There is an old business adage that states information is power. These days it’s more accurate to say that information is power -- when it is secure and reliable.

Achieving profitability in a competitive global marketplace is a major priority for most businesses. Often this comes at the expense of maintaining effective controls over integrity and accountability within an organization. And even those companies that do try to establish these controls typically place this responsibility into the hands of individuals who have little, if any, visibility into the inner workings of the organization.

Identity management and governance has become a focal point for companies trying to meet regulatory and industry expectations around information integrity and accountability. The rapid emergence of Web-based technologies has forced businesses to adapt to a radically different marketplace and has led to the evolution of open business models. Open models encourage flexibility and ease of use – but they also expose an organization to risk.

Information is power and information security is more crucial now than ever. And whether it is the protection of proprietary technology, customer information or financial data, identity management should be a key component of any corporate security strategy.

In this month’s Perficient Perspectives we look at Identity Management:

- What is it?
- The three keys of an effective identity management strategy
- Business alignment
- Executive involvement
- Measurable results
- Identity management solutions
- Where does technology fit in?
- Why technology alone is not the answer
- How to assess your own level of corporate exposure to identity abuse and infrastructure vulnerabilities

You’ve got a lot of content. You’ve been reading about Content Management Systems (CMS) that could make your life easier but they're very expensive to buy. And when you add the costs of training, changes to your workflow, and more, it seems the benefits of a CMS are not for you.  Or they MAY be for you, but you can't decide that until after spending the money.

Help authoring tools (HATs) seem unrelated to CMSs, but HATs have gone far beyond their help roots. They offer features like repositories, version control, review management, content customization using conditionality and variables, and more.  HATs are effectively lightweight CMSs. If you need a CMS, you may find that you can use your current HAT to create test-bed CMSs or even as your actual CMS, saving a lot of money and upheaval. 

This tool-independent webinar covers the issues to consider and the hidden features you may have in your existing tools that can help. You may have everything you need to smartly manage your content.

About the presenter
Neil Perlin, owner of Hyper/Word Services, has 30 years experience in technical communication, with 24 in training, consulting, and development for online formats and tools like WinHelp, HTML Help, CE Help, RoboHelp, Flare, and others.  Neil writes columns and articles about online help and content and is a popular speaker for IEEE PCS, STC, and other groups.

All you need to connect to the Webinar is an internet-connected computer and speakers.

This webinar will be recorded and will be available after the event. The recorded version is not like asking questions in real time, but you will get the information if you cannot attend. To make sure you get that link, sign up for this webinar.

Overpriced, overly complex web content management (WCM) suites, bought in the days of the ".com bubble" when money was no object, have been commoditized and consumerized. 

Real people want the simplicity and familiarity of the tools they use day-in, day-out:

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• The mass of content in Wikipedia,
• The freshness of content in Digg,
• The ease of configurability and reuse of Google gadgets or Facebook pages and
• The low cost scalability of Web 2.0.

Alfresco WCM engages customers through next-generation sites...
enabling mass contributions from internal and external users, 
simple configuration via reusable Web Scripts 
and low cost massive scalability that uses commodity software and hardware. 

In this webinar, Michael Uzquiano gives a view into the technical underpinnings of Alfresco Web Content Management. And previews what's coming in Alfresco 3.1 and 3.2, over the next few months. 

Agenda: 
1. WCM Technology Overview - review of the Alfresco technical stack, advantages of a holistic architecture. 

2. Visionary Use Case - bringing together the worlds of DM, WCM and RM. 

3. Roadmap for first half of 2009 - design of Alfresco 3.2, Forms Service, WCM Production Runtime, Alfresco SURF