While Adobe CQ5 offers many out of the box video capabilities, some of our customers are using Brightcove’s video cloud platform and need to integrate the two technologiess. Adobe Solution Partner Coresecure have developed a very nice integration piece for connecting CQ5 with Brightcove.

I’ve downloaded the package and tested with my CQ5 installation and the content author experience is as nice as possible. Just drag & drop the Brightcove component onto a page in CQ, then search and drag the video you want to play from the Content Finder. That’s it! Sizing & alignment options are also available via the dialogue.

Features & Benefits

The Brightcove Video Cloud CQ5 component includes the following features:

• Browse your Video Cloud account within the CQ5 interface
• Search for videos by Video ID or by name
• Embed a video and player into a page

A full guide on the integration capabilities is here

Getting Started Guide

Installation Instructions and an Administrative Guide can be found on opensource.brightcove.com, by visiting Coresecure or download directly from GitHub.

Pricing Model

This integration is a Brightcove Open Source project, available free of charge to the Brightcove community. Yes FREE!!!

If you’ve seen other CQ5 components out in the wild, let me know!

Adobe has released its first ‘Digital Marketing Insights’ report based on an analysis of data measured by the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite. The analysis looks at aggregated & anonymous data across 150 Retailers with 16B transactions and presents key findings on the impact of tablets on purchase behavior for retailers. This is the first in a series of data-driven industry insights that provide leading trends in digital marketing to customers and partners.

Report Overview

The report compares the business impact of consumers who visited retail websites using tablet devices (“Tablet Visitors”) with that of visitors who used smartphones and traditional desktop/laptop computers.  It is based on analysis of 16.2 billion visits to over 150 U.S. retail websites during 2011.

Key findings:

1. Tablet Visitors were 3X more likely to purchase than Smartphone Visitors and spent 54% more per purchase
2. Tablet Visitors spent 21% more per purchase than Traditional Visitors and were nearly as likely to purchase
3. The share of visits from table users quadrupled, from 1% to 4%, in just 12 months

Bottom line: Retailers can no longer afford a “one-size-fits-all” approach to mobile optimization because Tablet Visitors and Smartphone Visitors are distinct customer segments. Retailers should evaluate the opportunity that Tablet Visitors offer and develop strategies to better attract, convert and retain them.

You can access the report here;

http://success.adobe.com/en/na/programs/digital-marketing-insights.html

The team at Reading Room are putting on an event in Canberra on Dec 2nd. Here’s the brief;

“Despite spending enormous amounts on Web-based initiatives, government agencies report concerns in keeping up with the pace of digital channel change. In a multi device / multi-channel world people are expecting personalised experiences that span across and cater for the individuals needs in browsers, mobile, social & apps. By employing new engagement models, applying user-centric thinking to service design and embracing user participation, agencies can raise the effectiveness of their digital footprint.”

Three presentations..

Pia Waugh
ICT Policy Advisor, Office of The Hon Senator Kate Lundy
Public Engagement: How to master the black art of crowdsourcing great ideas and community feedback

Tim Hill
User Experience consultant, Reading Room
Government Gets Social: Examples of effective Government communication in social media

Mark Szulc
Director of Solution Consulting, Adobe Asia Pacific
Building context aware experiences in a multi-channel environment: Content has moved over to a new king…Context.

Pia & Tim are great presenters so if you are planning to be in Canberra that morning make sure you register!

cfObjective Australia is coming up fast.. just a few weeks to go! Held Nov 17 & 18 in Melbourne Australia. There is a star line up of presenters including Terry Ryan, James Talbot, Kai Koenig, Marc Mandel, Geoff Bowers, Justin McLean and .. and me!

I’ll be presenting a talk on Model Driven Development in the Flex stream. Thats right.. there is an entire stream of presentations for Enterprise Flex Developers.. now you’re interested right?

From the organisers;
“cf.Objective(ANZ) + Flex 2011 doesn’t focus as such on Livecycle or ADEP – but our Flash Platform and Flex track is the finest conference content Australia and New Zealand has to offer for this field. If your organisation is in the Asia-Pacific region and looking into building Rich Clients with an LC or ADEP backend – cf.O(ANZ) + Flex 2011 is the place you want to send your developers and architects to for learning about the front end and integration part.

