CMS Connect 25 Conference Program

Held at CoWork Montréal on August 5 - 6

The conference is tailored for everyone working with content management systems, from beginners to experts, from marketers over communicators to tech folks and features 2 packed days with a carefully curated mixture of talks, workshops, activities and world class facilitators, thought-provokers, speakers and session leads.

Unlike many other conferences, this one is not about speakers talking endlessly about their own work.
On Day #1 we set the stage with lightning talks, reflections, thought-provoking perspectives and close with live demos of emerging tech.
On Day #2, we’ll focus on fewer talks and cross industry working groups to really tackle the thorny issues and make progress together. Rather than being talked at, this is your conference for active participation and talking to your peers.
Throughout the two days, we enjoy the venue and the La-Plateau part of Montréal, good meals and quality conversations in a relaxed atmosphere optimized for learning and networking.

PS: Arriving early? Join EvolveDigital Montréal on August 4 free of charge as a confirmed CMS Connect 25 participant

Program

Tuesday, August 5

9:00 - 9:30: Breakfast and registration

9:30 - 9:40: Welcome & Opening feat.:

- Our hosts Janus Boye, Boye & Co and Matt Garrepy, CMS Critic

In this opening session, Matt Garrepy from CMS Critic will lead a conversation with Cathy McKnight on the big topics right now in this fast moving industry. You can expect to get insights on AI, composability, orchestration and much more.

Cathy works as Chief Problem Solver and Lead Analyst at Seventh Bear, an analyst firm offering marketing guidance that’s as practical as it is wise.

As an analyst, consultant, strategist, speaker, and writer, Cathy loves geeking out about content, technology, employee/team engagement, and anything about hockey.

With a unique blend of consulting expertise, sharp communication skills, and hands-on project management experience, she has helped Fortune 100 companies, nonprofits, and everything in between craft strategies and implementation roadmaps that deliver real impact.

Her super power: Making complex challenges less complex, actionable, and achievable. A perfect way to get the conference conversation started.

After the expert opening, we’ll go straight to hearing lightning talks from three practitioners, starting with one of our local practitioners

Our institutional digital governance and best practices are continually evolving. These days, this evolution includes establishing guidelines for using GenAI. Taking steps to ensure our community members are using GenAI in ways that are beneficial and positive.

Besides the obvious challenge of producing concrete guidelines for a rapidly evolving technology, we've encountered several other notable challenges and questions, including:

How do we foster a community of practice around a topic where technical and emotional comfort levels vary?

How do we ensure consistency in institutional policies and guidelines produced by different units for diverse audience groups?

What built-in safeguards do we need to support our digital governance in the age of GenAI?

From content to experience to conversion, a well-defined strategy is critical to the success of your website. A clear strategy guides everything from web architecture to page structure and design to content creation and delivery, allowing you to deliver personalised and engaging content to well-targeted audiences and to better support conversions and drive alignment with business objectives.

How do we design a user-centric content strategy?

What does this look like in practice? 

A story of how an attempt to upgrade our CMS surfaced quite a few accessibility problems

10.45 - 11:15 Coffee & networking

Discover how storytelling in digital content production can transform the customer journey.

Let’s talk quick and actionable tips on creating content that resonates, engages, and actually drives conversions by connecting. 

You will leave with fresh ideas on how storytelling can improve customer engagement and enhance their digital content strategies.

Even if elevate our content to “stories,” there’s another level above that: continuing narratives.

How do we connect content in such a way that we construct larger threads of narrative, separated by time and visits? How do we tie our stores together in such a way that users understand one or more overarching frameworks and purposes to it?

Building on thoughts an experiences from trying to tag every episode of the “Friends” TV show, Deane will discuss thoughts, ideas, and possibilities to build master threads of content that speak to people over time.

This talk explores how we can help clients move beyond static websites— toward living, adaptive digital experiences that evolve in real time to meet audience needs.

Allison will discuss what this shift means and how AI makes it possible.

12:30 - 1.15 Lunch

1.15 - 2.00 Touring CoWork, networking in the lounge or on the outdoor patio

More details coming soon

Should your site search become a prompt, like ChatGPT? Should you embed a standalone AI assistant instead—or just sprinkle in AI features like smart ranking or summarization? These are the questions digital teams are wrestling with as user expectations evolve and AI tools multiply.

