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We are all about Content Management Platforms.
Welcome to "Beyond the CMS," the podcast where big ideas, insightful conversations, and industry-leading voices converge to redefine digital content experiences. Each episode, we sit down with influential thought leaders and innovators from the most prominent CMS platforms—including Contentful, Storyblok, Agility, Magnolia, and more—to explore emerging trends, groundbreaking technologies, and transformative strategies shaping the future of content management.
Our guests are industry experts, visionaries, and key executives who dive deep into topics such as headless architectures, personalization, AI-driven content strategies, composable solutions, and best practices for delivering seamless digital experiences at scale. Whether you're a marketer, developer, product manager, or simply passionate about digital innovation, join us as we uncover actionable insights, discuss bold ideas, and provide a unique behind-the-scenes look into the ever-evolving CMS landscape.
#contentmanagementsystem #contentmanagement #headlesscms #contentful #agilitycms #storyblok #cms
(0:19) All right, we are live. Okay, good morning. Thanks folks out in social land for (0:29) joining us for Connect the Dots, our bi-weekly web tech talk show.
Just a (0:39) little bit about where we got the idea. I used to listen to the car guys on NPR and (0:43) I just remember people calling in asking how to get their carburetor fixed and (0:48) these two chaps just seemed to have all the answers and if they didn't they'd (0:52) always follow up and help people out and we noticed that there was a lot of (0:57) questions that our customers had that were a bit technical in nature, mostly (1:03) marketing folks that been tasked with large kind of digital projects and one of them (1:09) actually mentioned that why don't you kind of have a show and we'll just kind (1:13) of talk about technology in a nice open way and have people call in as (1:18) well. So the idea here is if you are listening in on Facebook, Instagram or (1:23) LinkedIn, ask us some questions.
We're at your service. (1:27) Marie and Natalie are managing the show behind the scenes. Thank you guys.
So (1:32) let's get on with it. This week we have a super special guest, Chris Becker, (1:38) personal friend and a great colleague in the digital space whose focuses spans (1:44) many different technologies, projects and customers but maybe Chris, welcome (1:51) to the show. Thank you.
It's super cool. You may join us. Absolutely.
Why not just tell (1:58) everyone a bit about yourself and we'll get the conversation started. So yeah, (2:03) thanks Chris. As you mentioned, we've friends and have worked together on and (2:09) so my background is consulting, large-scale change, digital transformation, (2:15) going back way too long.
I won't go too far back in order to not date myself too (2:21) much but basically working with large organizations to try to leverage (2:26) technology in one form or another to advance or implement some strategic (2:30) objective and more and more, now more than ever, almost every element of business (2:36) has some technology enablement component. So I grew up in CRM and ERP space going (2:42) way back where large companies try to transform from legacy systems into (2:48) whatever the wave of technology you have to deal with back then. It might be (2:53) integrated systems and then moving to the cloud and then now obviously AI (2:59) and through all of those, it's a never-ending kind of continuous (3:04) process.
So I've worked in large, you know, in-house with big consulting firms all (3:12) the way through to SaaS startups in the aughts through first dot-com boom, second (3:17) dot-com financial meltdown and then about 10 years ago started our digital (3:24) transformation managed service company NetEffect. So in keeping with that work (3:29) with large companies but really try to instill that startup kind of agile (3:33) mindset, keeping in mind that, you know, there's still big bureaucratic companies (3:38) but how do you affect change and bring those technologies to bear to stay (3:43) competitive to implement a certain strategic objective but do it in a (3:47) practical way. So I am not the techie in the world but obviously live in the (3:53) world of tech so my role within our company is really to work with business (3:58) owners to articulate and understand their strategic objectives and convert those (4:02) and translate them into programs and projects often including the change (4:07) management people component which is always a big piece and then we have our (4:13) tech teams, people much smarter than me who can put the puzzle pieces together (4:18) and make things happen and most of that's in large enterprise and internal (4:24) and all the way through to e-commerce.
