By Barry Schaeffer
As the Internet moves from presentation medium to dynamic
content provider, content issues are moving to the forefront of many IT
managers’ thinking.
Among the most difficult of these issues is what has been
long referred to as “content management” or CM, the rock on which many an IT
budget or project schedule has foundered.
To escape a similar fate, IT managers must be armed with a clearer
picture of CM than is often the case.
What follows is a brief survival guide that may prove useful.
What is Content Management?
At times, it seems that CM is whatever the software salesman
says it is. More than one otherwise
capable organization has bought CM snake oil based on a slick presentation and
canned demo in which the salesman directs the agenda toward his strengths,
obscuring the prospect’s needs in the bargain. Actually, the most salient fact about CM is that it is not a noun
as the term is so often used. Instead, CM
is a verb and while often characterized as something you can buy, it
is actually a list of things that you must do.More than idle factoids, the CM function list is an
organization’s roadmap to navigating the often-troubled waters of CM software
acquisition.
This definition doesn’t include content kept in relational
databases.This class of content has,
by definition, been brought under the content management approach of the DBMS,
and extracting it into your web environment must follow those rules.It also assumes that the target for
structuring content is XML, the rapidly growing foundation for most
non-database-resident content.
Why is this important?
CM requires software and this type of software can be
complex and expensive, in its acquisition and life-cycle costs and in its
long-term impact on the organization.Indeed, buying the wrong CM software can be worse than buying nothing at all. Given the absence of a generally accepted
definition of CM in the software industry, it’s quite possible to inadvertently
buy software that:
expensive after-sale modifications and their life-cycle support
anyway
must go unsupported
software with no recourse against the original vendor because you failed to
articulate a detailed set of functions against which his product could be
measured
How to avoid these pitfalls.
If you clearly understand what must be done to your content
while you are creating, storing and delivering it, you will be able to develop
a comprehensive list of the functions that must be part of your CM
environment.In the process, you may even
learn things about your needs that would have otherwise been missed. You will
also learn what you don’t need and shouldn’t find yourself paying
for. You should plan for the process to
take some time; time for you to communicate your needs; time for vendors to
develop an approach; and time for you to evaluate what you get back from
them. This list is your working
definition of CM and a roadmap for action. Ignore it and you are fair game for the software sharks.
Content vs. Delivery Management:
Much of what passes for content management today is actually
Delivery Management, dealing with content already prepared and available
for access, either for bulk information products (such as books or CDs) or in
support of interactive queries. The key
difference between this and true content management is its assumption
that content is complete, properly structured and ready for delivery. Most web server software firms offer a brand
of CM that is really delivery management.
Content management, on the other hand, supports the
functions required to create and finalize content not yet ready for
delivery.Sometimes called “work in
process management,” CM includes functions that relate to authors, editors,
collaborators and other personnel involved in the preparation of content,
always assuming that the content it supports is not yet ready for use in final
information products. The difference could be likened to that between managing
a factory and managing a retail outlet.
If you are responsible for the acquisition, creation and
finalization of content for hand-off to delivery management, you need CM that
goes well beyond what most delivery management systems offer (or do well.)
Building your Content Management List:
If you’re responsible for content creation and finalization,
you likely face some or all of the challenges listed below (and maybe
more.) Determining which ones and
understanding what it will take to meet them in your environment is the
critical first step in solving the CM riddle:
- Enable
authors to create richly tagged XML content as a part of their original
editorial process.Using a
word processor to capture content and then putting in the XML tagging
later means you end up with a smart version of a not-so-smart source;
guaranteed to be no more useful than its parent. This means that you will want your authors to use an XML
editor. The editor must be highly
configurable to give the authors an environment they understand and can
work with. People and software
systems are what they eat and you can’t deliver content your authors can’t
or won’t capture. In the end,
(though the details are another story) the value calculation of your
entire endeavor is based on how much of what your authors know you can effectively
capture for delivery.