Consulting Services
Chris Summers offers a portfolio of web consulting services for content management-based
projects. He brings a broad collection of skills to each project, ranging from search
engine optimization, taxonomy development and project management to ASP.NET and
J2EE development, along with extensive expertise of the CMS industry.
CMS Identification and Selection
With 10 years of experience with CMS platforms including SDL Tridion, Interwoven,
Media Surface, Vignette and Red Dot, Chris has an understanding of each platform’s
benefits and drawbacks. During the CMS selection process, Chris works with clients
to determine their specific needs and provides unbiased platform and feature recommendations
– input which often saves companies a large percentage of capital and recurring
expenses.
SDL Tridion Consulting
Chris has 10 years experience with SDL Tridion and its products, and helps clients
get the return on investment that’s expected from enterprise software. Chris, who
personally trained the majority of SDL Tridion’s own consultants, is the only independent
Certified SDL Tridion Consultant in North America.
Training and Education
Successful SDL Tridion implementations can either save companies time and money
– or can be a recurring draw on a company’s resources. One tool can determine whether
an implementation is a success or a failure – a comprehensive, thorough SDL Tridion
training and educational program. Chris customizes training for every audience,
from the casual end-user to the project’s key stakeholder, from the hard-core developer
who will take full ownership of back-end integrations to the information architects
and designers who manage visitor interaction, and provides an ongoing educational
program for continued success.
Implementation Planning
Like each company, each CMS implementation is different. But there’s one common
element to each successful CMS implementation – a pre-implementation assessment
of the resources and time the project will require. Chris has developed a proven
implementation methodology, where he works with the team to identify the required
resources, documents and information and develops an implementation plan which fits
each organization’s needs and budget. The final product provides a timeline to keep
each member of the project team on track and benchmark the project’s progress.
Content Migration
A content management system is only as good as the data in the system. Cleaning
the data – the collection, organization, analysis and optimization – before it is
imported into a new CMS is much easier and more effective then retrofitting the
system to the data it holds. Chris offers a selection of services designed to complete
a successful data migration to a SDL Tridion CMS platform, or a successful data
extraction if an organization migrates from SDL Tridion to another platform.
Technical Leadership
As the lead technical consultant on dozens of SDL Tridion implementations, Chris
has the skills and experience designed to deliver results. An external technical
lead brings an impartial perspective to an internal team and is able to offer suggestions
that can save money, keep projects on track and avoid departmental politics. If
external resources are required for a successful implementation, Chris has an extended
network of SDL Tridion partners and consultants, and will help recruit the right
talent for each project.
Implementation Auditing
Content management systems are never static; it’s not uncommon that an early solution
will need to be upgraded or modified at some point after an initial implementation.
Understanding the early foundation is key to ensuring the long-term life of the
system. Despite thorough planning, in any software project there are often external
forces that influence the end result: a rush to meet deadlines; a directive to cut
costs; a missed peer review; unfiled documentation; or uncompleted testing. As an
external expert, Chris provides an independent, thorough implementation audit that
allows your team to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the implementation
and identify areas for improvement.