Comments on Managing the Complexity of Content Management

Richard Sheffield — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:05:25 GMT

Another interesting point of complexity is choosing to manage your site’s structure in the CMS as well as the content. In our system we maintain all page hierarchies and subnavigation structures as part of the content we create. This forces everything to be inside the CMS or it cannot be linked to without building some kind of placeholder page. When building out a site redesign, having to create and re-create the site’s structure (in an environment that is very fluid) while implementing a new CMS, while also writing and developing content is another sure way to missed deadlines.

Chris Baum — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 04:14:09 GMT

Hi Mark,

I know what you mean, so I’ve added your comment as an idea for a story.

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/idea/view/14798

You’re welcome to write it up, if you like, or you can see if anyone else would like to do so.

Cheers,
Chris

Mark DiSciullo — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:39:10 GMT

I’m quite surprised at the lack of information out on the web to inform a decision NOT to use CMS. What if all of the sites my organization manages are are all required to be very unique in order to allow them to remain competitive in each of their brand spaces? What if my current team has efficient and savvy interactive designers and developers that can meet the unique needs of each of our marketing team clients? What if content is only occasionally updated after the initial launch and rarely updated during its lifecycle? What if content is typically created from scratch and rarely requires pulling from a shared central repository? What if the current workflow requires interaction with other organizations that have their own workflow management tools that they do want to give up? Sounds like I don’t need a CMS system. But a CMS vendor will try to convince you otherwise. CMS is not always the solution. No one seems to talk about this. Optimized processes, clear communication plans, design and content styleguides, involvement of legal and compliance teams (content approvers) early in your project as a partner in the creative process are all sound alternatives for instituting a complex CMS system into a very dynamic process.

Ben Tremblay — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 04:56:56 GMT

Heads Up: alas, I found ” Building a Metadata-Based Website” to be 404.

p.s. your 10 points … dang that’s good. I’d love to spend a weekend just beating up on them and then putting the pieces back together. Really, that’s a fine set you’ve forged. (I mean forged as in black-smith, not forged as in fake.)

Stuart Guest-Smith — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:12:58 GMT

To often organisations ponder the word “CMS”, with very little understanding of the complexity and severity of their decision. Do we define a CMS as an “Enterprise” solution, or should we remember that web culture can be described as iterative. We have derived a new toolset for the deployment of a CMS, complex systems of solving organisational problems – how often has this been successful.

Strategic importance is valuable in educating and technology provides a framework. If you uncouple these elements you will identify a focus that is generally missed “people/change management”. CMS implementations are often focused at a business technology solution, with a misunderstanding of organisational behaviour. Acceptance is a term for “willingness to believe” or “positive response to application”. This behaviour can be reflected as “tolerance” to change. Content Management defines a new investment into the cultural change of corporate knowledge. This impact is wide, and breadth deep. To what level can this be tolerated within an organisation, this is the measure of acceptance. This willingness to regard the success of “acceptance” a key indicator, breaths new life into CMS implementations. Successful CMS implementations have found the balance between process, people and technology.

To follow up, I with provide some behavioural solutions implemented by many CMS implementations I have been involved with.

Mike Chrysler — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:11:49 GMT

The second word in CMS
is the most important, Management.

Organizing what you are going to build
cuts a great deal of strife out of the project.

Educating your team as to techniques
is also essential to getting the most out
of them when working in the environment.

Choosing a cms that is right for your long
term goals is essential.

OO cms have the most to offer as far as
growth they are also easier to organize.

When choosing a cms. Start with what types
of content you want to use it for.
Organize that into a structure of mod’s
that works with you. Make sure you have
a search engine with the cms.

Then you will be better able to construct
a portal that works now and in the future.

For me the choice was simple
http://xoops.org
Only install the mod’s you need.
Customize navigation.

Frets

bernie bowker — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:50 GMT

To print please

Michael Heraghty — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:50 GMT

For regular updating of small sites (e.g. for SMEs), publishing tools originally designed for weblogs—such as Movable Type—are becoming more and more popular.

MT is very user-friendly, highly cusomizable, and the commercial licence is only $150.

Scott Abel — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:10:51 GMT

One of the biggest overlooked problems is a lack of strategy. For information on content management strategy, see The Rockley Group’s Unified Content Strategy documented in “Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy” (New Riders Publishing). Additional information can be found on the companion web site to the book—www.managingenterprisecontent.com. A free downloadable chapter is also available there entitled “Fundamental Concepts of Reuse”. Do yourself a favor, start with a strategy. You’ll be far more likely to suceed!