In an age of AI-driven workflows and hybrid or remote setups, how do we keep our people at the heart of communication?
During our recent Employee Experience group session hosted by Microsoft in Toronto, I tried to tackle this head-on with the help from the group. Drawing on tactics for AI-powered communications, lessons on psychological safety, and the importance of hyper-personalized messaging, together we illuminated what it truly takes to reclaim genuine connection.
Below are the “big questions” that framed our discussion—and the key takeaways every employee experience and digital workplace leader needs to know.
Read moreIn 1977, I made what felt like a monumental investment: $795 for a Commodore PET computer. But that was just the beginning. The need for storage led to another equally significant purchase – a disk drive system for another $795. That's a total of $1,590 in 1977, equivalent to approximately $7,950 in today's money. For context, that total investment would have bought you a decent used car back then. The PET was revolutionary for its time, featuring a built-in monitor, keyboard, and cassette deck in one integrated unit. It came with a whopping 4KB of RAM (yes, kilobytes), ran at a blazing 1 MHz, and with the disk drive, offered unprecedented storage capabilities for a personal computer.
Fast forward to 2025, and I find myself contemplating another significant investment in computing technology, this time for running the full DeepSeek-R1 AI model locally. The parallels in terms of technological ambition – and cost – are striking.
Read moreAt a recent employee experience group meeting in Toronto, Scott deVeber who works as Project Director, Digital Workplace at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) explored how organizations can break down silos, introduce AI responsibly, and foster a culture where employees confidently embrace digital transformation.
This topic is especially relevant today, as companies everywhere strive to remain competitive in an evolving, tech-driven environment—where employees are expected to adopt new technologies at a rapid pace.
This article shares reflections from Scott’s session and let’s start with the first big question that Scott posed
Read moreIn an era defined by hybrid work, emerging technologies like AI, and shifting employee expectations, one factor stands out as the true engine of success: human connection.
At a recent meeting in our Toronto-based employee experience peer group, Ciara Byrne who works as National Director, Internal Communications & Engagement at Canadian accounting firm Doane Grant Thornton underscored how authentic communication, purpose-driven culture, and genuine employee connection remain the foundation of every truly great workplace, even in the AI era.
This article shares insights from her talk and let’s start both expectations and the workplace landscape has fundamentally shifted.
Read moreGiven only six minutes to show a live demo of your software, what would you show them?
At the CMS Kickoff 25 conference held last week in St. Pete, Florida, six vendors joined on stage for a brief live demo followed by commentary from expert judges and a final vote by the participants on the winner.
Czech-based Kontent.ai came out a winner and was represented by Vojtech Boril, who in a convincing show and tell, both managed to address a real pain when it comes to cumbersome content workflows, while also having a bit of fun charming the judges.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a six minute live demo (no precorded stuff was allowed) gives you even more to tell what a system is capable of. Live demos are a valuable, albeit sometimes lost art, and impressingly the second consecutive win for Kontent.ai, as they also took the Small Feature Award 2024 title back in November, making them the first vendor ever to win two consecutive live demo contests.
Read moreLet me share something fascinating: The Web is experiencing its most significant transformation since its beginning in the 1990s, shifting from human-centric design to a "robot-first" approach where AI systems are becoming primary consumers of web content.
While early web protocols helped manage human access across devices and restrict access by robots like search engine crawlers, today's websites actively court robot engagement for improved user experiences, automation and to feed the algorithm and language models. However, this shift brings challenges – from AI manipulation concerns to questions about data privacy and algorithmic bias.
Remember when "mobile-first" was the hot trend in web development? Well, get ready for "AI-first," or with all the confusion around AI as a term, let’s just call it what it really is: Robots-first.
New standards and protocols are emerging to help website owners manage AI interactions while preserving the web's core mission of democratized knowledge sharing. This article will explore how these changes impact web development strategies impacting how one approaches web development.
Read moreOnce again the big stories this year covered AI (surprise!), but also articles on designing sustainable systems and digital equity made it to the top 5 alongside a piece on universal CMS.
It’s that time of year, where we look back at another year of learning and networking. We really like to have a good conversation and meet in person, but sharing openly as much as possible is also an important part of what we do. Sharing is caring!
Keeping with tradition, here are the five posts, which seemed to resonate the most based on readership and engagement numbers.
Read moreWhile CMS vendors have historically failed to meet accessibility needs, we have now started seeing large corporations concerned about ensuring their digital platforms are accessible.
With the arrival of more and stricter legislation, and importantly also enforcement, there is growing pressure to improve, with accessibility now a central factor in procurement decisions. The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is coming, very soon, and it is already having a big impact on businesses around the world. In Ireland it is being implemented with the threat of prison time!
