Sitecore Symposium 2018: Headless CMS, The Great Uncoupling

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Headless CMS, The Great Uncoupling session was lead by Deane Barker from Blend Interactive.  It provided a look at how we got here and what makes a headless cms important.

Software

• Why does software get bigger?
  • Rational reasons
    • Edge case support – people keep finding and using and edge case
    • Economy of context – some things work better when they work together
    • Adjacent market capture – adding in this feature lets us go after another market
  • Irrational reasons
    • Assumptions of economy of context – “all in one box/app”
    • Fast car syndrome – yes you can go 160mph, but you never really do
• Does software ever get smaller?
  • Endowment effect
    • Fear of loss – hard to give up a feature you know is there even if you never use it

CMS

• How did we get to headless?
  • Social networking
  • The need for omnichannel publishing
  • Javascript frameworks
    • Javascript is here to stay
    • Reduce reliance on server side rendering
  • The growth of the cloud
• 5 layers to a CMS
  • Optimization
    • Personalization
    • A/B testing
  • Delivery and presentation
    • UI
  • Response logic
    • Url to content mapping
    • Access control
    • Version selection
    • Variation selection
    • Contextual content selection
  • Editorial tools
    • Admin
  • Modeling and aggregation
    • Database

Is it really headless?

• Headless CMS should really be called “headless content repository”
  • A true headless cms does not do the top three layers (optimization, delivery, and response logic)
  • They focus on content infrastructure
    • But marketing people want the top three layers
  • Content can be delivered to any source (web, apps, social, print, rss, etc)
    • But in reality web is/has been the biggest target for content
      • Headless systems end up accommodating web
      • CMS tools add options for headless
      • Which group will find the “right” solution first?

This session really highlighted the value of Sitecore JSS.  You get the benefit of omnichannel content delivery, javascript framework front-end development AND all of Sitecore’s testing and personalization features.
Find the rest of my notes from Sitecore Symposium 2018