C.M.S. Redefined: Cloud. Mobile. Social.

Almost exactly one year ago I posted a blog which highlighted the three most pervasive technological trends in the software industry and predicted that the Content Management market was in for a significant disruption in the coming years as it attempts to get comfortable with these new technologies. This same blog was republished with Bryan Ruby’s permission on the CMS Report website.

This morning I kicked off Day 2 at CMS Expo in Chicago, IL with a mini-keynote on this same topic. But rather than just talking about what cloud, mobile, and social represent from a technology perspective, I also tried to explain WHY these trends have come to the forefront in recent years.

At a fundamental level I believe they are actually driven by globalization. And globalization would not have been possible without some critical infrastructure, specifically Internet connectivity, access to broadband, and affordable mobile devices. These innovations provided the basis for a global distributed workforce. However, they alone were not enough to generate the expected return on investment in terms of increased business efficiency and productivity. Rather, this required the emergence of collaborative business networks – networks which could provide the necessary collaboration, coordination, and communication to forge deeper business relationships and more meaningful interactions. And these collaborative business networks rely on those three industry trends which we are all very familiar with now: cloud, mobile, social – also known as systems of engagement. Systems of engagement are critical for getting the most out of a global economy.

In the context of Content Management, we firmly believe that your CMS will continue to be the central hub of your business. However, we also believe that in order to adapt to the changing landscape, your CMS will need to be fully and deeply integrated with systems of engagement. The resulting solution is a perfect marriage of content creation and content delivery. And in looking at the innovation adoption lifecycle, we believe that the cloud, mobile, and social trends have already jumped the chasm and are well on their way to gaining mainstream adoption in the mid-market.

In summary, we believe the future of C.M.S. is already being redefined as Cloud, Mobile, and Social. And we are taking steps to ensure DotNetNuke is ready for this transformation.

The slides for my mini-keynote can be dowloaded here.