(20)11 predictions from the CMS coal face

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.

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'.

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 implementors 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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. 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 incumbant rulers and crying out for a change of monarchy ;)

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 :)

PS - a bonus 12th prediction is that @mcboof loses faith in the Murdoch empire during 2011 (if he hasn't done so already) and I get to use my immensely popular 'Job Speculation' poll again ;)