Curated for content, computing, data, information, and digital experience professionals

Category: Content management & strategy (Page 148 of 479)

This category includes editorial and news blog posts related to content management and content strategy. For older, long form reports, papers, and research on these topics see our Resources page.

Content management is a broad topic that refers to the management of unstructured or semi-structured content as a standalone system or a component of another system. Varieties of content management systems (CMS) include: web content management (WCM), enterprise content management (ECM), component content management (CCM), and digital asset management (DAM) systems. Content management systems are also now widely marketed as Digital Experience Management (DEM or DXM, DXP), and Customer Experience Management (CEM or CXM) systems or platforms, and may include additional marketing technology functions.

Content strategy topics include information architecture, content and information models, content globalization, and localization.

For some historical perspective see:

https://gilbane.com/gilbane-report-vol-8-num-8-what-is-content-management/

In The End, it’s Mostly About Content.

As the world of technology makes literally breathtaking strides, the world of automation finds itself increasingly focused on the technology. Indeed, in many areas of popular culture, the technology becomes an end in itself, conferring the patina of success on projects that are techno-heavy, never mind that they may not meet their objectives particularly well. This despite the pronoucements of virtually every management authority since the 60’s that technology and automation are different and the latter is the most important to success of the organization.

Nowhere is the tendency to focus on technology itself, to the detriment of meeting functional goals, more pronounced than in the general area referred to as “conent management” or CM, and in no part of CM has this tendency more clouded the picture than in the relationship of its semantic components; “Content” and “Management.” In today’s CM world, the focus on Management means that software and technology takes center stage with an implicit assumption that if one just adheres to the proper technological dictums and acquires the most powerful CM software, the effort will be successful. When efforts so constructed fail to meet their objectives, the further implicit assumption is that the technology… or the technology selection… or the technology governance… or the technology infrastructure has failed. In many cases while some of these may be true, they are not the reason for the failure.

Often, the cause of failure (or marginal performance) is the other side of the CM terminology; the content being created, managed and delivered.  Look closely at many automation environments and you will see a high-performance management and delivery environment being fed by virtually uncontrolled content raw material. If “you are what you eat”, so too is a content management and information delivery environment. In fact, failure at the delivery end is more often than not a failure to develop usable content instead of a failure of management and delivery technology. So why, with all the tools at our command, do we not address the content creation portions of our information life cycles?

I don’t claim to know all the answers, but have formed some impressions over the years:

FIRST: Content creation and its unwashed masses of authors,  providers and editors has traditionally been viewed as outside the confines of automation planning and development; indeed often as a detriment to automation rather than an integral part of the overall process. With that mentality, the system developers often stay completely away from content creation.

SECOND:  The world of software products and vendors, especially those in the management and delivery space, would rather spend more money on their systems in an attempt to make them resistant to the vagaries of uncontrolled content, of course at higher fees for their products. The world of content creation, if it can be called that, is still controlled by the folks in Renton, to their own corporate and marketing ends.

THIRD:  In most automation projects involving content, the primary resource is the IT group that, while highly capable in many cases, does not understand the world of content over which it does not itself have control. The result is usually a focus on the IT itself while the content creation groups in the organization find themselves outside with their noses pressed against the glass… until they are called in to be told what will be expected of them. The resulting fight often virtually dooms the project as it had originally need conceived.

So what should we do differently?

While every project is unique, here are some thoughts that might help:

FIRST: Understand that technology cannot fully make up for the absence of content designed and structured to meet the functional needs on the table.  Indeed, if it came to a choice between good content and high-performance management resources, content can be delivered with a surprisingly low level of technology while no amount of technology can make up for AWOL content.

SECOND: Accept the premise that well-designed content, fully capable of supporting the functional objectives of the project, should be the first order of business in any major project. With this, acknowledge that the content creators, while they may be less controlled and sometimes not easy to work with, are a critical component in the success of any project based on their output. In many content creation environments, negotiation between what would work best and what can be provided will result in a set of compromises that gets the best possible content within the constraints in place. That done, technology can be applied to optimize the life cycle flow of the content. Note that in this construction, the technology is a secondary factor, supporting but not defining the strategic direction of the project.

