In over my head department: Web Content Management for Publishers

Just a quick note how flattered I am to be one of the guest speakers for next month’s workshop hosted by SFU’s Summer Publishing Workshops series, Web Content Management. I can’t do a better description than the blurb:

Digitization is the word on everyone’s lips this year, and there is much talk about how to get your content into digital formats. But publishers need strategies for managing that content. That’s where this workshop comes in; it will provide you with the orientation you need to make strategic and economically responsible decisions for managing content digitally.

Unless you’re still setting metal type, you have digital content already. But folders full of InDesign files aren’t going to get you very far anymore. Luckily, most digital content can be handled by a range of free, web-based tools. Web content management isn’t just for websites, it’s for all kinds of digital media, destined for all kinds of outputs.

Sincerely humbled to be included in a veritable who’s who of relevant expertise (scroll down to ‘Faculty’), so many people whose work I’ve admired for some time. I was privileged to take part in a planning meeting with most of these people some time ago, and it was truly mindbending. I hope I’ll be allowed to sit in on the other sessions. It’s a special treat to be invited by John Maxwell, one of my favorite people on the scene. John may not remember this, but back in the late 90’s (when I was working for the Tec de Monterrey) I visited Vancouver for the first time and met with him – he gave a most impressive demo of some XML transformation wizardry, I recall almost being freaked out by it all. (I can’t resist noting that John is just one of the amazing speakers we have lined up for OpenEd 2009.)

I am on tap to discuss open content and open culture and its implications for publishers – hence the “over my head” noted in this title. I feel like I have a reasonable grasp on the value proposition for openness in education, but this will be a very new audience for me. So if I seem to be dwelling on themes related to print publishing in the coming weeks — via blog, Delicious, or Twitter — maybe this commitment will partly explain why.

And if you or someone you know is working in publishing and is trying to make sense of digital media, do pass this workshop on. More detail on John’s Thinkubator site.