adoption and more knowledge-sharing over the life span of the community.

The Sustaining Communities of Practice white paper succinctly puts the characteristics of a community in the sustained performance phase as:

1. “Measurable progress against community objectives or creation of new objectives when launch objectives are met;
2. Changes in measures such as member numbers, content numbers and other quantifiable issues;
3. Activity that demonstrates learning;
4. Work processes being modified to take advantage of knowledge sharing and collaboration capabilities;
5. Taking action on lessons learned, forum topics and comments to knowledge objects to keep community content fresh;
6. Communications to community membership;
7. Shifting focus to knowledge innovation—better answers to new and tougher problems;
8. Articulating community value through success stories;
9. Knowledge sharing behaviors recognized in people development; and
10. Active and involved leadership.” [4]

In addition to the above, in order for the community to remain effective, it requires a dedication of resources (people, time) and support (management, adoption).