Long, long ago Jeff Wood made me a t-shirt that read "Publishing Process Got You in a Pickle?" accompanied by a hokey animated pickle graphic. It came up during today's planning meeting for the upcoming 2017 RSuite User Conference and had us all roaring.

The joke behind the shirt is lost to history, but we're still here seventeen years later, helping publishers re-imagine complex processes and deliver content in new ways. Today our customers include not only professional publishers, but also publishing teams in enterprises across a variety of industries.

If you have publishing challenges of your own, think about coming to the RSuite User Conference on September 19. I'll be sharing RSuite's past, present, and future in an uncomplicated way as I walk through our product roadmap. Don't miss the opportunity to see what's in store for the next versions of RSuite, including:

• building in semantics for a more powerful and informative solution
• making RSuite useful to a broader range of users and content
• improving support for enterprise-scale deployments

(Yes, I still have the t-shirt. No, I won't wear it to the User Conference.)

While preparing for my upcoming session at #RSuiteUC16, it struck me how much fun I’ve been having with technology lately.  While I’ve loved pushing RSuite CMS to new limits for a long time now (we started development way back in 2004), today we find ourselves in an exciting place.

We’ve reached a place with both the RSuite technology and our customers where we can really get serious about going beyond basics of content management.

Possible…and now practical

In the past, some features and functionality in CMS may have been possible, but they simply weren’t practical.  Customers were busy trying to establish direction, establish infrastructure, and change culture.  They didn’t have head space or time for more advanced functionality. And technology integrations and customizations were not always friendly.

As I look around today, everything has gotten easier.  The CMS user base (and management) today just seem to “get it” more; they know what they want to achieve and are far more adaptable to change.  At the same time, technology – RSuite and other software – has become increasingly “out of the box,” which is simplifying everything.   Projects are easier, empowering organizations to leap ahead to those cool new applications that can really change their business.

Future Glimpses

So that’s the backdrop for my session at #RSuiteUC16.  We’re going to get people excited about the possible and practical in a quick look at the future, including:

• Previews of functionality that has been recently completed or is coming soon, like
  • Out of the box workflow reporting
  • Easier ways for infrequent CMS users to access RSuite
  • Browser-based editors that users love
  • Content exploration driven by semantic metadata
• A sneak peek at our product roadmap, including improvements to scalability and security.
• An understanding of how we’re setting priorities (and how you can get involved).

Final Thoughts

If you have an interest in RSuite, I hope you’ll consider coming to our User Conference next month.  Whatever your level of technical expertise, we’ve got you covered. 

What’s really inspirational about events like ours is that they get you to lift your head up.  For at least a day, nobody is asking you to put out fires, so you get the precious freedom to actually think about the longer term and where your business is headed.  You also get to meet and learn from people like you at other organizations – and share your own lessons learned.

And we get to show you how RSuite can help… <grin>