Content Management Nightmares

bildstorm writes "I've recently been looking into content management systems for my company and have found that there are all kinds of systems out there. I've found that most Americans consider web content management to be the catch all for content management (like Interwoven). In Europe, I've noticed that what's referred to as digital asset management is what is usually meant by content management (like Artesia). Has anyone used any of these systems well? For more than just web content? Has anyone tried any open source systems and used them well? I know there is a conference in Zurich next month for open source content management, but I don't know much about the products."

Comments

Everything is NOT a web site...

[sphealey]

Back in 1994 I worked on a very large document management project. We surveyed 15 products then in the market. The project didn't go through for other reasons, but I thought at the time several of the products (particularly SoftSolutions) were pretty close to what was needed to sort out the chaotic nightmare of subdirectories and files scattered across dozens of file servers (Novell at that time - at least with Netware you had some access control and mapping functions you could use effectively - oops, wrong rant).

Fast forward to 2002. Most of the document managment vendors from 1996 are gone. Now we have "content management", which seems fine as far as it goes but also seems (IMHO) to make the basic assumption that everything is, or will soon be, a web page. Management of plain old documents on plain old file servers (SANs now I guess) has been forgotten.

Hello! Not everything is content! Not everything will eventually become a web page!! Would the "content management" vendors please remember plain old business documents?

Thanks.

sPh

This is a real minefield.....

[PinglePongle]

Content Management Systems are golf-course-ware. It gets sold to senior executives by smooth-talking sales executives who claim their products solve every conceivable business problem, is a doddle to install, standards compliant, holographic user interfaces, everything.

The reality is that this is an inherently complex field, which requires a huge amount of business-thinking before the technical solution even becomes relevant - how do you want to manage your content ? Do you have a requirement for workflow-style solutions ? Is revision control important ? Do you need collaborative features allowing several people to work on a document at the same time ? Do you have a knowledge management infrastructure so you can re-use an accepted taxonomy ? What are your security requirements ? Where does your content reside - is it largely "document" based, or is it mainly database-driven ? How technically sophisticated are your content generators ?

Only after you have worked out what you want to do with your precious content should you consider what the technology can do for you - I suggest using any one of the myriad requirements gathering techniques used in software engineering and specify your "ideal" content management system, then drawing up a list of candidate technologies.

If you start with "what can the technology do for me", you almost certainly will end up spending a lot of time and effort (and money !) and getting very little in return....