Yeah, cool. You mentioned change and lots (4:30) of change going on in your country over the past few days so we'll kind of keep (4:35) an eye on things happening there and we'll get back to some of the changes (4:38) that you've had in some of your side projects too. I noticed you've got a (4:41) Better Roads logo behind you there and I'd love to know a little bit more (4:46) about that as well and I'll get to that but just as a reminder for folks (4:51) that are listening in, thank you and it's really cool just to ask them some (4:57) questions in the social channels.
We get a text on the private (5:03) channel here and we'll do our best to answer any of your questions but Chris (5:06) maybe you could reflect and share back to some of our listeners who are (5:13) typically CMOs or kind of in a higher marketing position that have often got (5:19) tasked with a big digital modernization or transformation type of project. Is (5:26) there anything that you can speak to that may give them some things to think (5:30) about and quick starts or how is change managed differently than it was (5:35) in the past? Yeah, I think from a CMO's perspective or from a business (5:41) perspective more generally, there's a lot of things that are opportunities to save (5:49) time and money down the road that you can capitalize on early which is (5:54) an opportunity but if they're missed they can become challenges or expensive (6:00) mistakes further down the road so it all kind of boils down to, you know, maybe I'm (6:05) old-fashioned but basically measure twice and cut once. I think in the (6:10) digital world with whatever the project is it's natural to be drawn to the (6:17) most tangible elements of whatever the project is which means software, (6:22) technology, data, project structure, project management, whatever those (6:29) things are and it can almost create gravity and a pull for the business (6:33) people, the marketers, the CMO to kind of jump to that and, you know, what software (6:39) are we going to use? How are we going to configure it? Who's going to implement it? (6:42) What's IT's job and when are they going to get started? Those types of things and (6:47) I think not enough time is spent up front, you know, I'll say business case (6:54) but it doesn't have to be like a hundred page business case document.
It's not (6:58) a school project but it's really understanding what problems are we (7:02) trying to solve? What are the options that we have in order to solve them? Have (7:07) we spent time with the right stakeholders who are going to be (7:10) necessary in the successful realization of whatever technology (7:17) elements being implemented? Six months, nine months a year or more sometimes (7:22) down the road and are they being involved early on? So I would say with (7:27) that kind of general point in mind like spending that time up front and making (7:31) sure you have a real understanding of what success looks like, what problem (7:34) you're trying to solve and what metrics you're going to use to measure that and (7:36) those are business metrics. Almost no discussion of technology at that point (7:41) and then secondly who are the stakeholders that need to be in, who are (7:46) going to be required to ensure success and that's where the change (7:51) management element comes in and my experience has been it's usually a (7:56) larger group of people than you think at first glance. So it's like well marketing (8:00) and IT and the executive suite, yes, but who else? So I'll give one example.
In my (8:09) experience the delay in projects going live, whether it's a web (8:14) platform migration or a new product build out, digital product build out, almost (8:20) without exception the delay for me has been risk and security, legal or IT (8:28) security elements and I'm talking in larger corporations and it can often be (8:33) traced back to not involving those groups early in the process and then (8:37) they get brought in too late and they raise perfectly legitimate questions and (8:41) concerns and it causes a delay in the project. So that would be one of my (8:45) classic examples of where if there's some involvement with a broader (8:50) stakeholder group and sometimes it feels like oh we want to get started but (8:55) spending some time with these people early on actually will get you to your (9:01) goal faster and my experience has been almost without exception that's been a (9:06) delay because those those types of folks aren't involved early enough. It's a great (9:11) point actually.
We recently had a project where we were also asked to bring in the (9:18) platform. So you know what are we going to use? This was a web project so there (9:21) was a content platform, some commerce elements, data search, all these kind of (9:27) composable pieces of stuff that we're going to connect all together and what we (9:31) didn't realize at the time is part of the challenge to us to enable them to get (9:35) the project off the ground was to help them get pricing on all this stuff when (9:39) you have bits and pieces of projects coming in and some of the (9:43) discussions I had with marketers are like what we want isn't that complicated (9:47) but when you start embedding platforms and technologies it starts to ring the (9:53) doorbells of the kind of IT stakeholders, of the security folks you know and I'm (9:58) just wondering if you've had any experiences in kind of fast-tracking (10:03) parts of a project that can kind of get underway a little bit sooner and if (10:07) there is kind of a marketing decision maker who has a lot on the line and (10:12) needs to get some stuff done. I don't know if you have any ideas around that (10:16) or approaches.