THIRD: Despite what you may hear from the software industry and its sales force, understand that in the term “content management”, content is the most important component and just buying more technology will not make up for its lack. From this understanding, you will be able to create a balance that accords both content and technology their rightfully important places in the overall effort.

Regards, Barry

Webinar: Build a WCM Business Case that Rocks

April 14, 2:00 pm ET

Need a new WCMS, but have to make the business case first? This is the webinar for you.

Technology investments are undergoing intense scrutiny in today’s uncertain economic times – even when the proposed solution supports mission critical strategies for online presence, prospect engagement, customer satisfaction, and service delivery. How do you build an effective business case for web content management that stands out from the others, gets executive approval, and secures funding?

Tony White, Gilbane’s Lead Analyst for WCM, has the answers. With over 15 years of experience, Tony has developed and presented dozens of WCM business cases across multiple industry verticals – most of which have lead to the successful acquisition and implementation of web content management systems. Using real world examples, Tony will share the details of four “secrets” that win WCM approval and funding:

  1. Leveraging WCM to increase revenue
  2. How WCM decreases operational costs
  3. Best practices for generating ROI metrics
  4. Beyond ROI: the silver bullet that always works

This web event provides valuable insight for any organization that is seeking to implement a new WCMS, but must first make a rock-solid business case. Register today. Sponsored by SDL Tridion.

Updated April 9: Download the new Gilbane white paper.

Content Management Vendors on Twitter

So I have spent enough time on Twitter to conclude that it is useful, indeed very useful, for keeping up with news and trends in technology. Just like the blogosphere, Twitter has its “A list” folks like Guy Kawasaki and many hundreds of interesting people with smaller followings. But I have also found it to be the most useful means I have for following news feeds—from Scientific American (@sciam in Twitter) to Paid Content (@paidcontent) to New England Sports Network (@NESNcom).

Not surprisingly, content management vendors are getting involved as well, and I welcome this. I put out a call ages ago for vendors to alert me to RSS feeds of their press releases, finding them much more useful than emailed press releases in long form. (Few did.) But now I want these things via Twitter. I love Twitter search, and I have begun using TweetDeck to filter and group things. I feel like I can keep much better track of things, read what I want to in long form, and share what I think is especially interesting.

What I would like to see next is an easy way to share groups of Twitter feeds, and even collaborate on them. I have been collecting a list of CMS vendors on Twitter, and offer the start of that list here. Anyone have thoughts about how we could create a useful master list? To start with, I would love to add categories to this—some are WCM vendors, others more niche, some are open source, and so on.

Thoughts?