The program is available online here:
http://www.cfobjective.com.au/program

On Nov 16 there are also a few excellent full-day workshops happening and we’d like to see them get a bit more uptake as well. 

The most interesting ones for Flex/LC/ADEP developers are:
– Developing Performant Flex Components for Desktop and Mobile (Mike Labriola)
– Building Mobile Applications for Android and iOS using Flex (James Talbot)
- Agile Technical Practices for Rich Client Developers (Sandy Mamoli and Kai Koenig)
http://cfobjective.com.au/program/workshops/

Check out more on the site: http://www.cfobjective.com.au/

In case anyone is using Lanyrd, there is a Lanyrd page for the conference. It can be found here: http://lanyrd.com/2011/cfoanz/

There is also a LinkedIn event here: http://events.linkedin.com/cf-Objective-ANZ-Flex/pub/717170

And a Facebook page here as well: http://www.facebook.com/pages/cfObjectiveANZ/280504190302

drop me a note if you are planning to attend!

I’ve completed building my first custom component for ADEP WEM (formerly known as CQ5) and what else to build but the HelloWorld of modern day websites? A Google Map component!

With this component you can now simple drag and drop a map onto a page, then click the edit button to enter the address that the map should display.

The process to build the component was quite easy, as follows;

1. Write (ok.. steal) the HTML code to make Map appear in a browser
2. Create a new component in CRXDE in the Apps director (using the wizard)
3. Copy / Paste my working HTML code into the created JSP file for the component
4. Test the compoent works as is (it should by now start showing up in SideKick – assuming you go into Design mode and allow the component to be displayed.. eg in parsys)
5. Add a nice icon
6. Create a dialogue (or copy and modify another one from something like the title component like I did)
7. Tweak the code to pull the values from the dialogue.
8. Test, package, share on your blog!

I have several enhancements as well as new components I need to complete, but if you have requests please let me know in the comments below.

Download my Google Maps component for ADEP WEM / CQ5!

GoogleMaps-1.2 component for ADEP / CQ5

Adobe is hosting a full day of briefings for our customers and partners in Sydney, Melbourne, Hong Kong & Singapore to introduce the Adobe Customer Experience Management Solutions and new Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform.

The morning session is open to all Adobe customers, prospective customers and partners and will focus on best practices and case studies from Adobe Solution Partners in customer experience, digital campaign and content management.

The afternoon session is exclusively for current and prospective Adobe Partners. We will discuss the new opportunities for partnering with Adobe in Web Experience, Customer Experience and the Digital Enterprise Platform.

Dates are as follows;

Melbourne – Tuesday 9th August

Sydney- Thursday 11th August

Singapore – Tuesday August 16th

Hong Kong – Thursday August 18th

There is a great line up of international Adobe speakers and local Adobe Partners attending and I know the content is fantastic.

I’ll also be attending both the Sydney & Melbourne event so drop by and say hello!

Research group Forrester released their latest assessment on the Web Content Management market on July 13th and have put Adobe in the Leader category far ahead of many other players in the market.

The report states that Adobe leads due to their rich functionality, strategy, and enterprise track record.

You can download a free copy of the full Forrester report via Adobe.com

New Solutions Empower Marketing and IT to Transform Multi-Channel Customer Experiences

SAN JOSE, Calif.–(EON: Enhanced Online News)–Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced its new Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform for Customer Experience Management (CEM). The platform enables enterprises to build immersive, multi-channel digital interactions for today’s social and mobile customers. A significant milestone in the delivery of its CEM vision, the new offering by Adobe gives enterprises the ability to bring together marketing and IT to deliver engaging, authentic solutions that increase brand loyalty and bolster competitive differentiation.

Additionally, Adobe is delivering a new set of Customer Experience Solutions, built on the Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform, to help marketers and line of business executives drive personalized, targeted connections and campaigns both online and offline. For IT organizations, the platform helps to optimize customer interactions across all lines of business. With this comprehensive offering for both marketing and IT, enterprises can now drive transformation of customer experiences for acquisition, retention, and brand advocacy.

