Idea for a Web Publisher Users Group

Over the past few years, I’ve attended several Documentum conferences and met lots of companies that use Documentum for Web Content Management. A few things strike me about this crowd.

1. Facing Similar Challenges

Many companies that use Documentum for Web Content Management face similar challenges. The business departments that utilize Web Publisher tend to be managing outward-facing Internet Web sites or inward-facing corporate intranets. Either way, they are trying to excel in their communications and promote a consistent brand. They struggle with the complexity of Web technologies and are looking for ways to reduce the cost of managing their Web sites while increasing the impact of those sites.

2. Friendly and Open

The folks I’ve met that are using Web Publisher to manage Web Content have been really helpful, open, and sharing with one another. There are lots of helpful presentations at Momentum where one company explains their challenges and how they are tackling them with Web Publisher. These presentations usually end up with several audience members offering suggestions or seeking insight on their own problems.

3. Disconnected

It seems to me that the community of folks using Web Publisher to address WCM challenges is both hungry for information and eager to share what we’ve learned. But our only chance to do so is once a year at EMC’s Momentum conference. And only a small fraction of Web Publisher users can attend each year.

In fact, about a year and a half ago, one of my clients was so eager to share experiences with companies facing similar issues that he walked around the conference with a sign around his neck that read “Got Web Publisher? Let’s Network!”

Bringing Web Publisher Users and Developers Together

I think it’s time for Web Publisher advocates like us to come together as a community and support one another. This technology can have a huge impact on your business, but it can at times be frustrating. By sharing lessons learned, ideas, and best practices, we can help each other maximize the value in our technology investments and hopefully make our lives a little easier.

To help facilitate this, I want to launch an online community for companies that use Documentum to manage web content. Here’s what I have in mind:

• We’ll have a discussion forum where people can ask questions, share tips, and talk about the future of WCM.
• We’ll write case studies and create screen-cam demos showing how companies have implemented Web Publisher to tackle their Web content challenges.
• We’ll collect feedback on the features and enhancements we’d most like to see, and we’ll champion these ideas with EMC’s product managers.
• If there’s enough interest, we could even organize user group meetings where we can share ideas in person.

So what do you think? Are you with me? I’m really interested in your feedback, so if you think this is something you would like to participate in, let me know. Send me an email or comment below. Let me know your ideas on other ways such a community could support Web Publisher users and developers.