In a recent members' call we were joined by Gavin Colborne from Little Forest in the UK, who told us more about what's happening with digital accessibility right now and what's around the corner waiting for us next year.
Read moreIn a crowded and confusing marketplace, buyers increasingly turn to their digital agencies for platform decisions, but will the winning agencies of tomorrow keep pushing open source CMS?
The marketplace is also moving quickly, innovation is happening at a breakneck pace and will open source CMS be able to keep up? In particular when it comes to AI and the need to create faster, safer, smarter digital experiences.
To make matters more bleak, as these lines are being written, WordPress is struggling with trademark lawsuits and other messy stuff that’s threatening to implode the community, Drupal is reinventing itself with the release of Drupal CMS and what about good old TYPO3? Why should next gen digital leaders chose to work with any of these 20+ year old dinosaurs?
Change is necessary, already happening and it’s not too late. I consider myself both a champion and good friend of open source and in my keynote at the TYPO3 Conference 2024 held recently in Düsseldorf, Germany, I delivered a call to action both for TYPO3 community and also for the broader open source CMS community to keep changing to survive.
Read moreAt this year’s annual end-of-year collab meeting in Hamburg, we took a closer look at what we have learned in 2024 by bringing together our local groups with an open invite to other community members, a few selected speakers and created a curated packed afternoon with a dozen lightning talks.
Attending this year was a bigger crowd than past years — a diverse set of digital leaders from large, complex and global organisations like Canyon, Jungheinrich, Lufthansa, OTTO alongside agencies such as Diconium and Thoughtworks as well as software firms like CoreMedia, Magnolia, Staffbase and a few other friends from near and far.
Employee communication platform software firm Haiilo hosted us in their charming offices, which was a fitting scene for learning and networking.
Read moreAI is clearly a big thing, but as the old saying goes: The devil is in the details, and small details can make a big difference, also when it comes to meaningful usage of AI.
Kontent.ai, a CMS vendor from the Czech Republic, last week won the 2024 Small Feature Award showing how AI can help editors inside the CMS with those details that are a part of every day tasks — tasks that have mostly been under-served in a crowded CMS market so far.
Held at the Boye Aarhus 24 conference and competing with 4 other vendors, CEO and Founder Petr Palas, completed his winning pitch in just less than 6 minutes. In brief: We saw how the review process inside the CMS can assist the editor in adhering to pre-defined guidelines. This could be to assist with the tone of voice, or for regulated industries it could be legal requirements that you need to follow.
Read moreAs someone who has witnessed the evolution of programming languages over five decades, I've noticed an interesting parallel:
Writing prompts for AI is remarkably similar to traditional programming. The only real difference is the syntax we use to express our intentions.
Let me take you on a journey through time.
Read moreWe all work to live. But we feel most alive at work, when we are doing something that seems valuable.
In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, artificial intelligence (AI) is redefining the very essence of work. Beyond just automation and efficiency, AI holds the promise of making our work more meaningful—but it also poses significant risks.
Richard Harbridge, Chief Technology Officer and Microsoft 365 MVP at Toronto-based Microsoft partner 2toLead, joined a recent members' call, where he unpacked how AI can both enhance and challenge the value of our work.
We delved into the double-edged nature of AI adoption, exploring how it can amplify our skills, foster innovation, and drive deeper connections in the workplace. But with these opportunities come real concerns: AI’s potential to devalue human expertise, disrupt roles, and reshape what we consider valuable in our professional lives.
Richard guided us through the complexities of AI change management, offering insights into how organisations can align AI investments with employee-centric goals to create a harmonious coexistence between technology and employee intent. We also heard about actionable strategies to ensure AI empowers rather than undermines our professional growth. Finally, we wrapped up with some of the big positives and big negatives AI can have for our work.
Read moreWhat does it take to build and lead organisations where people want to work?
Morten Elvang is an expert on strategy execution and has toured many of our peer groups in the past months talking about strategy execution and getting big things done.
In a recent members' call, he told us more about how work is changing and its implications for all enterprises. It was an interactive session, where we talked about the need for more openness, strategy in a steering role, flexible organisations and more.
Read moreAfter almost two decades of only niche activity among the pure content findability experts, suddenly the topic of search has been a big one in our recent conferences and peer group meetings.
It’s almost as if when Google was added to the English dictionary in 2006, progress stopped. I realise that’s unfair, also to Google, which arguably has made progress, but still for many years, two things were certain when it came to search: Google was the king and on most websites site search was broken.
It's clear that something is happening at the moment
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