In this session, we’ll help you cut through the noise and make informed choices. You’ll learn:

• The trade-offs between AI chatbots, search prompts, and hybrid models

• When an AI assistant enhances user experience—and when it confuses it

• How to integrate AI features into traditional search without losing control

• What users actually expect today—and what frustrates them most

When content systems offer a terrible authoring experience, people avoid using them. That means they can't communicate effectively with their customers. The result is stale, hard-to-read content that doesn't align with an organization's goals. 

Improving the authoring experience requires intentional collaboration from all parties: customers, vendors, and consultants.

This session will explore how each stakeholder contributes to a successful authoring experience—and what happens when they don’t. 

3:30 - 3.45 Coffee and tea

Ever wonder why CMS pricing is so opaque?
Or why there isn't a universal standard for content modelling?
Or why do most vendors ignore authoring experience in favour of shiny new features? Or why RFPs rarely lead to the outcomes and expectations either side has?

Allow me to provide the benefit of over 20 years experience working all three sides - buying, consulting, and building to provide a therapy session to help everyone work to a shared understanding of why things are the way they are.

AI agents are transforming how organizations create, manage, and deliver content.

In this session, Martin will explore the concept of the Agentic CMS—where autonomous AI agents handle tasks like content generation, compliance, and governance.

You’ll see examples of agent-driven workflows, learn what makes this shift different from traditional automation, and discover how to prepare your content strategy for an agent-powered future.

Websites aren’t dead yet, but AI is changing the game on how user discover and visit them.

Where should we be directing our efforts to stay ahead of the game? Should we be building AI agents? MCP servers? Should we block LLMs from our valuable web content? Or should we optimize for LLMs instead of SEO

Let’s dig in together and map out our future together!

4.45 - 5.00 Coffee & networking

5.00 - 6.00 CMS Idol 2025

Help crown the next 2025 CMS Idol! In this fast-paced, entertaining competition, contestants will have 6 minutes to showcase their system and try to win your vote.

If you like short demos, pithy commentary, and expert analyses, then look no further. This is the session for you. You'll hear thoughts from an expert panel of judges, but it's up to you to decide the winner.

Contestants:

• Agility

• Contentstack

• Kentico

• Kontent.ai

• Pantheon

• Umbraco

6.30 - 10:00 Social event

Everyone is invited to join us for an informal dinner.

We’ll also announce the CMS Idol winner and even do a CMS Experts Quiz!

Venue: Azalea, 4306 Saint Denis St, Montreal (maps)

Wednesday, August 6

7:00 Morning Run

We met in front of the CoWork for a fun and memorable run to the top of Mont Royal.

Everyone is welcome and we will run in a nice and relaxed pace.

9:00 - 9:30 Breakfast and networking

9:30 - 10.00: Welcome to Day #2 by Janus Boye and Matt Garrepy

We’ll start with a few lightning talks to recap Day #1 and cover recent industry developments:

• Briana Sim on SimplicityCMS

• Mark Demeny on MACH Alliance Open Data Model initiative

• Meredith McEneaney on winning in this challenging market

Based on key insights from Day #1, we divide into working groups to tackle the big issues for 2025 and beyond, including:

• Building a business around CMS with Karla Santi

• Buyer beware: AI agents are coming. What does it mean? How to make it work? with Brian McKeiver

• Content modelling for structured content. What does it mean to you and can we standardize with Marc Salvatierra

• How AI + CX is driving CMS innovation with Andrew Kumar

• How is search changing? Expectations and opportunities with Bryant Shea

• Making content authoring better with Greg Dunlap and Lucy Greco

• Working with migrations - decisions you need to make like composable and much more with Richard Lock

Feel free to submit your suggestions for a working group

10:00 - 11.00: Working groups - join a key topic, contribute and help shape the future of the industry

11.00 - 11.20 Coffee & networking

11:20 - 12.15: Working groups continued - join a key topic, contribute and help shape the future of the industry

12:15 - 12.30: Brief presentations of progress, blockers, call for participation to move forward

and two more lightning talks:

• Conscia’s pivot to agentic commerce with Sana Remekie

• What’s new with WordPress and FAIR with Karim Marucchi

12.30 - 1.30 Lunch

1:30 - 2.15: Last round of progress in the working groups

A brief interactive wrap-up of the two days. Join us for key lessons learned, big questions for 2025 and what happens next.

2.45 - 3:00 Goodbyes and see you next year!

CMS Connect 26 will be held on August 4 - 5, 2026 once again at CoWork

PS: For those still in town, the conversation continues at Plan B around the corner from 4pm onwards