Customer advocacy in software development (November 18, 2010)

Developing software is a tricky business. Whether you're involved in bespoke or commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software development, it's a process that benefits from the input of a customer advocate.
My experience of software development has been Internet oriented for the past 15 years and includes web content management systems (WCMS), mobile applications and bespoke systems for recruitment, investor relations and sponsorship asset management. In each of these contexts, customer advocacy played a key role in deciding what was to be developed.

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Content is the significant-other-half (October 21, 2010)

If you're migrating content from one web content management (WCM) platform to another you may have obstacles to overcome:

1. new tech to learn
2. the realisation that *content* is not the side show
3. content needs owners — that's people that are accountable for making sure content is accurate, useful and up-to-date
4. accurately budget for costs. including the hidden ones and gotchas
5. accurately plan content migration work effort and hence duration of content freeze
6. understand what's useful and what's not; content, applications
7. what are the *must have* applications that become important elements of the new WCM?

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