Category: Content management & strategy (Page 176 of 485)

Over the next few months, I will post a series of 6-8 best practices for ensuring a high degree of usability in WCM implementations. This first entry in the series focuses on the ability for users to author content in the context of actual web pages.
While many vendors claim to support in-context editing, there is a lot of variation in how this feature is presented to users. In some cases, content authors fill in HTML forms and then click a preview button, which renders a virtualized copy of the web page. In other cases, authors double click on a staged version of a web page, which launches a WYSIWYG editor. Upon saving content in this editor, the author refreshes the web page and sees the updates. In the best cases, authors can simply edit content directly on web pages without having to fill in separate web forms or to launch an external editor. Content on web pages can be edited just as though it were in MS Word.
These differences may at first seem trivial, but it quickly becomes apparent to those who spend much time authoring content or creating web pages that eliminating unnecessary steps and reducing the number of applications in these highly iterative processes produces dramatic time savings throughout the organization. For example, if an enterprise has 25 content authors who each maintain 10 web pages daily, and each page update takes just 10 extra minutes because of redundancies, the time wasted over one year totals more than 10,000 hours. This represents about $500,000 of unnecessary labor costs.
Recommendation to enterprises: Be sure to analyze carefully during vendor demonstrations exactly how content can be edited directly from a web page. The most highly usable WCM systems will allow you to treat the web page like word processor.

Attention, buyers and users of content and globalization management solutions! Wondering about the right integration approach for your company?
The globalization track at Gilbane Boston 2007 includes a session entitled “Integrating Content and Translation Processes: Managing Global Customer Experience.” The panel brings together two content management vendors, two providers of translation technology and services, and one middleware company that connects multiple CM and GM systems. Our goal is to explore the different options that you have when integrating the two technologies to create solutions supporting the global content life cycle.
In the session description, we promise to use “real world scenarios” to drive the panel. We’re issuing an invitation to our readers to submit suggestions for the scenarios that we’ll use for discussion. Do you have CM and GM practices that need to be streamlined? Are you planning to acquire and deploy CM/GM in the future, but not sure how to best fit the technologies together? Need fresh ideas for outmoded processes? Then think about proposing a scenario for the integration session at Gilbane Boston.
We’ll arrange a call with you to discuss your scenario and its context. If your scenario is chosen for use in the session, you’ll help us write up a description that we’ll share with the panel participants prior to the conference. Whether we choose your scenario or not, you’ll have the benefit of a little free advice from the Gilbane Group in the course of discussing your situation, constraints, requirements, etc. Please note that you need not register for Gilbane Boston in order to submit a scenario for possible use in the session. But if you do plan on attending the conference, you’ll have the option of presenting your own scenario to the panel.
Send scenarios or questions about the session to me or to my colleague Leonor. We’d welcome the chance to speak with you about this unique opportunity.

Web content management takes center stage at the CM Pros Fall Summit, November 26 at the Westin Copley in Boston. The keynote speaker is Salim Ismail, who heads up the Brickhouse at Yahoo, a semi-autonomous unit charged with creating cool new things for Yahoo channels. As CM Pros president, I’ll moderate a discussion on new and improved WCM technologies and how they impact content management professionals. Topics on the one-day program include choosing a WCM solution, syndicating web content, wiki/WCM convergence, “2.0” and what it really means for businesses and users, social media optimization, migrating legacy content, WCM and rich media, and more. See the program and list of presenters on the event website.

Early-bird registration fee is $295 for members, $395 for non-members through September 30. Fee thereafter is $395 and $495, respectively. Continental breakfast, lunch and post-program reception included.

CM Pros sincerely thanks its event sponsors: Astoria Software, CrownPeak, Duo Consulting, FatWire, NetReach, and Terminal 4.
Don’t delay. Sign up and get $100 discounts today!

Comparing relational vs. object-oriented database use in content management is highly subjective, and can’t be generalized. That would be like saying that the movie is always better than the book it is based on. Take the Harry Potter series. While the books have been phenomenally successful, the movies are doing equally well at the box office.

There’s not a one-size fits all approach for technology either. Comparing relational and object-oriented databases needs to be done from several perspectives – notably business rationale for the end user as well as technological advantage – not just one.

On the business end, documentation is mission critical, and must be available 24×7. Relational databases like Oracle support application clustering and high availability out of the box. Customers can count on Oracle always being available, and in a global working environment, everyone can get their job done.

Many businesses need to migrate from some form of binary documentation to XML, but it doesn’t happen instantly. Using a relational database, these businesses can store their binary documentation and take full advantage of a CMS while they undertake the process of converting to XML. A relational database can also act as a single repository that stores both XML and binary content, eliminating the need for a separate file system and creates a more homogenous environment for IT.

When business demands and technology realities meet, an argument can be made that a mission critical database application like Oracle requires an amount of care and feeding to be properly maintained. There is, however, also a misunderstanding that with an XML database, an end user can simply let it run and everything is fine.

In reality, many companies like to have control over their “family jewels,” and may want the option of feeding other applications that have canned integrations to relational databases. XQuery may be great, but businesses need to search for content that can be in many forms, XML, PDF, Word, etc. Using a relational database and other technologies, it is possible to support a very robust search mechanism across over 295 different formats.

In both cases, scalability is always a concern. The user must be able to scale and manage both vertically (larger machines) and horizontally (additional machines) while maintaining the integrity of the data and 24×7 access to the system.
Relational databases provide out-of-the-box horizontal scalability, as well as the ability to acutely control how system resources are used. This is crucial in serious business applications. Relational databases can stuff entire areas of XML into a single row (such as a … with hundreds of sub tags). This can be a real advantage, especially if is the users’ only needs are to work with and repurpose that section.

In the native XML database model, the users would end up with hundreds of rows in their database because each tag is stored separately. Even if all the users wanted to do is repurpose a section, they would need to handle every single row.

The proof lies in customer deployments. Many companies have replaced object oriented databases in large part because they didn’t scale. Consequently they’ve been able to grow into very large solutions using a relational database. In fact, one global customer expects to manage a terabyte of data in their (Contenta) CMS by year’s end. Now that’s scalable.

Just as there are many business and technology needs, there are many viable alternatives, including relational and object-oriented databases. To dismiss an entire technology because of one company’s recent acquisition is a blatant sales pitch at best, and technological ignorance at its worst.