Partners

Jambit x Livingdocs: Collaborating to Push the Boundaries of Future-Proof Innovation and AI Solutions for Newsrooms

Sarah Robins

We at Livingdocs know that teamwork makes the dream work. This is why we pride ourselves on having a strong partner network with which we can combine forces to offer our customers the best possible solution for their news publishing needs.

With its modern tech stack Livingdocs not only offers our customers fast developments but also flexible solutions. In close cooperation with Livingdocs, we deliver needs-oriented configurations, enable innovative products, as well as rapid experiments, and ensure seamless integration with existing third-party systems. This partnership is inspiring and is characterised by deep mutual trust and shared desire to innovate.

Robert Kowalski, Head of Media, jambit GmbH

One such partner is jambit, a German service software company, that works with customers across different industries, from media to telecommunications to automobiles. Our successful partnership is built on our mutual values and shared vision: to simplify and facilitate newsroom workflows and make editors’ jobs easier. We believe the tech supporting editorial teams should allow them to focus on the content they are creating – rather than navigating an overcomplicated systems structure – with user-friendly UIs and the elimination of redundancies and unnecessary clicks. Our cooperation is driven by team spirit and a mutual desire to innovate wisely and has been strengthened through jambit’s experience working with Livingdocs.

The continued close collaboration between Livingdocs and jambit brings added value through the creation of new offerings for news publishers, including the use of GenAI in editorial departments for greater workflow efficiency: jambit proposes ideas that can automate repetitive tasks in the daily work of editors, and in order to prove these ideas are feasible and impactful, jambit integrates these features and lets the editors test them.

In short, jambit prototypes and evaluates new features, like GenAI, that inform the development of the core of the Livingdocs product, once their usefulness has been proven, thereby allowing our customers to benefit from the most innovative technology available. This open-minded attitude and willingness to experiment based on direct feedback allows customers to get the best of Livingdocs and maximise the potential for innovation both now and as technology continues to develop.

  1. Jambit offers the following additional GenAI-driven features to Livingdocs customers based on direct customer feedback:

    SEO-driven titles, descriptions and keywords

  2. Subheading suggestions

  3. Article recommendations

  4. Target group-orientated wording

  5. Article summary suggestions

  6. Image recommendations, based on content of article content

  7. Image caption suggestions

  8. Quiz recommendations, bases on article content

  9. Ask-the-chatbot

How It Started

Our first shared project with jambit dates back to 2017, for the launch of Süddeutsche Zeitung’s SZ Magazin which was based on the Livingdocs CMS. Before becoming a Managed Service Provider (MSP), Livingdocs worked with trusted partners to set up Livingdocs in customers' tech stacks; in this Süddeutsche Zeitung project, it was for the implementation where jambit stepped in. jambit was responsible for the setup of Livingdocs in Süddeutsche Zeitung's data centre infrastructure, as well as supporting their in-house development team and implementing load tests.

Since then, jambit has collaborated with Livingdocs for three major customers, and is assisting with two more customers during their ongoing projects. jambit’s expertise in the Livingdocs product and our customers' architectures allows for a seamless transition of both the IT and the editorial users to their new and improved system.

Indeed, a major aspect of introducing a new CMS in a news publishing house is the migration itself from the legacy system to the new one. jambit has extensive experience covering a variety of legacy products; it is familiar with the pitfalls of these systems and therefore knows how to integrate them with the new solution, ensuring a smooth, comprehensive transition to the Livingdocs CMS.

Use Cases: Süddeutsche Zeitung

When it comes to Munich’s news publishing powerhouse Süddeutsche Zeitung, our work with jambit did not stop with the SZ Magazin. When Süddeutsche Zeitung wanted to switch from their old monolithic CMS to Livingdocs, jambit provided their services starting in the planning phase and covering the entire implementation. This enabled a seamless transition which was bolstered by the trust jambit had established with Süddeutsche Zeitung by virtue of their long-standing partnership.

