Jon On Tech

A change is as good as a holiday, they say. Well, after ten brilliant years at the company now known as LBi, it’s time for a change. I wasn’t looking for anything, but an opportunity came along that, had I turned it down, I’d probably regret forever.

This was the main point of my JBoye Presentation. A few people have asked me what I mean by this. So I figured I’d write a little story instead about the technical, project management and procurement monoliths that have been giving me a headache recently.

How many WCM implementations leave customers grinning from ear to ear? The statistics make sad reading. But if so many projects don’t meet expectations, who is to blame? Is it the vendor, either because of a crappy product or dodgy practice? Or the implementer that eats your budget while making a beautiful product smell real bad? Or are the customers naive, unrealistic or worse?

Last week, LBi hosted the Umbraco 2009 UK meetup. This was mainly due to the enthuasism of the organiser, Darren Ferguson, and the power of Twitter. Niels, the founder, joined us from Norway.

Just read the Econsultancy CMS Survey Report 2009. It is an good survey, and the results make interesting reading. There were over 800 respondents, with just over half representing customers, with most of others being CMS Vendors or implementers. The customers and vendors only really had different opinions on three questions. And I have some interesting observations. At least, interesting to me.

What exactly is a Full Service Digital Agency? What services do they offer? And how big does an agency need to be to credibly offer them? Who are the big boys? Does size really matter? Read on …

Today was Day 1 at Internet World 2009 a.k.a. #iwexpo for the Twitterrati. I chatted to lots of vendors, performed a vendor selection exercise, and drank a fair bit of sweet sweet beer.

Janus Boye just posted blog about SITATM: When system integrators take all the money. I try to give the Systems Integrator View. Now why would an SI tell a client not to give us money. Ho hum.

Vendor Selection Exercises are part of most large projects. Is it ethical to let the agency or integrator doing the site build run the vendor selection exercise? Or should you pick a product before picking a partner?

LBi has won Best B2B campaign at the prestigious Revolution Awards for Generation Green and the eco rangers game. Judges who comprised of senior staff from agency and client side said that the campaign was a “clever initiative to get schools and children engaged with British Gas in a subtle way while educating them on environmental issues in a fun, interactive and playful manner”.