John Williams: Going Headless and MACH Architecture – Episode 187

Content Strategy Insights

John Williams The rise of omnichannel content strategy and the emergence of new technical capabilities like cloud computing, API-delivered microservices, and headless software platforms have created entire new content ecosystems. John Williams explores these new systems and modern content and experience architectures on his "Going Headless with John" YouTube channel and in his work as CTO at Amplience, a headless-CMS company. We talked about: his YouTube channel, Going Headless with John, and his role at Amplience, a headless CMS company the rationale behind the MACH alliance and the elements of the acronym Microservices API first Cloud native Headless the ability to scale and to implement version control that a multi-tenant architecture permits how decoupled architectures let companies choose "best of breed" software solutions his take on the differences between the concepts of "headless," "MACH architecture," and "composability" how to help content authors work in (non-WYSIWYG) decoupled systems the importance of understanding the "why" in decoupled content authoring environments the benefits of adopting an iterative approach to implementing composable architectures John's bio John Williams is a highly experienced and innovative CTO with over 25 years of experience in the tech industry. He is passionate about leveraging technology to drive growth and innovation. His expertise lies in creating and executing technology strategies that deliver transformative results for businesses, and he has a proven track record of building high-performing teams that thrive in fast-paced and rapidly changing environments. Connect with John online LinkedIn Going Headless with John YouTube channel Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/IFoI1fh8420 Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 187. The rise of omnichannel content strategy and composable commerce - along with the emergence of new tech practices like microservices and headless software platforms - has given rise to new content systems architectures. It's also inspired many new conversations around concepts like composability and decoupled-ness. John Williams explores these topics on his "Going Headless with John" YouTube channel and in his work as the CTO at a headless CMS company. Interview transcript Larry: Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number 187 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to welcome to the show, John Williams. John is the CTO at Amplience, a commerce-oriented, headless CMS. He's also the host of Going Headless with John, a YouTube channel that I really enjoy. So welcome John. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days. John: Yeah. Well, we're actually working on... In Amplience we're working on a whole bunch of things around headless. We're doing a whole new release around our content form. We are doing a hell of a lot around AI and how we incorporate that into the MACH world, which is what we're talking about today, and how we keep consistent with our technology practices around MACH and headless, as well as incorporating new technology. John: So we're all pretty busy at the minute. We've got a really big release coming up, out in June at Shoptalk. For anyone who's going there, coming over and see me have a chat at the booth, we'll show you some really cool things. Larry: Cool. Yeah, and you've just hit on the... We're all infinitely busy these days trying to keep up with, not with just AI. But there's also the fundamental architectural stuff that we're dealing with in this new composable, MACH-ey, headless world. Larry: I guess one of the things I like to do in this podcast, it's all about democratizing practice and principles and what's going on out in the world. And one of the things I like about your YouTube channel is you're really good at ...