At the end of 2010 while in the midst of a web project and commenting regularly on developments in digital marketing and web development on Twitter, I produced the following 'predictions' post for 2011. Now, 11 months into the year, I've added some update comments
Extracted from 20(11) predictions from the CMS coal face - 2020 Visions - December 23rd 2010
I was described recently as a “self-proclaimed crusader on behalf of buyers”. Despite the rather condescending tone and context of the comment, I have heard from others that alternative views of web marketing and information management from those who spend each and every day as practitioners is welcome. Those practitioners who do post comment tend to get their voices drowned out of social media by the vendors, analysts and commentators who shout a lot louder and a lot more frequently. So in the interests of living up to that label, here are some predictions for the coming year from the CMS coal face…
1. It will get harder and dirtier – The pressure and expectation on web and ecommerce channels to deliver is immense, and will only increase as organisations run out of options in the offline world. So, if organisations can get away with blackhat SEO they will try even harder to do so and when they run out of steam in organic search they’ll turn increasingly to manipulating social media environments. I’ve heard it said ‘there are no rules on Twitter’ and I’m sure there are plenty of ‘black hats’ being tried on in the background right now.
11 months on...
With the world economy tottering on the edge of a double-dip recession and the Eurozone in a state of meltdown, the pressure to deliver has grown even stronger as the year has progressed. If the search marketing campaigns that we run are anything to go by, things have got a lot more competitive - with click rate costs climbing and websites being upgraded significantly.
2. Security will be tightened up – security around CMS solutions and associated SaaS accounts, such as analytics, is often woeful. As we have just experienced what’s been described as the ‘first cyber-war’ around the Wikileaks controversies, the ease with which information can be hacked and websites maliciously attacked has been thrown into the spotlight. In the short term this will get practitioners losing sleep and over-hauling their security processes – in the mid-term they’ll be pressuring vendors to provide better security capabilities ‘out-of-the-box’.
11 months on ...
There are frequent stories about the level of cyber-attack being faced by the UK Government and others around the world. Perhaps the most tangible example of concern in this area is Google's current mainstream advertising campaign in the UK to encourage creation of strong passwords. At Webwiser, we have also been pleased to see Drupal, one of the main systems we use and recommend, enforces strong password creation for those registering on a site as a standard, pre-configured setting.
3. Open Source uptake will accelerate – major releases during 2010 from WordPress, Joomla and the upcoming Drupal 7 combined with a surge of interest amongst implementers for .Net Open Source such as Umbraco will see 2011 increasingly dominated by Open Source commentary. Looking closer, the organisation and velocity around developments such as Drupal 7 Commerce look encouraging and will prompt many in the mid tier to give it some serious thought. 2011 could well see a significant tipping point in favour of Open Source CMS across all tiers.
11 months on...
Ok - we've become quite biased on this one having spent much of 2011 immersed in the new Drupal 7 offering. If indeed Open Source uptake has accelerated we can only really say it seems well deserved and has come at a time when organisations of all shapes and sizes could benefit from making their websites work harder and smarter without putting big dents in their revenue.
4. More content in more languages – I know this is pretty much a given but as markets get even more competitive in the next year much smaller organisations further down the CMS food chain are going to have internationalisation and globalisation higher on their wish lists. Buyers will become even more aware that CMS solutions are not created equal when it comes to dealing with multiple languages and other localisation requirements.
11 months on ...
If we look at how the technology vendor market has been shaping up in the UK this year, it would appear that only one serious contender remains in content technologies - SDL Tridion. Their recent bid to take over struggling marketing technologies vendor Alterian illustrates that there is strength and opportunity in being able to address multi-lingual content technologies challenges effectively.
5. Must do much more with much less – I’m sure I’m not alone in having lost colleagues this year to redundancy or having to use every last ounce of experience to gain Capex approval for web initiatives. That good old ‘recessionary’ term ‘sweat the assets’ will undoubtedly be the flavour of 2011. In previous downturns, I’ve seen things bottoming out around 3 years out from the initial crisis, so the next year is set to be a grind but hopefully it will herald an upturn later in the year.
11 months on ...
Well, the money dried up in the project I was running earlier in the year and I'm hearing similar stories elsewhere. However, in times of tight budgets creativity often flourishes as you have to think harder about how to compete. This is the premise on which Webwiser is launched - doing more, with less...
6. Some vendors will die – a triple whammy of open source surge, increased needs for internationalisation and heavy public sector cuts will put intense pressure on the small, provincial CMS vendors. If they haven’t figured out an exit strategy yet, they could be finding things very tough by the end of the year.
11 months on ...