Yeah I mean I don't know if it directly answers the question but (10:20) there's a couple of things that come to mind. One ties back to my earlier point (10:24) putting together what we used to call so if you let's say we're talking about (10:27) building out a major web and it could be a content or product digital experience (10:35) getting some brief of the scope of the project almost like an elevator pitch (10:40) it was like here's the five is the FAQs you need to know about this project (10:44) getting them into the hands of the risk folks, the OGC, the IT security and just (10:51) almost opening up a forum there so that's you know that's something that I (10:55) think actually starts to fast-track some conversations that may feel like (10:59) it's actually slowing you down but I guarantee will speed you up further down (11:03) so dropping that payload into the system early I think is ultimately helps things (11:12) go faster. The other one I think is looking at some of the parallel paths (11:16) where you can get people that need to be directly involved so some of its more (11:20) general stakeholders like the ones I'm mentioning some are primary owners so (11:25) yes IT but that's kind of where everybody kind of goes to by default so (11:31) let's take marketing for example almost without exception depending upon the (11:34) size of the transformation there's going to be a people in process change going on (11:38) that is driven or implied by the technology change what's happening there (11:43) who's doing that who are the people that are getting involved in that and I think (11:47) you can get things moving like let's say you're still collecting prices or you're (11:52) doing software selection and that can you know there's hang-ups Oh procurement (11:56) has a process and now I've got to go through procurement things you and I (12:00) have both seen sometimes together right so that's all gonna happen and it's (12:05) gonna take its own time you can speed things up by for example with the (12:08) marketing group if there's a content migration element to it doing a (12:12) content audit sounds extremely boring it can actually be quite interesting you (12:17) know I should probably come up with a better name for it but going in and (12:21) really understanding your content structure your content are actually your (12:25) content elements and there's an opportunity to clean up what you've got (12:30) so that by the time you're actually doing the work with the new system or (12:33) whatever happens and I know we're talking generically about you know but (12:36) almost without exception there's a some version of what I'm talking about you're (12:42) basically cleaning house before so the actual size of the project when let's (12:47) say technology finally comes to bear and you're ready to go you've taken (12:51) something that was this big but X percent of it was unnecessary don't even (12:56) need it it's like you know now that we're looking at it in detail we don't (12:59) need this stuff anymore nobody uses it does anyone even look at these 55,000 (13:03) pages anymore so that's an example of where and the other advantage of that is (13:08) you you're getting the marketing department or the business people (13:12) directly engaged in the effort it's not this thing that IT is doing to you it's (13:17) actually something that you're owning and it gets it has the it has a by (13:21) product payload up benefit of getting the people who are going to be required (13:29) to succeed you're gonna need to succeed even if the technology is perfect if you (13:34) don't have the buy-in you're dead so it's giving you that catalyst to get (13:38) people directly involved as well and it gets you and you can move on that I (13:42) don't need pricing I don't need software to move on those types of things and you (13:47) mentioned in passing platforms I'd love to hear your thoughts on what's (13:52) happening in the platform world today I think we met with an Adobe overlap and (13:57) then there was sure mention of dot CMS this Contentful those kind of these (14:01) headless versus monoliths and WordPress having all kinds of shenanigans going on (14:05) what's your take where do you what is net effect stand yeah I think it's I (14:10) think we're in a better place now than we've been in a long time and I'm going (14:13) back 15 20 years where you know early on you had a lot of bespoke systems that (14:20) were fit for purpose but you kind of had to go all in and then you started to see (14:26) more ecosystems being built out whether it was the Drupal or ecosystem or the (14:34) WordPress ecosystem or then you know going full enterprise corporate the Adobe (14:39) ecosystem and you still had to buy in but you had a bit more flexibility within (14:44) there but it gave you a much broader set of capabilities but once you were in you (14:49) know it was kind of you know learning you're either you know you're either (14:54) learning Chinese or English