Technical Content

I’ve created a lot of content, mainly around content management and content strategy. During 2020, I endeavored to find and catalog all of it. Some of it is on this site, and some is linked to in its published location.

Quite a bit of this is content that was published somewhere else for a period of time. I have recovered it, either from personal storage or other archival locations, and it’s published here for safekeeping.

If you’re looking for a blog that used to be called “Gadgetopia,” I’ve moved all of that content to the technical blog on this website.

I have another page specifically for my code.

(Note that a ➚ symbol after a hyperlink denotes a link away from this site.)

Books

The Web Project Guide: From Spark to Launch and Beyond

I’m listing this separately because a co-authored it, and it’s freely available on a website, in addition to being available in print.

Book Contributions

I have contributed parts to three books.

Content Everywhere
2012

I wrote a sidebar for Sara’s book.

The Language of Content Strategy
2013

I wrote the (short) chapter on content migrations for this book. The book was anthology-style – dozens of people each contributed a chapter to it.

Courses

I teach two courses for FH Joanneum in Graz, Austria (usually remote, though I visit and teach on-site every once in a while). The links below go to the complete syllabus for each course, with reading lists and assignments.

This is isn’t a “course” so much, but was a workshop I used to give at conference in 2014-2015.

Papers

This is longer-form stuff that was distributed as a document. Many of these were done as marketing pieces for Blend Interactive, and many of them were done with Corey Vilhauer. Blend holds the copyright to most of these.

Website Implementation Projects: A Start to Finish Guide (PDF)
2018
12 pages
Corey Vilhauer

This started as a simple list of all the phases of a website implementation project that we would do at Blend. I started the list for no particular reason, and eventually expanded it into a process-ish document. Corey Vilhauer then worked it over into the form here, as a marketing piece for Blend. It eventually became the basis for the Web Project Guide.

The Web Migration Handbook (PDF)
2018
13 pages

I was paid to write this as a marketing piece for DNN Software (makers of DotNetNuke and Evoq). However, I retained the copyright to it, and we re-formatted it as a Blend marketing piece, which is the version here. There’s a DNN-branded version floating around too.

The Web Operations Management Checklist (PDF)
2018 (in this format)
9 pages
Corey Vilhauer

Like many others in this list, this started out as something I wrote down to informally send to prospects. Corey expanded it, and we re-formatted it as a formal marketing piece. It covers all the stuff you need to think about before launching your website. A lot of this stuff made it into the Web Project Guide.

Overcoming Challenges in Higher Ed CMS Projects (PDF)
2017
32 pages
Corey Vilhauer

This is the second version of a paper I did with Corey about our experience implementing CMS for higher ed. I did the first version of this with Lynsey Struthers. Blend has historically done a lot of higher ed work, and the paper covers a lot of the problems we saw working in that space. We did a co-marketing campaign with Episerver using this paper that didn’t really go anywhere.

Responsive Content and the Bottomless Website (PDF)
13 pages

This discussed what we now know as simple rules-based personalization, which was new and interesting at the time. I can’t remember why I wrote this. The title page says “for Episerver,” but I don’t think I actually wrote it for Episerver. I think I did this independently as a marketing exercise for Blend.

Managing Content in the Transactional Application (PDF)
11 pages

I was paid to write this for the now-defunct (in the US) CMS company Movable Type, during their attempt to rebuild their brand. (There’s a conference presentation below from that same campaign.) The paper demonstrates how to use a decoupled CMS like Movable Type to manage content in a “transactional” application, like an online banking system.

Blogs

These are tech blogs that I created and managed. (Not to be confused with my personal blog which is about everything other than tech.)

Gadgetopia Archives
2003 - 2019

Here are the 7,000 posts archived from Gadgetopia. If you try to access these on the main site, you’re re-directed here. This site is cloaked from search. (Note: there is purposefully nothing to browse here.)

Articles

These are mostly articles I wrote on websites belonging to other people.

GatherContent interview: Deane Barker

I did a short interview with GatherContent about content and books.

The Future Might be Distributed

This was a companion to my distributed CMS talk I was doing in 2019.

With Content Delivery, What Goes Around Comes Around

I wrote this as a retrospective of content publishing models for the 20th anniversary of…something. I don’t quite remember, but it was some article series CMS Wire was pushing at the time.

Rationality in CMS Implementation Planning

I wrote this for O’Reilly to promote my first book.

Videos

Most of these are videos of conference presentations. The dates on many of these are approximate – I took them from the date the video was posted, which likely doesn’t correspond to the actual event.

DXD with Deane Barker
4:52

A brief conversation about content that I had with the CEO of Episerver overlooking Sydney Harbor. It’s foggy, but you can see the Harbor Bridge in the background, and the Opera House is just barely visible on the extreme left of the screen.

Content is the Currency of Human Connection
30:58

This was the keynote at Episerver’s conference in Miami in 2019. One of my better talks. When I gave this, I had been working at Episerver for about two months, so I was jumping right into the deep end.

The Promise and Peril of Editorial Scripting
46:45

A talk about a scripting language called Denina at CodeGarden in Odense, Denmark.

The Future Might be Distributed
50:08

Probably the best version of this talk I ever gave, at CodeGarden in 2019.

7 Things We Know About Headless, and 3 Things We Don’t
59:15

From CodeGarden 2018 in Odense, Denmark.

Why Content Projects Fail
54:13

One of my favorite talks, from CodeGarden 2017 in Odense, Denmark.

Why Content Projects Fail
51:55

This was, I believe, the first of six times I delivered this talk in 2017. This is from Blend’s own conference in Sioux Falls.

Interview: Deane Barker on Headless CMS and the Future of Content Management
10:45

A short video interview I did for Kentico at their partner event in Chicago.

