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Browsing through the SXSW Panels, I saw that Vignette’s CTO Conleth O’Connell is leading a panel called How Many Clicks to the Center of…? Given that Conleth has been with Vignette since the early days, and Vignette was one of the first companies in the enterprise content management space, I felt the title was a bit of a tease. So I contacted Conleth and asked him to elaborate: |
Lynn Bender: Conleth, thanks for taking the time. Please tell me about Success in 3 Clicks.
Conleth O’Connell: For a packed iPod of 400+ CD’s alone, try finding a specific song to play, it’s a lot of thumb scrolling (or clicks), now that’s on 80 Gigabyte iPods, it won’t be long before we have Terabyte iPods (1000 Gigabytes). Something has to give so we as humans can find what we’re looking for with a simple interface like an iPod. Vignette’s background of personalization and managing and delivering huge quantities of information over the Web sees a new wave coming called Personalization 2.0. We believe Personalization 2.0 will impact those interfaces and take into account the user, their mood, their environment, their patterns and their “persona” to help filter out what’s not relevant so we could actually achieve what the wise owl answered in the Tootsie Pop ad: Three. Success will be when getting to any information is within 3 clicks.
Bender: When choosing how to access their growing library of content, many people are choosing to assign tags to everything, rather than create a folder hierarchy. Clearly, folder tree will never get you everywhere in three clicks. However, unless you use multiple tags with boolean like operations, they don’t seem to be a solution either. How does one get to this three click success?
O’Connell: First of all you’re right. Classification and organization is still a static orientation based on a point in time even when the user is doing it themselves. When new assets come online (never been tagged before) or when older assets go offline, your tagging density changes and that may affect what’s prominent. This is important dimension is the classification and organization of the content. Now the question becomes how does it get used? That’s where the user’s intent must be taken into consideration. The user’s intent is affected not only by their own actions within a point in time, but also what others are doing around them. One of our panel members represents a firm, Baynote, that specializes on using the intent of the user to improve activities like search. We call this social search. Understanding what’s valuable when you search for a term (like a form in turbo tax) goes beyond the raw relevance rankings, it’s where did the crowd find value that matters the next time that query is issued.
Go to www.netapp.com and using their search box, search for storage. Network Appliance is a storage vendor, so you might expect a plethora of results. In the results page, you will see on the order of 250 or so results, and if you scan the results you see they are mostly product types. Now they have a link there that says “Raw results”; select that, and now you can see the difference in action. If you were looking for a storage product (a large segment of visitors do that in their case, probably even competitors), you went from search to finding the product line – 2 clicks. If all they had were the raw relevance rankings. It’s where the crowd finds value that matters the next time that query is issued.
Another example is www.nyc.gov. They realized presenting information how they are organized internally wasn’t working, so they added alternative views: Did you Know and Most Requested sections help bubble up information based on users coming in. Furthermore, they used user segments to organize the site: residents, business, visitors, etc.
Similarly, the state of Michigan (Michigan.gov) uses “How do I” and other task oriented organizations to present information on their site. Three clicks was our measure of success for them.
Bender: Tell me more about Personalization 2.0. It seems to center on providing multi-channel access to content. However, the content you describe would all be delivered from, or pass through a central spoke. How do you address the problem of multiple information silos?
O’Connell: Separating content from presentation is a fundamental tenet of making this work. A centralized hub is used to manage the metadata and the logistics of placing the content into the right environment. However, the delivery application that adds the presentation to that content is where the specific experiences are applied (mobile versus Web browser versus kiosk). There’s a corollary to this separation tenet which is always have a single system of record. By that I mean, edits only take place in one information source. All other uses of that information are then updated (the need for a powerful content management system includes knowing where content has gone). The importance of multichannel is the empowerment to take action by the user. The user is providing the disruption here by taking more control on how to use the technology. Not the technology dictating how to use the content.