and once you were in you were kind of you were you (14:58) were committed the cost of the switching costs are high and I think now (15:05) you're able to kind of see post kind of the post that and and through that there (15:10) was the whole headless non headless I think it was kind of there was a bit of (15:16) I think there was a bit of broth or fattiness to the whole headless thing it (15:21) was going to solve everybody's problems because you could separate the publishing (15:24) from the authoring and while there and I think we've now we're on the other side (15:29) of that where the core value of the opportunities of headless is has been (15:34) retained and some of the frothiness where it was pretty you know if you're a (15:39) techie was pretty cool shit but was there a business purpose to it that's a (15:43) lot of that's burned off and you're down now to if I'm a CMO and I've got a (15:47) digital lead or you know who knows depending on the structure of the (15:51) company if there's a chief digital officer or a head of digital (15:53) transformation whatever it doesn't matter somebody who's kind of on point (15:57) they've got so many choices now where I think you can really make a fit for (16:02) purpose and I don't mean software a or software B that's an element to it but (16:07) building I I think it's underestimated sometimes that it's okay to kind of do (16:12) best in class for your e-commerce element and your content publishing (16:17) element and your authoring components and how you engage with your your you (16:22) know your content creators and outsourcing certain elements you you (16:26) have more choices now than ever how to how can you implement AI into that (16:31) whether it's development or content creation or analytics you have more (16:37) choices now than ever now I think beyond that sometimes there's the fallacy of (16:41) choice there's almost too much but if you can take a methodical approach it (16:46) tools are not the problem anymore 20 years ago tools were the problem you (16:50) ended up grinding yourself into tech morasses because this didn't work or that (16:56) didn't work or if you're gonna want to do this you had to go all in on system a (16:59) or system B I think the technology ecosystem is mature and robust as ever (17:05) and now it's really back to the business people to make informed decisions that (17:11) might be a little harder up front but are much more rich and sophisticated and fit (17:16) for purpose for the business downstream so for example and Adobe obviously you (17:23) know they're very strong at being able to sell you the entire ecosystem I think (17:28) it's more than what a lot of companies need a lot more than what a lot of (17:32) companies need and you can get caught up in a fairly complex purchase when it's (17:38) not really needed there's a lot of you know other solutions out there that (17:41) might be more fit for purpose or really a good place to start so I think it's it (17:47) what I think is a challenge now is it puts the onus back on the on the (17:51) business people to really have a clear and very clear understanding of what it (17:54) is so that their technology partners can help give them the best choices and it's (17:59) got to be a thoughtful process and it's not just column A or column B anymore (18:05) you mentioned two things I wanted to just dig in a little bit around maybe AI (18:10) first everyone has their own kind of knowledge of I guess the scope of AI and (18:17) what's going on now and what's been kind of promoted for the future what are you (18:22) guys doing anything new and interesting on the AI front you know I'll tell you (18:27) my personal story of this because I I think so I'm 53 and I remember when you (18:33) know I did my I think I took my MIT online course and this was even like two (18:38) two and a half or three years ago and even then it was called the machine (18:40) learning course how much times have changed and I was kind of like yeah it's (18:44) interesting I kind of learned a few things but nothing that I thought was (18:47) business applicable so trying to stay up on this now that again this was two or (18:52) three years ago and then when the AI was really picking up you know NVIDIA (18:56) you know which I wish I'd kept the stock I owned it when it was a video game chip (19:00) not when it was an AI solve the world's trillion dollar company become part of (19:06) the S&P 500 and displace Intel business stock anyways and it came along the (19:13) second time and I gotta tell you Chris I was like fuck this I'm like I do I (19:17) really want to lean in and learn a new the next new thing and figure out how (19:22) it's gonna bake into our business so I I kind of went through a denial phase to (19:27) be perfectly honest and I tell you that story partly because I wonder if other (19:33) people in similar roles either on the client side or on the consulting side (19:37) had that because I'm telling it because I