Twitter User Name Twitter URL Company  
 
acquia http://twitter.com/acquia Acquia  
AlfrescoCMS http://twitter.com/AlfrescoCMS Alfresco CMS  
attivio http://twitter.com/attivio Attivio  
boxdotnet http://twitter.com/boxdotnet Box  
brightcove http://twitter.com/brightcove Brightcove  
coremedia_news http://twitter.com/coremedia_news Core Media  
CrownPeakCMS http://twitter.com/CrownPeakCMS CrownPeak  
daysoftware http://twitter.com/daysoftware Day Software  
Dirxion http://twitter.com/Dirxion Dirxion  
DotNetNuke http://twitter.com/dotnetnuke DotNetNuke  
Drupal http://twitter.com/Drupal Drupal Org  
elcomtechnology http://twitter.com/elcomtechnology elcom Technology  
ektrondave   Ektron  
emccorp http://twitter.com/emccorp EMC Corp.  
EMCsoftware http://twitter.com/EMCsoftware EMC Software  
episerver http://twitter.com/episerver EpiServer  
escenic http://twitter.com/escenic escenic  
EE http://twitter.com/EE ExpressionEngine  
gentics http://twitter.com/gentics Gentics  
google http://twitter.com/google Google  
hpnews http://twitter.com/hpnews HP News  
HP_IPG http://twitter.com/HP_IPG HP’s Imaging and Printers Group  
HylandSoftware http://twitter.com/HylandSoftware Hyland Software  
IBM_ECM http://twitter.com/IBM_ECM IBM ECM  
ibmevents http://twitter.com/ibmevents IBM Events  
Intelledox http://twitter.com/Intelledox Intelledox  
Interwoven_Inc http://twitter.com/Interwoven_Inc Interwoven/Autonomy  
ipublishcentral http://twitter.com/ipublishcentral IPublishCentral  
IronMountainInc http://twitter.com/IronMountainInc Iron Mountain  
Jadu http://twitter.com/jaducms Jadu  
Jahia http://twitter.com/Jahia Jahia  
joomla http://twitter.com/joomla Joomla Org  
Lionbridge http://twitter.com/Lionbridge Lionbridge  
Lotusphere http://twitter.com/Lotusphere Lotusphere  
magnolia_cms http://twitter.com/magnolia_cms Magnolia CMS  
SharePoint http://twitter.com/SharePoint Microsoft Sharepoint  
msoffice_us http://twitter.com/msoffice_us MS Office US  
MSDN_Office http://twitter.com/MSDN_Office MSDN Office News  
NsteinTech http://twitter.com/NsteinTech Nstein  
Omtool http://twitter.com/Omtool Omtool  
openedit http://twitter.com/openedit OpenEdit DAM  
OpenText http://twitter.com/OpenText OpenText  
Oracle http://twitter.com/Oracle Oracle  
papayaCMS http://twitter.com/papayaCMS papaya CMS  
plone http://twitter.com/plone Plone Org  
radiantcmsntcms https://twitter.com/radiantcms Radiant CMS  
ScriptoriumTech   Scriptorium  
sdltridion http://twitter.com/sdltridion SDL Tridion  
squizuk http://twitter.com/squizuk Squiz.NET  
streamserve http://twitter.com/streamserve StreamServe  
tizra http://twitter.com/tizra Tizra  
TYPO3_INFORMER http://twitter.com/TYPO3_INFORMER
Typo 3  
vignettecorp http://twitter.com/vignettecorp Vignette  
webworks_com http://twitter.com/webworks_com WebWorks  
wordpress http://twitter.com/wordpress WordPress  
XeroxCorp http://twitter.com/XeroxCorp Xerox  
XMPie http://twitter.com/XMPie XMPie  
       

 

Day Unveils Integrated Social Collaboration and Digital Asset Management Applications

Day Software (SWX:DAYN) (OTCQX:DYIHY) announced the general availability of its new Communiqué (CQ) 5.2 suite. CQ 5.2 adds new Social Collaboration (SoCo) and Digital Asset Management (DAM) applications that are seamlessly coupled with Day’s Web Content Management (WCM) software. The applications leverage Day’s unified Enterprise Content Management (ECM) content infrastructure platform, CRX. Day Software now enables organizations to advance their social media marketing strategies with media-enriched, interactive online communities powered by CQ 5.2. Day Software’s CQ 5.2 delivers interactive new tools for marketers that both enhance online collaboration and promote the brand. CQ 5.2 now includes drag-and-drop components for interactive marketers to enable user-self registration, profile management, commenting, ratings, tagging, discussions, and blogging to any Web page or Web site while maintaining control with advanced CRX-powered moderation, access control, audit trails and more. CQ 5.2 also provides out-of-the-box components for building wiki pages, enabling RSS feeds, sharing content, applications and social profile information with external social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. Day Software’s CQ 5.2 DAM provides out-of-the-box lifecycle management services for digital assets, including ingestion, metadata extraction and generation, transformation and rendition management, and online or offline publishing. CQ 5.2 is currently available from Day Software. http://www.day.com