For us multichannel includes all of the different ways users communicate and interact, beyond mobile and multi-device. It’s the convenience factor usually associated with mobile devices that clearly demonstrates the impact as can be seen in this Citibank mobile commercial on Youtube. This shows the wife persona-shifting to make a car payment (from passenger to financial caretaker). Rather than pulling into the bank or stopping at a hotspot, she uses her phone to call, but to make the payment using a Web application. Multichannel access allows action to be taken. We manage the content (single source of the truth) across all those different distribution channels. If you go to anytime.sky.com, you can see this in action. Customers can access the same videos available to them at home (set-top box), over the Web or on their mobile phones
Bender: You spoke of Personalization 2.0 as providing a unified login — do you see this utilizing an existing standard such as OpenID, or do you see it requiring a new standard?
O’Connell: I wasn’t presupposing any specific technology. I also don’t expect a unified login to occur as opposed to a “master login.” Between Microsoft’s passport and the Liberty Alliance and now other activities around CROWD and OpenID, I’m sure a solution, if not multiple, will be found and if users gain value out of it, then it will be accepted like wildfire. The overall effect I was trying to portray was that human capacity to ingest information hasn’t changed yet. The Web in its generic sense is growing beyond our capacity to absorb, so it will need to get personal to the point that there is “My Web” which will end up being a virtual representation of what I care about at a point in time, but it will never be static because I’m not static. J
Bender: It seems I see more about Vignette in the European tech news than I see here in the states. Is that my imagination? Does this have anything to do with the advances in the euro telecomm networks?
O’Connell: Our efforts on focusing on the Telecommunications, Media, and Entertainment space with the Vignette Digital Services Hub solution began in the European, Middle East and Africa geography. Consumers in those markets are used to being served rich, interactive experiences over their mobile devices, and Vignette has a lot to do with that. We’re working with companies like British Sky Broadcasting, Vodacom and SABC to ensure their content is available to subscribers at any time on any device.
Vignette is well recognized aboard as a leader in content management and delivery for mobile devices. In the U.S., we’re best known as the pioneer of Web Content Management and have received a great deal of recognition for our innovative Web Experience Platform.
Bender: what are you looking forward to seeing/doing this year at SXSW?
O’Connell: I always find it fascinating to see how technology gets used in unexpected ways. We are really focusing on the next wave of experiences and interactivity from a mainstream perspective, so attending and participating in the Interactive festival itself is a great way of seeing a bit into the future.
See Conleth O’Connell’s Panel How Many Clicks to the Center of…? at SXSW Interactive
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If you ever wanted to have a free 5 day drunk, this is the year for it. I have never seen so much corporate money poured into sxsw since 2000. Hey, remember 2000? It was right before 2001. |
If you can resist the free corporate booze that is going to be thrust in your direction every night, you’ll be witness to the largest SXSW Interactive Austin has ever seen. There are so many evening events, both official and unofficial, many of my friends are already resigned to the frustration that there is no way to be all the places they want to be. Imagine having a ticket to disneyland, and only an afternoon to visit. Aside from everything going on in the daytime, just look at all the parties.
(10:46:44 AM)linearb@gmail.com/Home: I was thinking of tagging all the corp parties at SXSWi “corp booze”
(10:46:57 AM) linearb@gmail.com/Home: then linking to the tag in GA
(10:47:08 AM) linearb@gmail.com/Home: but then thought nahhh, bad idea
(10:47:21 AM) whurley: rofl
(10:47:23 AM) whurley: you’re so back :D
Many of the parties will require SXSWi admission. For everyone who has bitched about the price of SXSWi admission, check out the cost of other similar tech events O’Reilly’s ETech is a couple thou — and the big cherry TED conference is about ten thou (if you’re lucky enough to get an invite). Think how much liquor you will be pouring down every night at SXSW. Yes You. Now imagine if you had to pay for that liquor. Now, look at me with a straight face and bitch about the price of admission.