definitely had that it was kind of (19:42) like I don't know if I really so your first thing is almost denial but over (19:48) the last year or so leaned in and trying to separate the wheat from the chaff (19:54) like any new technology but I do believe there's obviously huge value and big (19:59) things are happening the market valuations and multiples you know these (20:04) people aren't stupid there's there's definitely real value there so what (20:09) we're doing is really trying to see where a we can use it in our own (20:13) business so you know with both net effect and some of our clients like better roads (20:18) which has a big e-commerce piece challenging the team and supporting the (20:22) team to really learn for themselves and understand so that includes sometimes (20:27) internal projects where I've if we have an annual or quarterly meeting I asked (20:31) people to come in and talk about a case study where they've been able to use (20:35) something and it could even just be an experiment and that includes me as well (20:41) so for my podcast for example I'm trying to automate and use AI for doing ads and (20:48) things like that and kind of streamlining the process so really (20:52) challenging people and rewarding people for bringing it into their their day-to-day (20:57) life which I think is more kind of the Apple approach with Apple intelligence (21:01) they're kind of they're not trying to come out and sell the sizzle they're (21:04) just kind of looking for small wins and then the other piece is where can we (21:10) support our clients where we do think there's more disruptive opportunities (21:13) and for us in the in let's say the web and digital world the two major areas I (21:17) think our development where can you streamline more kind of housekeeping dev (21:23) tasks and QA tasks in the maintenance and managed services outside of a (21:28) business and technology support and then the other one is content and on the (21:33) creative side where are you able to write for your creatives and your (21:36) content you know author community where can these tools not replace them but help (21:41) them be more effective where you can get you know a certain multiple of value out (21:47) of your core team not that different than you know maybe what you're seeing (21:51) or what we're seeing as kind of the threat and the debate going on in (21:56) Hollywood right now but this would be more on a day-to-day basis so those are (21:59) the two areas more that I think are directly related to where there's real (22:04) transformational opportunities in in the business (22:09) we're we're having chats internally about just how disruptive or impactful AI will (22:14) be you know they can write some pretty decent react code now but we're just (22:19) kind of plotting out well how far away are we from you know we just tell it (22:24) which Salesforce connectors to go grab some data out of a certain set of fields (22:28) and records and like won't you grab something out of Shopify and we'll go and (22:32) so like and you can just start telling it how to kind of organize it's to get (22:37) things done then you're like we're building applications that are really (22:41) really tight and dialed in so that's kind of exciting but also you know a (22:45) little bit eerie at the same time you mentioned Better Roads and I have been a (22:53) customer of Better Roads actually I use your service to send gifts to my (22:59) friends in the United States up in Toronto I know you're not south of the border but (23:04) yeah I love it if you could share what you're doing there yeah so kind of the (23:10) pivot point off of MedEffect so you know which is a digital transformation (23:14) managed services technology company one of our clients but it's also a startup (23:19) that I'm directly involved in is Better Roads so I'm here in one of the offices (23:24) where I also do the podcast but basically Better Roads is a premium (23:30) beverage company focused on the non-alcoholic sector so it's a small but (23:35) growing category within beverage which is offering adults non-alcoholic (23:41) alternatives but in types of products that allow them to still (23:46) socialize and not feel like they're missing out so if you're out with your (23:50) friends and you're not drinking if you're having a water or a Diet Coke or (23:54) a soda water or lime sometimes you're feeling like a second-class citizen so (23:58) adult non-alc is really non-alc beer, non-alc wine, ready-to-drink cocktail (24:04) mocktails beverages that don't aren't trying to emulate an alcohol version and (24:11) most of the customers in this space is really about also have alcohol so you (24:18) might be drinking one day but you're driving with your friends the next or (24:21) you're pregnant and you want to socialize with your friends but you (24:23) don't want to give your secret away or you're participating in dry January or (24:27) you're training for a marathon or you get your buzz