Let’s set the stage. You work for an agency that concepts, designs and develops websites and applications for clients, be they internal or external (for the purposes of this blog we will assume in-house agencies qualify to participate as well). Typically your agency scopes out digital work on a project or retainer basis. For comparison purposes, this blog is written from the perspective that you are extending a project-based bid for the application project.
The Old Model
The typical process looks something like this:
- Client sends potential agency partner a meeting request or an RFP - Agency schedules scoping meeting or begins scoping project based on RFP- Meeting Execution and / or RFP Proposal Submittal back to client- Pencil Sharpening / Revisions / Price Negotiations / Scope-Honing- Execution of Contract and Scheduling of Deliverables and Milestones- Check In #1 — Design- Check In #2 — Front End Development- Check In #3 — CMS Architecture and Utilization- (This could keep going…)- Client Approval- Application Launch
Design Kickoff
In my experience, the Strategist kicks off the project by writing a Creative Brief at the culmination of contracts and scoping sessions. This is presented to the creatives so that they can get cracking on creating comps for general ‘look and feel’ direction. Once a comp set has been selected by the client, the comps are fleshed out to include tertiary pages and notification emails to ensure the agency is still on the right track.
Front End Dev Kickoff
By this time, the developers know the general sitemap and wireframe architecture of the application they are building, and also have the comps in hand as a playboook to begin development. The front end developers at my old agency would start the HTML / CSS application to the static PSDs, resulting in a presentation for front end development to ensure hover states, rollovers, navigation and the like were as expected from the clients’ perspective.
Back End Dev Kickoff
At this point the front end can continue being massaged, but it’s back end time. Time to tie it all together, bringing the beautiful aesthetic designs and front end code together within an archaic and limiting box of an installed content management system. Once the CMS that’s been developed has legs, the keys are given to the clients to take a test drive for managing and publishing content. If all is well, the CMS is completed, and all your troubles and worries are now all related and connected within the same archaic and bulky CMS Box. The keys are given back to the client, the final invoice is delivered and they are now in the driver’s seat for everything from content updates to security and plugin updates and maintenance.
The New Model
While we can’t curtail the agency process to exclude future RFPs, painful clients or changing scopes, we can alleviate heartache when it comes to back end development, CMS installation, CMS development, CMS bending and CMS maintenance.
Cosmic JS offers an intuitive API that can deliver content to any website or application. This gives you the freedom to build your application using any programming language and allows for easier scaling within your development team. Your content is accessed through the JSON API and can be made available everywhere. Say good bye to development time lost in CMS installation, configuration and maintenance. The benefit is in development hours saved and sanity. No installation. No configuration. Just content and code. Your content is hosted in Cosmic JS and your code is pushed from your GitHub repo to the Cosmic app server. Read more about The Cosmic Stack.
Some developers using the Cosmic Stack have reported a 75% reduction in dev time spent and an overall faster, less complicated and more streamlined development process.
Developer tools and features are offered as valuable time-savers during the development process. It’s easier than ever to manage your project from the first line of code, to content population, to launch day.
The exact same web page design, content and app aesthetics are now:
- Portable — Read More- Scalable — Read More- Blazing Fast — Read More- Secure — Read More- Available via API endpoint for localization, customization and ease of use — Read More
It’s as easy as signing up, creating a new bucket, installing or building a new web application(s), edit objects and deploy! I get my confirmation email to access my web application and also see my options for bucket upgrades like custom domains, one-click SSL, webhooks and localization.
Cosmic JS is an API-first cloud-based content management platform that makes it easy to manage applications and content. If you have questions about the Cosmic JS API, please reach out to the founders on Twitter or Slack.
Carson Gibbons is the Co-Founder & CMO of Cosmic JS, an API-first Cloud-based Content Management Platform that decouples content from code, allowing devs to build slick apps and websites in any programming language they want.