Word is spreading pretty fast, but in case you hadn’t heard, Austin Ventures startup Pluck has just been purchased by Demand Media. Pluck CEO Dave Panos says the jobs of his 70 employees will remain untouched. Heh. It wasn’t but a few weeks ago that Pluck announced a major deal with Hearst Publishing. As you know, Hearst owns MySpace. and the CEO of Demand Media is none other than former MySpace Chairman Richard Rosenblatt. Raise your hands if you saw this one coming.
As part of moving Geekaustin from Slashcode to Wordpress last weekend, I was reviewing the most popular posts over the last 7 years. I discovered that the most popular posts were from people trying to get advice about connectivity — who was good, who was bad, how much SBC sucked, how bad texas.net sucked, etc. Some of the events we witnessed were the buyout and subsequent closure of Jump.net, and the discontinuation of most independent ISDN and DSL offerings in town — like those from Realtime Communications, Illuminati Online, Texas.net, Eden.net, Constant.com. We’re really down to a few choices. Even Speakeasy was bought by Best Buy.
After 7 years on a pre-BrianAker version of SlashCode, GeekAustin has been converted to WordPress. The decision to go with WordPress was based on several things: 1) It’s beautiful code, 2) There is a tremendous amount of WordPress talent in town. 3) I didn’t want to spend months working on a heavyweight solution, and 4) I want to jam with Matt Mullenweg. I am getting pretty good at this jazz piano thing, and would love to back Matt up. What do you say, Matt?
A tremendous amount of thanks goes to Paul Menard for recreating the original GeekAustin template in WP.
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In the very near future, Cafe Medici, purveyors of the absolutely best espresso in town, will be opening a new location on the drag. Now all the campus needs is a decent bookstore. |
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I really love C — largely because I learned it at the same time I learned Unix, but my knowledge of C is largely limited to the chunks of Unix source code with which I am familiar. I’d love to learn C++ but I doubt that that will ever happen. Tonight I caught up with Matt Weigel,an old friend who just happens to be the organizer of the Austin C/C++ meetup. I took the opportunity to ask Matt about the Austin C/C++ meetup. |
(10:12:16 PM) Linear: C or C++: Is there more emphasis on one or the other?
(10:13:16 PM) Matthew Weigel: It’s a mix. We have a few Linux kernel developers who come, and a few old-school Unix developers of other stripes who stick to C.
(10:13:18 PM) linearb: Do you have presentations? or are these just meet and greets.
(10:13:24 PM) Matthew Weigel: no presentations as of yet.willing to host one, but so far no one has been chomping at the bit to give one.
(10:14:25 PM) linearb: Do you think that is because of the suitability of the venues, or do you think that the guys are just looking for an opportunity to get together?
(10:14:46 PM) Matthew Weigel: a bit of both? I mean, some people come strictly for the socialization. Any kind of presentation, I’d want to precede it or follow it with meet’n'greet. With B.B. Rovers we have the back room available, which is sufficiently separate and quiet that presentations are a possibility. The capacity is around 30? we usually have about 10-15 people show up. So, we have room to grow.
(10:18:36 PM) linearb: BB’s seems to be rife with geeks.
(10:18:53 PM) Matthew Weigel: indeed. wireless+beer.
(10:20:55 PM) linearb: How many of BB’s beers have you sampled? Any beer reccommendations ?
(10:21:05 PM) Matthew Weigel: 80+%, but not all of them there. Recommendations: Full Sail Session Lager, Fuller’s ESB, Great Divide Titan IPA
(10:23:40 PM) linearb: so, are you more of a C or C++ guy?
(10:23:50 PM) Matthew Weigel: “meh” :-). at this point I’ve probably actually spent more time working in C, but the current job is C++, so that will change before too long. I’m probably more of a C++ guy, but I also miss C’s simplicity
(10:25:11 PM) linearb: There is a real poetry about it. What are your favorite C/C++ books?
(10:26:43 PM) Matthew Weigel: for C, The C Programming Language, and The Practice of Programming, and for C++, Effective C++. The Practice of Programming isn’t really about C, it just uses C to illustrate a lot of points (along with awk, Perl, and Java)… but the C is the best.