Sadly it looks like a technology vendor close to home is fighting for survival. Marketing technology company and social media specialists Alterian announced it was cutting almost half its workforce the other day
7. Social Media will get even noisier – I know this is probably similar to predicting that there will be month of June in 2011. However, the laggards are getting sucked in to the main social media platforms at an accelerating rate and if we think services like Linkedin are already getting very loud and spammy, next year will be a lot worse. In the words of John McClane, as he chucks a bad guy out of the window,… “Welcome to the party, pal!” With other business and economic pressures mounting, organisations will be very mindful about getting distracted and diverted by the noise and continue to play a waiting game until the hype subsides, multi-channel management duplication is reduced further and Return On Investment is proven. As always, newer entrants less restricted by legacy infrastructure and ingrained cultures will try to take advantage of the slow movers – It was ever thus.
11 months on ...
With those at the forefront of the hype, such as Alterian mentioned above, tightening their belts severely this may be an indication of a sense of reality returning to proceedings and organisations are having the good sense to examine return on investment and not blindly follow the latest hyped trend.
8. Personalisation falters again – I’d love to be entirely wrong on this as I’ve held a utopian desire to create these one-to-one relationships since Peppers and Rogers first wrote about it in the 90s. However, I can’t forget easily all the failed efforts to achieve this over the years – from experimenting with bleeding-edge click prediction services over 10 years ago, a massive enterprise initiative to let users create their own personalised documentation (which was abandoned), to bending and twisting mid market solutions during the last decade to provide ‘tagged’ content to audience groups. Maybe failure and cynicism has distorted my view of personalisation but unless a vendor demonstrates it can be achieved with much greater intuitiveness than previous solutions and minimal additional overhead in content and business rules management I won’t be rushing into this again too soon.
11 months on ...
I am still dubious about this and the worsening economic conditions will likely stifle more ambitious web development projects. However, I was delighted to discover some new capabilities in Drupal that help make creating and managing site personalisation easier than anything I have seen in a web technologies solution before.
9. Upper tier vendors will keep trying to force complexity on us – as King Louie from Jungle Book once said “I’ve reached the top and had to stop, And that’s what botherin’ me” - If you’re in that middle to upper tier and the CMS masses are biting at your heels from below it’s understandable that you want to differentiate. If I was in that position, I would want to do so too. However, if the ‘simple’ CMS scenarios are catered for by a myriad of low-cost and Open Source solutions, there’s little choice but to target the more complex scenarios. So in their quest for ‘man’s red fire’ there will be more long-standing business principles re-invented and a lot more complexity added to processes and functions. Let’s sing it…shoo-be-doo, I wanna be like you, I wanna talk like you, Walk like you, too – You’ll see it’s true, Someone like me, Can learn to be, Like someone like you!
11 months on ...
I've had my head down for much of the year and have lost track of the hype cycle for content technologies as it currently stands. I have seen quite a lot of backlash on topics such as 'web engagement' so perhaps continuing economic difficulties are emphasising a 'back to basics' mentality.
10. Watch out for the escape tunnels – After events during the last year, I’m sure there are many CMS buyers who are mindful of ending up like those poor Chilean miners – trapped for months in a place they didn’t want to be. The smart ones will have already dug escape tunnels and be able to switch strategy quickly. The less fortunate will have to endure longer term ‘lock-in’ while a bunch of specialists figure out a way of rescuing them. As we’ve seen from real life events this year, such rescues can be difficult and expensive. If successful, the sense of relief will be immense but the touch and go drama will leave long lasting scars. Once bitten, twice shy!
11 months on ...
Ok - we have a vested interest in this one now as we believe we can help build escape tunnels and conduct rescues if your web operations seem trapped and doomed. Take a look at 11 ways Webwiser can help you.
11. CMS royalty will reign supreme – The self-styled CMS Kings, Queens, courtiers and jesters of the CMS online community will continue to entertain with their wit and wisdom, and the down-trodden witless underclass will continue to plot a revolution to unseat them. The revolution will not come in 2011 but by the end of the year we will be completely bored with the incumbent rulers and crying out for a change of monarchy 
11 months on ...
I get a sense that venturing back on Twitter via @webwiserUK after a break of almost 12 months, I will see very quickly who people are following for the latest and greatest developments in web content technologies. Am I in for a surprise - hmm - I wonder ? ...
As a sign-off to this seemingly ‘Orwellian’ view from the coal face, I will coin a phrase I liked from CMS Watch this year…
“I am not a pessimist but believe that forewarned is forearmed”
Similarly, with such low expectations, I may just end up being surprised and delighted by what 2011 brings forth.
Bring it on 
