The computer is the latest in a long line of tools dating from the original sharpened rock that aid humankind to achieve its goals. The throng of marketers, conference organisers and book publishers hot on the heels of software vendors appear to have lost sight of this significant detail. They specialise in trying to sell the rock regardless of what it does.
Few, if any, software vendors make specific, substantive claims about the impact of their software on a business. Instead, they retreat to phrases such as "unleashes power" or "harnesses value" or "the ultimate in capability and flexibility", which can never be measured. Or, they sing the praises of the software itself. "Scalable, multi-threaded, 100% Java, object-oriented, tiered". In the ultimate act of condescension, they even go as far as to call their software "cool".
Content management system (CMS) software is a prime example. Many businesses are in the market for a content management system, primarily to manage their Web sites and intranets, which are becoming increasingly important to business.
Comparing the offerings of large, established vendors in this sector by browsing their Web sites is like clutching at oily spaghetti. Businesses would be forgiven for believing that all vendors offer exactly the same functionality, and that it`s the simplest thing in the world to turn an organisation into a powerhouse of information publishing and distribution.
It`s clear that choosing the right CMS is choosing a piece of software that fits into a context - a human context, not just a technological one.
Jarred Cinman, product director at Cambrient
In fact, typical costs run from as little as $50 000 up to millions of dollars. According to a 2002 CMS Watch report by Jim Howard, called Finding the ROI in Content Management: "When the costs of hardware and network components are factored in, a fully operational CMS normally runs anywhere from $200 000 to $400 000. Tack on an additional 10% to 30% annually to support the application, or between $2 000 and $8 000 a month." CMS Watch is an independent analysis and reporting business for the content management, records management and enterprise search solutions market.
These are US figures, and apply to large corporations that are typically larger than the average South African company. However, even if you halve these costs, the expense is still huge. And all this to unleash some unexplained power that resides mysteriously in the corporate ether.
Anyone who is shopping around for a CMS, thinks CMS is for them, wants to sort out their Web site and intranet once and for all, or basically just feels that there must be a way to solve problems of information inefficiency within their organisation, has the right to some simple, clear answers.
What is content management?
The term is commonly applied to the software involved in creating, storing, managing and distributing content. This is indeed a key part of content management, but it has a broader meaning that includes activities both human and electronic, which are involved from conception to display of content.
The typical steps in the content management lifecycle are:
* Strategy and requirements: what content is needed, for what target market, for what purpose and when? What content does the organisation have, and who is responsible for it?
* Content origination: finding, structuring, writing, importing, syndicating and otherwise getting content.
* Content approval: getting the content authorised for publication.
* Content publishing: capturing and storing approved content in a content repository.
* Content distribution: assigning content to various output media, including Web sites, intranets, e-mail and mobile devices.
* Reporting on usage, and then implementing changes and updates accordingly.
Thinking about content management as an activity in this broad sense means the solution is far broader than software. Many of the steps in this process are inherently manual, human steps. The most obvious of these is writing a piece of content such as a news article. With all the gigahertz in the world, a computer cannot compose even a single sensible sentence.
So content management is actually about organisational analysis, software implementation and organisational change. Done right, it can be incremental so that it doesn`t mean the entire organisation has to change in one go, but without a change in the basic way people generate content, content management won`t work, no matter what software you implement or how well you do it.
It`s clear that choosing the right CMS is choosing a piece of software that fits into a context - a human context, not just a technological one. It`s not a simple IT decision. It is a system that will touch many areas of the business and therefore will require broad stakeholder buy-in.
The guiding principle is: ask all the hard questions, and make it real. The slick marketing gunk, while only barely acceptable on a Web site, is useless in the selection process.
I will provide a content management system evaluation checklist in my next Industry Insight.
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