through gummies but (24:32) you still want to have a beer but you don't want the alcohol there's a health (24:36) and wellness component to it so Better Roads is a is a company that brings what (24:43) we believe is the next generation of brands we have a collection of products (24:46) that we bring to market as well as an online marketplace so we have the (24:52) largest marketplace of non-alcoholic brands in the United States over 350 (24:56) brands and labels and SKUs and that's where the e-commerce piece comes in it's (25:02) as a new category how do you edge non-alc wine or non-alc beer plus the (25:11) selection and coming up with subscriptions and curated boxes for (25:14) cocktail clubs and dry January survival kits and you name it so it's an (25:21) interesting use case from a digital perspective because you're bringing a (25:25) product you know there's an e-commerce element to it in terms of a mark it's an (25:28) online marketplace but it's also behind the scenes headless you've got a we do (25:32) Amazon and we do b2b e-commerce platforms as well like air goods and (25:37) fair but it's all coming from the same business I think we lost me or we lost (26:13) Chris oh no I'm just gonna give this a minute oh one sec one sec okay I don't (26:31) know what happened no worries people were like taking your Wi-Fi ordering (26:36) stuff from your e-commerce a huge influx of sales I might have to hire you where (26:44) did I lose you I think you're just getting on well first of all I love the (26:48) idea that you kind of highlighted that it isn't an either-or kind of thing like (26:53) it's like I'm a non out person that I am I love the idea of kind of fitting it (26:58) through the week and new tastes and new combinations of things you're just (27:02) getting to the part where your your organization is really looking at kind (27:05) of multi channels you use the word headless you got Amazon you got your (27:08) e-commerce thing you've got other stuff going on and how do you put that all (27:12) together yeah so and I saw that there was a question that came in about you (27:18) know what's the future look like for enterprise tech and where would you see (27:21) you know like it to go and I'll use better roses maybe the enterprise (27:25) example I think you know where I'd like to see it go and you know whether it (27:31) will or not is back to my earlier point about this ecosystem of elements that I (27:35) can you know you can really with AI kind of as in the newest you know exciting (27:40) element of it where the business really has no excuses anymore it's not like you (27:46) know in the past five years ago ten years ago twenty years ago you know even (27:51) my own experience with you know PCs going back to the 90s how much what (27:55) percentage of my time was I wrestling with technology versus actually using (27:59) technology and you know in the 90s it might have been 50-50 I you know how (28:04) much time I was dealing with fixing something or loading something versus (28:09) using it now you know and through and that ratios changed now I think it's you (28:14) know even 1 to 99 you have no excuses as a business anymore to not be able to (28:19) leverage technology and the question then becomes how do you want to use it (28:23) so what I'd like to see is really how our technology vendors what you do for a (28:27) living what I do for a living what IT organizations and executives do inside (28:32) their organizations whether they're part of the official IT department or not (28:36) there they have a digital accountability really being curators of solutions and (28:45) not gatekeepers of technology so really having an understanding of what's (28:52) available you've done the homework of what are my options what are the value (28:56) what are the pluses and minuses costs and benefits of various elements of (29:00) technology how do they fit together what are the you know what are the use cases (29:04) where we've seen them what are our competitors doing having that landscape (29:07) of intelligence done and then having real dialogues with the business (29:12) stakeholders who own the budgets and have the ultimate accountability for (29:16) results so that they can really get into solutioning now what that means is the (29:22) that's a challenge back to the business as well to say okay guys let's have a (29:25) real conversation we're not going to talk about how much technology costs or (29:30) my project plan for implementation that's all going to happen we're now (29:34) going to talk about what is success look like what are the metrics for success (29:38) here are the options let's work through it have you read and often I think it's (29:42) going to drive a conversation of has the business even really thought this (29:46) through have they got the buy-in that they're going to need let's say we (29:51) successfully implement a technology a hundred percent perfect under budget (29:55) ahead of schedule it can still fail