The jambit x Livingdocs partnership has been ultimately successful in planning and executing the migration from the legacy system to Livingdocs, and ensuring a pleasant and easy transition for Süddeutsche Zeitung’s editors thanks to keen configuration.

Moreover, Livingdocs and jambit have enabled Süddeutsche Zeitung’s editorial team to establish more efficient workflows. In a subsequent step, jambit has integrated Desk-Net as a planning tool with Livingdocs and the other CMS systems at Süddeutsche Zeitung, so that the planning integrates itself with content creation and automates editorial workflows, thereby reducing the burdens of workflow routines on editors significantly.

Check out the video below to see the Desk-Net integration enabling semi-automation for Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Digitale Ausgabe.

Productive and inspiring, the Livingdocs x jambit collaboration at Süddeutsche Zeitung — along with the support of the innovative and proficient editorial management office of Süddeutsche Zeitung — has allowed editors to take advantage of new solutions to meet the challenges of their major transitions.

Use Cases: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger

jambit first supported Livingdocs with historically innovative customer Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger by integrating its automatic print workflow to Livingdocs as the primary media-neutral production platform for their distribution channels. This media neutral approach was especially appropriate as Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger is staunchly progressive and uses a combination of tools to automate their print workflow.

Later jambit integrated planning tool Desk-Net with Livingdocs, allowing for a seamless editorial workflow from planning to content creation by starting the automation at the beginning of the value chain. The close cooperation between Livingdocs, jambit and Desk-Net, as well as the easy to handle interfaces and data structures afforded by our system, contributed greatly to the project success.

Strengthening the jambit x Livingdocs partnership in person

Use Cases: Handelsblatt

One of our more recent joint projects is with Dusseldorf-based Handelsblatt, which began towards the end of 2022. The major goal of the project was to implement a digital-first strategy for Handelsblatt’s editorial team; HMG articulated that the ease of use for the production of digital content was essential. To note, the technical management had decided to go for a co-hosted cloud approach, in order to have direct technical access.

In a second, near-simultaneous project, Handelsblatt had to migrate their new frontend to the Livingdocs CMS. The following go-live was smooth and had no impact on the website, requiring only a few adjustments to the frontend. This speed and ease of introduction development – thanks to the technical independence afforded by the headless Livingdocs CMS – is a key advantage.

Additionally, as in other projects, jambit integrated Desk-Net with Livingdocs for a seamless workflow connecting planning and content creation. To note, this collaboration between Handelsblatt and jambit was built on trust, which was a key factor in the success of this project.

jambit x Livingdocs collaboration in action at Handelsblatt

Further, Handlesblatt was particularly impressed by the user-friendly WYSIWYG user interface and the options for configuration. This is key for the reader-targeted needs of the product team.

Currently, jambit and Livingdocs are working together to offer new features to make Handelsblatt’s editors’ lives easier. Thanks to Livingdocs’s simple-to-use interfaces, data structures and configuration options, jambit can easily integrate new potential features so they can be tested.

See how Handelsblatt significantly reduced clicks when publishing content since going live with Livingdocs.

Looking into the Future

As mentioned above, AI is one of the burning topics that Livingdocs and jambit are addressing together. Looking ahead, we want to offer AI-powered tech that truly works for our customers through our collaborations. For example, jambit has been working on an AI prototype for Livingdocs, that will increase the efficiency in the daily work of the editorial teams. This initiative was customer-specified, and the prototype would assist their newsrooms by automatically creating and suggesting SEO-driven titles, descriptions and keywords, while still allowing for an individual customization by the editors i.e. giving editors the ultimate responsibility. jambit is now evaluating the application with the editors, and will extend the AI feature sets, if necessary.

Thanks to our fruitful, trust-based partnership, jambit and Livingdocs look forward to addressing the challenges that arise in the ever-evolving industry of news publishing – together.