(10:28:20 PM) linearb: Effective C++ seemed to spawn a bunch of similar books for other languages.
(10:29:24 PM) Matthew Weigel: the important part about the Effective C++ books (there are at least 3, but I’ve only read one) is that they’re written by Scott Meyers
(10:31:15 PM) linearb: I was thinking about Effective Perl Programming, Effective Java
(10:32:01 PM) Matthew Weigel: hehe, wow
(10:32:16 PM) linearb: and all the other books influenced by Meyer’s books
(10:32:53 PM) linearb: Although I don’t expect to see Effective Haskell anytime soon.
(10:33:06 PM) Matthew Weigel: parse error
(10:34:26 PM) linearb: So back to the meeting, do you find that meetup works for helping coordinate the meetings? Can you get contact info for the members? or does all communication have to be mediated through meetup?
(10:34:39 PM) Matthew Weigel: it works pretty well.Enough people use meetup that there’s a stream of newcomers, and meetup.com provides a mailing list, tools to track who has RSVP’ed and who’s active/inactive
(10:34:40 PM) linearb: So when is the next meeting and what is the linkedin page?
(10:34:54 PM) Matthew Weigel: 3/18 the URL is http://c.meetup.com/48/
(10:35:15 PM) linearb: Hey, thanks for the info.
(11:36:12 PM) linearb: hey, so do you know that joke? : “Two C strings walk into a bar….
(11:03:53 PM) Matthew Weigel: the first one says “I’d like a beer, please098u807g23pdhoenueuth,,.’ and the second one says “you’ll have to excuse my friend, he’s not NULL-terminated”
(11:04:20 PM) linearb: hehe, that’s the one
BarcampAustin III will be held at…GSD&M | idea city
From our buddies at Pluck:
Here’s the deal. Pluck (http://www.pluck.com) is a fast growing social media startup that’s looking to expand its engineering team because all of these pesky customers who keep buying our stuff and wanting fancy new features. We usually start the interview process by taking a promising looking developer to lunch, primarily so we can eat somewhere nice and expense it. This is a golden opportunity for us both.
I get a free lunch, you get a free lunch, and it only costs an hour of your time and sending me something resume-like. Not a bad deal in my book. Plus, it’s at lunch time so nobody at the crappy company you are working at now will be any the wiser.
Many times we simply chat a bit, enjoy our free lunch, exchange pleasantries and then return to our respective jobs never to speak again. If however, it turns out you’re _NOT_ an idiot, and Pluck sounds interesting to you, then we’ll setup a more formal, official interview.
If you are just skimming this to see if Pluck sounds interesting to you,
here’s the relevant keywords: customers with $$ * margaritas * dual monitors and fast hardware * C#, HTML * good benefits * No database, no ASP.NET * relaxed, flexible schedule * monorail * bacon salt * billions of widgets served per month
I’m hungry, so please send me your resume at careersinengineering@pluck.com and put the title “freelunch-geekaustin” into the subject so I can sort it to the top of my inbox.
Teres Solutions, a web-based lending software company located in Austin, Texas, is currently seeking developers. The ideal candidate will possess 2-5 years experience with web-based product focused software development. This position requires knowledge of ASP.Net, SQL, and C#, as well as the ability to assess the user requirements, design the business objects, implement the SQL queries and user interface, and write unit tests to validate code. The ability to quickly learn diverse, new technologies is a must. Specific qualifications include:
C#/ASP.NET 2.0 Visual Studio.NET 2005; SQL Server 2000 /T-SQL HTML; JavaScript; BS in CS, MIS or equivalent years of experience. Desired skills include: XML / XML Schema; Web Services / SOAP; Team Foundation Server; SQL Server 2005; Ajax; Financial industry experience
Benefits include: Low cost medical, dental, and vision insurance
9 paid holidays, 4 flex days, 2+ weeks vacation annually; Flexible Spending Accounts; 401K plan with matching employer contribution
Employer paid life insurance and short term disability
Paid training; Tuition reimbursement
Employee referral program; Free on-site fitness center including hike & bike trails, tennis courts and showers
Candidates should e-mail resumes in MS Word or PDF format with Web Developer in the subject line to WebDeveloper@teressolutions.com
Teres Solutions is an equal opportunity employer. No third parties, agencies or subcontractors please. Local candidates will be given preference.
