WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: makes sense, turn your store into a broadcast studio and use your personnel to liveStreamShop to clients on the web and serve customers that drop in locally. The store reclaims a purpose, from a mini-warehouse to a service destination and broadcast center. This will require high bandwith, wifi or 5G and clienteling tools for vendors to answer client's questions about products, service or their orders. Fun times ahead.

WHY IT MATTERS: customer data platforms are starting to become more integrated into the web platforms. This book is a good summary of what's possible with a CDP. Just beware that there is an obvious bias towards the bloomreach solution - so do not discard the standalone version as they suggest!

WHY IT MATTERS: a useful overview of different type of cognitive biais. Helpful to know especially as we get our information from the web and social networks...

WHY IT MATTERS: Google search made it easy for a generation of students to "borrow" content from others in order to get "inspiration" for their reports. Now Google also provides teachers with tools to automatically check what is unique and what is not in automated fashion. Why is this not included in WORD or Google DOCS to automatically verify what is truly unique in documents you receive, say from consultants like me? Oh no, many would find this not a good idea I'm sure... ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: search engine optimization (SERP, SEO, SEM) is essential and this report highlights some of the best practice. Basically focus on mobile, local, images, videos.

WHY IT MATTERS: a collection of 30 pitch decks with links to use as a starting point for your startup pitch!

WHY IT MATTERS: survey result from GitLab about devOps practices. Take numbers and % with HUGE grain of salt as I don't feel they represent the "real world" as they are skewed toward smaller organizations and (relatively) early adopters. Nevertheless, the tools and the practices and the trends should be looked at seriously in any organization. I know it will shape how I do things for le panier bleu... ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: bear in mind that this list is pre-covid. But with so many retailers looking for solutions I felt this list to be useful. As with all WAVEs, have a big grain of salt and use the reviews , market positioning, etc. to prepare your own evaluations. And don'T discard solutions because they are not on the list. This is for B2B.

WHY IT MATTERS: bear in mind that this list is pre-covid. But with so many retailers looking for solutions I felt this list to be useful. As with all WAVEs, have a big grain of salt and use the reviews , market positioning, etc. to prepare your own evaluations. And don'T discard solutions because they are not on the list. This is for B2C.

WHY IT MATTERS: open source solutions often don't make it in the gartner quadrant or forrester wave, yet they remain good solutions for the DIY crowd out there. Here a reference list to get started.

WHY IT MATTERS: the latest trend in website design, SSGs, now count 322 different solutions in this list. Wow, not an easy decision...

WHY IT MATTERS: personalization is like sex for teenagers, everyone's talking about it but few have done it ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: security has become central in our age of digital transformation. Yet, it seems, most people are either unaware of basic security principles, or not willing to invest time or money to do it. And I am not even talking of doing it *well*. Just implementing proper security measure. In this case it affect Parler, which in itself I don't much care about (they deserve it for such a stupid mistake). But their lack of security impacts their users privacy as well. And that includes potentially millions of people (in the photo, 68000 video have been geolocated - too bad for keeping your anonymity ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: after 20 years, wikipedia is proof that "the web" can live up to its potential where the masses can contribute valuable information for the greater good. That being said, wikipedia remains a solution driven by english-speaking white males. The future lies in improving its diversity and maybe transferring some of its learnings to facebook, twitter and other social media. This article summarizes the growth and evolution after 20 years existence.

WHY IT MATTERS: setting performance budget for websites is a great practice to ensure that the final result behaves as expected.

WHY IT MATTERS: a good intro article about the differences between SSR and SSG. So you are buzzword compliant in 2021! ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: been playing with static site solutions recently as it seems a natural evolution for websites, blog, etc. This article is a good case study of a web design firm that are now on their 2nd version of their static website. Lots of tech references and links for those like me still learning about the stuff.

WHY IT MATTERS: creating videos from web page content illustrates the power of AI-augmented human capabilities. Expect this in all fields: humans create content and AI generates alternative options that are convincing enough to fool others into thinking "a human did it". Generative design, text summary, netflix thumbnail creation photoshop image improvements are all examples that can be leveraged today.

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.