Xerox DocuShare Announces Two New ECM Offerings

Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) announced two new DocuShare enterprise content management (ECM) offerings. Xerox’s DocuShare Virtual Filing System reduces the need for physical filing cabinets and gives workers immediate access to information. The system includes a document storage assessment, scanning technology, software, set up and user training. Once paper archives are uploaded into the virtual filing system’s drawers, documents can be searched by name, category and type. Xerox also unveiled DocuShare 6.5, an upgrade to its existing version. DocuShare 6.5 can store more than 50 million documents, perform search queries within seconds and supports intake of up to one million imaged documents per day. DocuShare 6.5 is also the software in the Virtual Filing System package. DocuShare Virtual Filing System will be sold in North America through Xerox direct sales starting in June. Select, certified partners will begin to sell the package in July. DocuShare 6.5 is currently available on Windows platforms through Xerox direct sales and resellers in North America. It will be available worldwide and on other platforms starting in June. Customers on a maintenance contract will receive an upgrade to DocuShare 6.5 free of charge. http://docushare.xerox.com

Vignette Announces Vignette Content Management 7.6

Vignette Corporation (NASDAQ: VIGN) announced two additions to its Web content management solution, a core component of the Vignette Web Experience Platform. Vignette Content Management 7.6 gives companies the ability to manage and deliver dynamic content enterprise-wide while offering simplified deployment, configuration and administration. Vignette Content Management 7.6 includes: enhanced business agility with additional flexibility to help companies quickly adjust content templates without relying on IT, and an environment that is easier and less costly to maintain due to reduced administration complexity for static content and simplifications to the publishing process. The Vignette Transfer Tool focuses on ease of administration for technical teams. Vignette will release additional components of its Web Content Management solutions in the coming months, including greater SharePoint interaction, the ability to publish content on third party portals and enhancements to the company’s Social Media Solutions. http://www.vignette.com

 

Management of Content Authored in Enterprise Social Software

Suw Charman-Anderson posted a thoughtful piece with the title Businesses will live to regret their social media ignorance today.  Her main point is that organizations that do not deploy enterprise social software behind the firewall will lose control of information as it spreads through public social media.  This is an oft-heard refrain these days in the blogsphere.

Please don’t misunderstand, I agree with Suw.  If businesses want to retain some control over their information, they should provide secure, enterprise-ready versions of the specific types of collaboration and communication tools that employees want to use.  For example, if the risk of information leakage via Twitter is too high, the organization should deploy an enterprise microblogging application on its own servers (or subscribe to a SaaS offering hosted by a trusted vendor.)

What is especially valuable and somewhat novel in Suw’s post is her recognition of the content management issues surrounding the use of public social media to share corporate information.  She writes,

“…you need to make sure you know how communications using these tools are going to be logged, archived, and made searchable. Mostly, archiving (or logging) is built in, so it shouldn’t be that difficult. Cross-archive search might be a little bit more interesting, but it’s worth your while because more time is wasted in re-finding information than in finding it in the first place.”

Much of the dialog around enterprise social software has rightly been on connecting people to other people and the information and knowledge they possess.  The notion of using software to connect people to unstructured information hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention in the Enterprise 2.0 discussion.  Perhaps content management is a dull topic in comparison to connecting people, but enterprise social software is essentially a content authoring tool and it has fueled growth in the amount of content created within an organization.

Traditionally, unstructured information has been housed in what most would call a ‘document’, but it also may be contained in a message authored in a microblogging, wiki, or instant messaging application.  Those messages must be stored, indexed, and searchable so that users can find valuable information after it has initially been documented and shared by the author.  The same content management principles that we’ve applied to corporate email must also be used to ensure the findability of information generated in and shared via enterprise social software.

What is your view on this issue?  Do you have horror stories or best practices to share?  If so, please do by adding a comment below.

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