Austin Studios plays host to the first Digital Media Council meeting of 2008. A non-profit devoted to expanding the digital media talent pool, the DMC invites educators and industry folks to attend its quarterly meeting. From video game production to web development, interactive marketing to educational software, the DMC spearheads numerous events for the creative technology community throughout the year, including:
* Hosting accredited training in Java, 3D modeling, and game design for high school teachers;
* Convening executive summits for university provosts, deans and chairs to meet industry leaders and tackle the need for more digital media degree programs;
* Placing speakers in secondary and post-secondary classrooms; and
* Programming a nuts-and-blots primer on funding and launching a digital media start-up.
All are welcome to the DMC’s next meeting, Monday, February 11, noon — 2:00 pm, in the Austin Studios’ conference room, 1901 East 51st Street. Lunch is provided. We’ll take a short tour of the film studios and set to work on planning our 2008 initiatives. Please RSVP to Kristy Bowden, kbowden@skillpointalliance.org
Many of you know that Lori Hawkins from the Statesman visited last week’s Austin on Rails meeting for the purpose of doing a feature store. Well, here is the article.
Ok, so our next party is at JBlack’s on February 12th. This will not involve buying flowers or candy, or calling around to restaurants trying to find the one place that isn’t booked. Will you meet the future Ms. (insert your last name here) at the February Geek Austin party? We doubt it, but at least you can count on having a good time.
We are cohosting this event with Dorkbot. Dorkbot is a group of many sorts that builds things and sometimes blows them up in the name of “electronic art” (in the broadest sense of the term). Want to see electronic art in action? Take your kids or the kid in you to the Austin Children’s Museum to check out De La Maquina’s “Electronic Gongs.” These Flickr photos don’t do it justice.
Will we be blowing up Valentine’s Day presents at the party? Probably not. Should you RSVP to find out what does happen? The link is here, my friends:
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/418904
Teres Solutions, Inc. is seeking to hire several full-time team members. Our company develops a web-based loan origination system for credit unions and banks around the country. Our software is built using the latest Microsoft technologies including C#, ASP.NET, and SQL Server. We are looking for people who are highly motivated, self-starters, and possess the drive and enthusiasm to make a tangible difference in growing our company.
This position requires a bachelor’s degree in Computer Sciences, Management Information Systems, or equivalent. At least 2-5 years of web development industry experience is also a prerequisite.
Austin’s social media company Pluck (http://www.pluck.com/) is looking for a clever, motivated QA engineer to go all Curious George on our web solutions looking for bugs. We move quickly and always have something new to dig into and test before rollout. More importantly, we have free soda, junk food and margarita Fridays.
We aren’t looking for a mindless test monkey to sit in a tiny cubicle and execute test plans delivered on stone tablets from on high — our QA engineers work directly with the software developers to deliver the product. We expect our QA engineers to make intelligent decisions, contemplate tradeoffs, and figure out things — not fill out forms and bubble in pass/fail.
Prior experience using and testing web applications is preferred. Ingenuity, integrity, and an interesting personality are a must. Other desirable skills include previous QA experience, familiarity with a variety of browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari), experience with blogging and RSS, basic Windows administration/installation skills, and a working knowledge of Thai food. This is a fantastic opportunity for a bright individual to join a fun and exciting company making a big impact on the web.
Qualified candidates should submit resumes to careersinengineering@pluck.com to have resume reviewed directly by a hiring manager.
Disclaimer: All you bug are belong to Plucks.