How to Prepare Your Site For Content Migration
47:39

A discussion about content migrations that I did for a migration services vendor (who I don’t think it still around).

Content at the Edges
47:35

This was a talk at the eZ Conference in 2015 in Brooklyn. It’s about multi-channel content distribution.

Introducing the Blend Web Operations Framework
18:40

This was the conference into and a discussion of something called the “Blend Web Operations Management Framework” that actually was never formalized and released.

COPEing Mechanisms: The Promise and Peril of ‘Create Once Publish Everywhere
41:51

A talk about multi-channel publishing from Blend’s own conference in Sioux Falls.

Deane Barker shout-out for TYPO3 Neos
1:31

An odd little video I made for the Typo3 community at the request of my friend Rasmus. It was just a minute-and-a-half about my impressions of the NEOS project (which was quite good). I understand this was shown at one of their conferences somewhere.

Charting a New Course - Why the CEO Matters More Than the Developer
42:02

A talk I did for now-defunct-ish Movable Type in NYC in a virtually empty room. It was weird. This was a repeat-ish of my DrupalCon talk.

Charting a New Direction: Why the CEO Matters More Than the Developer
53:25

This is the first time I gave this talk. I summarized it in a blog post.

Note: The real tragedy is the talk that’s missing from this list. I gave the developer keynote at Sitecore Symposium in 2018 to room of 3,000 people. It was the best conference presentation I’ve ever given. To my horror, they informed me six weeks later that the talk was not recorded. It was filmed for the screens in the back of the massive room, but it was not actually recorded and retained. I was heartbroken.

Annotated Slide Decks

I’ve annotated one slide deck and turned into its own miniature website. I’d like to do more of these in the future.

Posted Slide Decks

Some slide decks that were likely from conference presentations, but have been archived by themselves. Most of these decks were posted to SlideShare, and are offered with no notes or other annotations.

The Natural Irrationality of Implementing CMS

I gave this at a breathtakingly small conference in Minneapolis for eZ Systems. It eventually became the basis for the “Why Content Projects Fail” talk.

Issues with Content Migration

This was for a session at Content Strategy Workshops in Portland.

Backbone (PDF)
Sometime in 2015?

This is a PDF of a deck I put together about an idea I called “Backbone” at the time, which was really a combination of a headless CMS and a DAM, I think.

The Future is in Delivery

One of two times I’ve been at J. Boye Philly. In retrospect, I was talking about a really obvious point, but it felt unique at the time. Jeff Cram did a write-up of this talk on the CMS Myth.

The Emperor Has No News

In retrospect, this was an odd presentation for what I believe was the very first Now What Conference. It was more content strategy than content management, and I think I was out of my depth on this one.

The Truth About Content Migrations

For Gilbane 2011. Rahel Bailie saw me present this, and asked me to do it again in Portland later that year.

Overcoming the Fear: What C-Level Execs are Afraid of When it Comes to Social Intranets

I gave this at a conference in Vancouver for ThoughtFarmer. I then added to it a bit and got invited to Sydney for Intranets 2012.

Web Content Delivery Systems (PDF)

This might be an early spark of my distributed CMS talk. I based it on a blog post I came up with earlier that year.

Why Conversational Marketing Matters: Engagement in the Age of Stratification

I discussion about the then-new idea of “conversational marketing.” This was more content strategy/marketing, but that’s what they asked me for. It was easy for them to get technical talks; harder for them to get business talks. This was on my first ever trip to Europe, at the Episerver Global Partner Summit in Malmo, Sweden. I was there to collect the North American Partner of the Year award.

The Mysterious Art of the Content Inventory

A discussion about how to do content inventories. The only time I ever did Gilbane San Francisco. That was the last year before they ended that conference, I believe.

Intranets: Goals, Scope, and Features (PDF)
2010

This was for an all-day client workshop while planning an intranet. I cover a lot of ground in here about what an intranet does – the role it plays, the scope of features it offers, with some thoughts on challenges and adoption.

Podcast Episodes

I have my own podcast here:

The Content Management Bible Podcast

I’ve also done episodes on people’s podcasts.

One on One: Deane Barker on Why Content is Foundational
14:20

I talked with Kim Davis in Miami during the Episerver Ascend conference.

Headless Content Management with Deane Barker, Blend Interactive
20:15

A discussion about headless CMS for Ingeniux, a CMS vendor.

Coffee Break 008: Deane Barker
57:17

A lovely conversation with my friend Sarah Werner about the writing of my first book. (The page didn’t work the last time I was there, but you can get the audio player directly here. Also, the raw MP3 can be streamed from this site here.)

Deane Barker and the Art of Content Management
39:09

My second time on with Jeff.

Deane Barker on CMS Trends and Content Geography
51:33

A talk with my friend Jeff Eaton.

Content Management Professionals

I was a board member of Content Management Professionals for a while.

Other

I have a lot of miscellaneous content lying around. Some of this I just preserved here to keep track of it. Every once in a while, I want to reference something, so there’s a lot of random stuff below.

The Denina Wiki
2017 and forward

This is technically code, but the documentation wiki for Denina is about 12,000 words and it has a lot of information about the theory of editorial scripting languages. In particular, look through the pages in the “About” subheading: Why Do This, Alternatives, and Use Cases.

The Web Content Management Glossary
Originally written in 2016

I wrote this as a web-only supplement to my first book. It defines 200+ terms around content management. (It’s also archived here since the book site no longer belongs to me.)

Spartacus: A Content Orchestration System
2018

This was a vague idea I had for a distributed CMS I called “Spartacus.” I had no intention to build it, but I was using it to explore ideas about distribution and orchestration.