Some of you may even be asking, “what is Publisher?”, let alone “what’s Publisher 4?”.
Well, here is a little potted history.
HighQ Publisher was originally conceived in 2008 and implemented in 2009 as a platform to deliver a variety of different content types to clients via a single platform or portal. It was very much designed to augment a firm’s website. It is a very different solution to our flagship product HighQ Collaborate in that it’s less about security and one to one communications and more about relationships, delivering pieces of content to multiple people at the same time.
Our current definition of HighQ Publisher is: “a cloud based enterprise content management system which provides the ability to create and curate content of all types, brought together within a branded platform enabling you to publish your content across a range of channels. The platform allows you to promote your business and your people, and build deeper relationships with your clients.”
Since I joined HighQ in October 2011 we have progressed the platform and its use cases. It has now been hosting traditional style intranets since the end of 2012 and we have completed over 350 individual enhancements including full Lexis Nexis InterAction integration and Active Directory integration. The team has grown to 10 full-time developers, four QA and testers, three front-end developers, and two full-time consultants (including myself). We have over 3,500 registered organisations and 85,000 registered users on instances that are for providing services to clients, whether that is orientated around sharing expertise and/or knowledge or creating premium products.
What made Publisher so unique?
The platform is really a fully-formed, custom-built content management system allowing a great deal of flexibility in terms of content being created, hosted and shared. Our platform changes the dynamic of “push content” to allow your clients to pull the content they are interested in based on their preferences. This means that your marketing teams have the potential to dramatically reduce the volume of emails being sent and the effort required to send them, because the platform does it all. It is an out-of-the-box platform that allows your knowledge and marketing teams to focus on the content not the technology. It was built with legal in mind in conjunction with some of the best minds within legal knowledge and marketing.
Publisher, however, needs to make an evolutionary leap forward and this has been the fun part for us, identifying what we should do next. The Publisher roadmap is heavily influenced by our own content consumption habits, our clients’ requirements and demands, and the general trends in the ECM market, the legal market and the consumer content world.
One important question we asked ourselves was, “what could we do with these tools?”, rather than, “what can we make that we are already good at?”. As such we approached the thinking about Publisher 4 without any preconceptions of what it was and what it should become. One of my objectives was to ensure the evolution Publisher needed to enable the remarkable. It sounds very grand but as Seth Godin said, “it’s no longer good enough just to sell to the masses because that makes you average.” We hope what we are building will enable our clients to build awesome platforms that enable them to stand out regardless of the audience. We want to create a platform that can be different things to different people.
Building upon the existing platform we have narrowed our initial focus to four main themes, each of which break into many sub-components.
Focus on mobility
The way we consume content is also changing rapidly. Today, smart devices have an immeasurable impact on how we do business and present ourselves and our information. Accessibility across all platforms, at all times, is vital.
Beyond legal, many of the large analyst companies like Forrester and Gartner talk a lot about the rapidly changing evolution of content management and distribution. Firms need to be able to leverage awesome mobile-friendly, out-of-the-box solutions that facilitate content creation, curation and publishing. They need the ability to allow teams to focus their energy on creating enjoyable and engaging experiences for their clients, not on the technology on which it runs.
Publisher 4 will be built from the ground up to provide an intuitive and engaging content experience on all hand-held and desktop screens using a responsive web design.
Focus on design, simplicity & flexibility
As I mentioned above, a large part of our inspiration for Publisher 4 comes from our personal content consumption habits. We look at tools and platforms such as Medium, Flipboard and Feedly as some of the best. Great design and typography combined with great functionality is key in all of those platforms and here is a little quote which emphasises why we are focusing on design: “There is a little secret out there that despite there being more content, people are actually reading less… You’re lucky if they skim read, meaning you have to place a great deal of effort on design and typography to draw people in.”
It’s essential to provide the flexibility and control to deliver awesome content consumption experiences in combination with allowing firms to create personalised experiences with engaging content. These days, organisations need to able to leverage awesome out-of-the-box solutions that facilitate content creation and publishing; allow their teams to focus energy on creating enjoyable and engaging experiences for their clients, not on the technology on which it runs; work in harmony with their other digital assets and channels; and make work more efficient, creating immediate, interactive collateral.
Publisher 4 will provide the ability to place a great deal on customisation, brand and creating great content experiences.
Focus on sharing and interoperability
The approach to business development, winning new business, and managing existing clients is evolving for law firms. No longer is expertise and knowledge considered an exclusive resource, restricted to paying clients only. It is now expected that degrees of this expertise and knowledge should be shared as widely and freely as possible, no longer used only as a business tool, but also as a promotional device.
It is our ambition to build a developer community around solutions and services that complement Publisher. This will be facilitated through the development of an open API allowing individual firms and other vendors alike to build integrations.
Publisher 4 gives law firms the power to make these resources accessible, not only to clients, but also the public through SEO-optimised public content and teaser content and once the API is complete integrate the platform with almost any other complimentary system.
Focus on personalisation
Delivering awesome content experience is key to the future of Publisher. Whether that is via a multi-lingual framework to allow localised user experience, engaging your clients in their native language and personalising intent and dashboards to your clients and teams.
Publisher 4 allows you to create bespoke experiences for organisations and individuals. The level of engagement is unrivalled and puts your subscribers and readers in control of how they engage with your content.
Publisher 4 is an evolutionary step, and by no means does it finish there. We have a very exciting roadmap ahead for the next 12-18 months and we will be introducing more use cases, additional integrations and functionality over the course of coming weeks and months.
As you can tell, I’m very excited about the future. I looking forward to many of you coming along for the ride 
If you are an existing HighQ client, you will be able to see videos from the Forum on the Client Community, including a recording of Ben’s talk. Ben’s slide deck will also be available for download in the Client Community. For non-clients, more coverage of the HighQ Forum, London 2014, including pictures from the event, is available on the HighQ blog.
