WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: shopify as a marketplace is question I've been asking for months (or any other eCom solution). After all, once you build your own eCommerce website on Shopify, all the components are in place to create a marketplace: products, categories, inventory, etc. After all, a marketplace is nothing more than a superset, a combination of all those individual shops?

Well, not really. A marketplace is more than a collection of products. It is a destination that provides a single user account, consolidated shipping and delivery, a single destination to resolve customer issues. It is a service, not a technology.

Thus, even though Shopify has the *technology* to build a marketplace, it does not (yet?) have the infrastructure to provide the *service* that a marketplace requires.

WHY IT MATTERS: this maturity may be overly simplistic but the plan is sound. Start with exploration, proof-of-concepts, prototypes, etc. Then move on the unification of processes to finalize with transformation!

WHY IT MATTERS: sharing content across different websites, eCommerce, in-store displays and new devices (ie. Alexa, siri) is difficult. This survey provides insights into the reasons why sharing is difficult. Be aware this is biased towards headless CMS, but the conclusions appear valid IMHO.

WHY IT MATTERS: this short article from HBR provides trove of links for further reading on the subject that is on everybody's mind these days...

WHY IT MATTERS: a short description of 10 personalization techniques.

WHY IT MATTERS: architecture documentation of digital solutions often fails because it is not there (read the code most developers say) or is incomplete and difficult to read. The C4 model, far from being perfect, at least provides a consistent approach that is actually linked to the software code: everyone should be happy. I recommend for all developers!

There is even simple tools to use: https://structurizr.com/

WHY IT MATTERS: this report is by far the best reference I found to understand the pricing strategy of software as a service and subscription services. Should be mandatory reading to anyone selling online today.

WHY IT MATTERS: 17 years old and he manages to build 2 very popular and useful websites. Not rocket science just a lot of elbow grease and time. Little or no money though. Little or no experience though. There is something to learn for all of us "digital transformation experts" out there...

WHY IT MATTERS: all the stats you want about the web, split into categories and *regions*. Great reference.

WHY IT MATTERS: most of this is very basic but for those that need it, this is a good starting point.

WHY IT MATTERS:  programmatic ads on the web is the new trend, accounting for 25% of all ads you see online. This primer provides an amazing overview of the issues, technologies and privacy compliance requirements. Must read.

WHY IT MATTERS: this report provides data on cybersecurity attacks and the resources most at risk in organizations.

WHY IT MATTERS: there are 350 million top level domain names - TLDNs - from google.com to fmcs.digital. This report provides a set of data about TLDNs and how they are used for fraud. A bit geeky but very interesting read.

WHY IT MATTERS: 3rd party cookies are used by advertisers to track down users across websites. The end of support will require new solutions for marketers to continue tracking us all...

WHY IT MATTERS: with customer experience journeys and omni-channel integration the primary focus of marketing teams, web content management (WCMS) solutions are growing in scope to become digital experience platforms (DXP). Or so Gartner says. My recommendation is to be very critical as the implementation of those platforms become large-scale projects with impacts across many business units, leading to easier integration but often solutions you may not need or may not implement for years. Sometimes it is better to go with a smaller solution than a full fledged platform to deliver value short term, especially in less mature organizations...

WHY IT MATTERS: digital transformation often means moving legacy solutions to the web, which makes a good web design crucial. This article highlights some important trends, including some regarding the impact of design to help fight fake news. Worth reading. Not too technical.

WHY IT MATTERS: most organizations have multiple websites to manage (for different countries, regions, departments, products, focus areas, etc.) making multi-site WCMS solutions essential. Yet most multi-sites are not architected the right way ending up with different look and feel, technologies, databases, analytics, etc. This report provides some insights into key decisions to make.

WHY IT MATTERS: every developer - web or not - should apply those principles. Otherwise how else is the web ever going to be safe?

WHY IT MATTERS: we take it for granted because 90% of the population in Canada has access to the Internet. This summary of facts about Internet adoption should make us all realize that: 1) the growth has been very fast 2) not everyone in the world has the same chance 3) newer technologies based on Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and soon AR/VR will leverage this infrastructure to deliver even more transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: few organisations maximize their use of the data they have. One source that is often overlooked in Google Analytics, especially in smaller organizations (but ask around in yours) to see who even knows what you can gather from GA - I bet you'll be surprised... 

WHY IT MATTERS: essential tools for any self-respecting geek. Easy to check this out, look in the extension toolbar of their chrome browser and you'll probably see BuiltWith... ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: we expected cloud computing data centers, like those of Google, protect our data and keep it private. This article dives into the potential issues that can occur when server hardware are compromised at the hardware level - within the silicon that powers the servers and often contains millions lines of code that can be hacked. The post presents a new open-source chip called Titan that should help protect against those threats. Important, essential, should be everywhere.

WHY IT MATTERS: Acquia has been playing catchup to Adobe and sitecore in the WCMS platform game and it looks like they have listened to most urgent complaints: CDN, automation, personalization. eCommerce remains weak.

WHY IT MATTERS: this short post explains the lengths you have to go through to secure a microservice-based application. Basically there is no trust between services, making hacking attempts difficult because success would require a large number of breaks. Interesting to see the effort required to deploy this for 1500+ services and not impact performance or developer productivity... 

WHY IT MATTERS: mobile first is a reality, especially if you sell online, so you have to be mobile friendly and present. However, building an app is not a wise investment it seems anymore as people don't know how to find/discover new apps and only 32% download apps to their phone. My conclusion: make sure your technologies and designs are mobile friendly and embed your content in a s many popular mobile apps as possible - Facebook, Amazon of course but also others, see in the report.