Powering Customer Experiences with a Unified Platform

Adobe’s new offering is a modular, open, standards-based platform for delivering engaging digital solutions across social, Web, mobile, and print channels. It provides enterprises a unified foundation to make, manage and deliver multi-channel digital experiences leveraging HTML5, Adobe® AIR®, Flash® Player, and Adobe Reader®. Additionally, it includes integration with the Adobe Online Marketing Suite to optimize digital marketing campaigns and personalized digital experiences across all marketing, sales and service delivery channels.

Also released today, mobile application development gets a boost through integration with Adobe Flash Builder® and Flex. Integrated with the Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform, Flash Builder 4.5 and Flex 4.5 now include new support for building mobile applications forAndroid devices, BlackBerry PlayBook, iPhone and iPad (see separate press release). With smartphones and tablets proliferating in the enterprise, IT organizations are looking for a way to more efficiently build, deliver and support applications across a broad range of devices and platforms. Using Flash Builder and Flex, enterprises can now use one tool, one framework and one codebase to create high-performance applications that run on the Web, desktops and top mobile platforms.

Driving Customer Engagement Throughout the Customer Lifecycle

Built on the Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform, Adobe’s new Customer Experience Solutions power new customer-centric experiences out-of-the-box:

• Integrated Content Review – Speeds time-to-market for new marketing campaigns and customer experiences. Improves workflow and processes required to create, review, store and rapidly adapt digital content through different target segments across the entire customer journey.
• Web Experience Management – Attracts new customers by providing business and marketing professionals with a solution for creating, managing and publishing rich content across Web, social, mobile and email.
• Customer Communications – Improves customer loyalty by centralizing and managing the creation, assembly and multi-channel delivery of secure, personalized, interactive correspondence and statements. The solution allows enterprises to generate new revenue sources, reduce costs, improve customer loyalty and meet compliance regulations.
• Social Brand Engagement – Enables enterprises to engage with new and existing customers to create community, driving brand loyalty and commitment on enterprise-owned digital properties in addition to public social media sites.
• Selection and Enrollment – Reduces online abandonment and time-to-market with effective product enrollment experiences and empowers business users to quickly set up and launch online enrollment experiences.
• Unified Workspace – Empowers customer-facing agents to provide superior service by getting fast access to critical information, enabling them to resolve inquiries and cases with accuracy and efficiency.

The Digital Enterprise Platform and Customer Experience Solutions will be highlighted at the first Adobe Digital Enterprise Summit, taking place October 3-4 at the JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles. The Digital Enterprise Summit will feature industry thought leaders, Adobe experts and solution partners demonstrating the future of optimizing customer experiences across all digital channels. To learn more, visit the Adobe Digital Enterprise Summit page.

Quotes

Rob Tarkoff, senior vice president and general manager, Digital Enterprise Solutions, Adobe

• “The ability to deliver superior customer experiences has become the imperative in achieving competitive advantage. The Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform provides a complete foundation for enterprises to truly engage with customers at every point of interaction, through solutions that are easier to use, more effective and productive, and more apt to delight the customer and promote brand loyalty.”

Kevin Zollinger, director of business integration, Nu Skin

• “With the Adobe Web Experience Management solution, Nu Skin can optimize the customer experience across channels, including mobile and social media. Our business managers can create more relevant, timely online conversations with customers, while our IT team can stay focused on strategic activities. Additionally, the new capabilities in the Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform will help organizations such as ours take insights captured about customer behaviors on websites and use them to update content accordingly. This will help give customers access to the exact information they want, when and how they want it.”

Karl J. Uphoff, chief information officer, Global Consumer Lines, Chartis

• “When Chartis’ Private Client Group looked for new ways to expand and improve our relationship with customers, we collaborated with Adobe to produce an intuitive document-centric interface that utilizes Adobe’s Customer Experience Management solution capabilities. The result is a policy document electronic delivery platform, which advances our direct marketing efforts and enables customer self-service.”

Melissa Webster, program vice president, Content & Digital Media Technologies, IDC

• “Today’s leading organizations know that to stay at the forefront of the digital enterprise transformation, they must establish meaningful and lasting connections with their customers. This is especially challenging given the multiple channels through which customers now interact with businesses. What’s needed is a platform that provides businesses with a range of solutions designed to help them engage with their customers when, where and how the customers want, and lets them deliver an experience that keeps the customer coming back.”

