Keynote: Editing the Horizon

Preston So

Is the CMS as we know it dead? As our industry grapples every day with ever more channels for content, the traditional web-based CMS is at a critical crossroads. Nowadays, digital experiences can be as narrow as a conversational interface and as broad as AR/VR-driven content — and as small as an Apple Watch or as large as a digital billboard on Times Square.

But the central personas involved remain identical: the end user, the developer, and most importantly, the marketer.

Drupal has long prided itself on its place at the fulcrum of these three personas by providing in-context administration tools and developer experiences that, together, grant immense flexibility. But sooner rather than later, we must contend with both a widening wilderness of untapped digital experiences and innovative CMSes that don't even exist yet.

Can we shift our thinking toward universal editing? Can we edit and administer everything, not just web experiences, totally in context? How can we think about content editing agnostically and contextually to encompass not just the present but also the unforeseen future of content experiences? Together, let's divine and dissect the forward-looking outlook that is the CMS of the future — and how Drupal can get there first.

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