Blog
On AEM, enterprise architecture, AI, and the craft of technical leadership.
The pace of change in technology guarantees that yesterday's expertise degrades faster than we like to admit. The only durable advantage is a disciplined habit of learning — whether your employer supports it or not.
ADA compliance is often treated as a box to check — and that mindset is exactly why teams struggle to maintain it. Meeting WCAG 2.1 AA and staying there requires reframing accessibility as a quality standard, not a legal afterthought.
Tools like AEM Smart Tags can accelerate the first draft of metadata, but first draft does not mean final metadata. When AI-generated tags enter a system without governance or review, small inaccuracies accumulate into systemic noise that scales faster than any team can correct.
A/B testing is one of the most widely trusted tools in digital product work — and one of the most commonly misused. Revisiting Peter Borden's "How Optimizely (Almost) Got Me Fired" is a useful reminder that the platform reporting a winner doesn't mean you have one.
Most organizations treat metadata and analytics as parallel tracks. They are not. One provides meaning. The other provides truth. The real power only shows up when you connect them — and in AEM, that connection needs to be deliberate.
Smart Tags are one of the fastest ways to improve metadata coverage in AEM Assets — and one of the fastest ways to create a mess. The technology works. The challenge is the belief that Smart Tags can replace planning and governance.
I promise I don't work for Algolia. I'm just the kind of person who sees it in action and immediately starts sounding like a product evangelist. Here's why the combination with AEM is worth paying attention to.
Technology can organize your assets, but only people can make them meaningful. Metadata and tagging sit at the core of every successful DAM initiative — yet they're consistently treated as technical details instead of a shared business discipline.