Chris Davey, senior vice president, managing director and global head, Customer Engagement Platforms and Innovation, SapientNitro

• “Customer Experience Management empowers CMOs to transform brand marketing to enable stronger, more meaningful customer engagement across new digital, interactive channels. Together, SapientNitro and Adobe help our customers deliver personalized experiences across all touch-points that attract, engage, and convert targeted audiences. Using the Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform, SapientNitro is building solutions that dramatically improve how businesses manage customer experiences across multiple platforms in a unified context that drives tangible business results.”

Helpful Links

• Adobe CEM
• Blog Post from Adobe’s Rob Tarkoff
• Adobe Experience Delivers Blog
• Adobe CEM YouTube Channel
• Adobe Flash Builder

Availability

The Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform, Integrated Content Review solution, Web Experience Management solution and Customer Communications solution will be available August 2011. The Social Brand Engagement solution, Selection and Enrollment solution and Unified Workspace solution are available immediately in beta and will be generally available in fall 2011.

Adobe’s Ed Van Siclen talked to Sky Business News about the importance of Customer Experience Management (CEM) during a recent visit to Australia. I’ve talked to Ed on many occassions and seen him present. He clearly gets what CEM is all about and how organizations are taking advantage of the latest solutions Adobe is providing.

In this video Ed discusses the importance of providing a great online experience, multi channel, social and much more.. definitely worth a watch.

I know, I know, you can already open PDFs right? Google Chrome opens PDF files natively, Preview does an ok job on Mac OS X or you already have Reader 9 or earlier installed right.. why bother installing the Adobe PDF Reader? Lets have a look at the top 10 reasons you should put aside 10 minutes to download and install the latest free Adobe Reader X.

1. New user interface – Reader no longer gets in your way. If you open a PDF in the browser there are no clunky toolbars, you just get your PDF and even the standard browser zoom keys are supported. Nice!
2. Sandboxing – This is the safest way to view all those rich PDFs. The new sandbox (gory details here) protects you in much the same way as the latest version of Microsoft Office and Google Chrome do. If for whatever reason a hacker breaks into Reader, they are stuck in the sandbox and cannot hack your system.
3. Commenting - Reader supports both the highlighter tool and the popup note tool. Free! You dont even need the PDF to be created with Acrobat Pro like in previous versions. You can comment on ANY PDF as long as the author hasn’t restricted it via security or it is a dynamic PDF form.
4. Share – The new Share panel allows you to easily send the open document or other files via email or large files using Adobe’s new cloud based SendNow service. I use this all the time!
5. Latest PDF standards – Are you just crazy for standards? Reader X supports the latest PDF standards like PDF/A and ISO32000
6. Full support for Acrobat workflows – You can participate in real time document reviews initiated by Acrobat users without worrying about email attachments and multiple threads. As you comment on documents others can see it as well, and you can see their comments with a click of a button. You can even have a chat window open!
7. SharePoint integration – Use Microsoft’s Sharepoint solution? Now you can check PDF files out to let others know you are working on them, then check the file back in via a new menu option. Easy!
8. Fill in PDF Forms – Not just any PDF forms, but ones that shrink and grow depending the data you enter, making it easy for you to get it done and on to something else more enjoyable.
9. Reader Extensions – Acrobat users just love adding smarts to their PDFs that only Adobe Reader users can take advantage of. Things like drawing tools, stamps and more all light up when opened in Adobe Reader. PDF Forms created by Acrobat & LiveCycle users can even allow you to save the form partially filled out, and then come back to it later.
10. Open any PDF – Why have a PDF viewer that can’t read the latest and greatest? You’ll end up needing Adobe Reader anyway for Dynamic PDFs of all kinds including PDF Portfolios, Rights Managed PDFs, Dynamic PDF forms, rich PDF content that uses Flash and more.

All that in one application!  Download Adobe Reader X for free and don’t forget to update your parents PC too!

Upgrading a large amount of computers at once? Check out the IT Matters blog