Christmas Wish List 2008—What Technology Improvements Do You Want Santa To Bring You This Year?

Dear Santa:

I am writing you today to send you my Christmas list for 2008. I know you and the elves work very hard to fulfill each and every Christmas wish, but my wish list may take a little extra time (and some great elf software developers) to fulfill, so I’m giving you some advance notice.

For Christmas 2008, please bring me:

Authoring tools that help control content quality and that come with metrics reporting capabilities—Writing is one of the most common tasks undertaken in an organization. Nearly everyone involved in white collar jobs is expected to do it. For some, it’s their sole purpose. And yet, authoring tools don’t provide built-in quality management functionality (support for controlled vocabularies, enforcement of authoring guidelines) nor meaningful metrics reports.
Flash on the iPhone—The iPhone is a miniature computer, capable of doing all kinds of useful things. But, it can’t play Flash animations, something that would prove really useful.
Content management systems that provide managers with valuable real-time reporting metrics, on demand and out-of-the-box—Most content management system designers may know a thing or two about managing content, but they don’t seem to know much about managing people nor a department. What most CMSes lack are easy-to-generate metrics reports that can be used by managers to make informed business decisions and to demonstrate continued improvements over time to upper management.
Content modeling software—Microsoft Excel is the wrong tool for the job. What we need is a tool designed to help us create, manage and deploy the content models we develop.
Copy and Paste on the iPhone—Yes, you can type of the iPhone, just by touching letters on the screen. It’s fast and easy. But, copy and paste would come in handy (and the iPhone can’t do that yet). But don’t stop with just the old school copy-and-paste approach. Ask us if we’d like to store those text snippets for future use. It’s one more time saving solution for sending mobile messages on the go.
Online help systems that include social networking features—Online help systems need a major update. What they need are new features—the ability to reuse syndicated content from external sources, rate topics, view videos, upload content, participate in a social community where users can help each other, provide feedback to the online help and software developers, and access multiple types of content.
Component content management systems that are designed to help us assemble personalized, rich media documentation sets, on-demand—Assembling documentation from individual content modules is possible today, but it’s generally limited to the automatic assembly of written words and graphics. What’s needed are CMSes that are designed to assemble and deliver personalized video documentation from a database of modular video topics.
An API for Linked In—Linked In is very useful, but only if you’re a member. Linked-In could extend its value—and attract more members—by making some of its content accessible to outsiders via a Service Oriented Architecture approach. Imagine the mashups that could be generated from marrying a Linked In network to Google Maps, You Tube, SlideShare, Flickr or ... The usefulness of the solutions that could result from an API for Linked In are endless.
A touch screen laptop—Apple teased us with the iPhone, then the new-and-improved iPod. Their touch screen interfaces have changed computing forever and for the better. But what’s really needed is a touch screen laptop. Get rid of the keyboard and the mouse pad (and all those moving parts that can break) and replace it with a touch screen.
A cable television interface, designed by Apple—Let’s face it, cable television interfaces suck. What they need is a major overhaul—the type only Apple can provide. Why doesn’t cable work like the internet. Where is search? Where are ratings (a la Netflix)? What about recommendations (a la Amazon.com)? What about targeted, relevant commercials? And how about a touch screen remote control that works like the iPhone and iPod Touch? Cable television has remarkable possibilities, but as it stands today, the entire cable experience could use a revamp.

Thanks, Santa.

Sincerely,

Scott Abel
The Content Wrangler

P.S. Santa, I have a lot of friends who also have suggestions for Christmas 2008. I’ve asked them to add their ideas to the list below to make it easier for you and the elves.