Making The Business Case for Web Content Management

Michael Silverman has a great article on The Content Wrangler regarding content management. The full title of the article is "Making The Business Case for Web Content Management: First, Admit You Have A Problem".  The article is a one-stop place for explaining content management, why a business or organization should implement a content management system (CMS), and tips for choosing and implementing a CMS.

Businesses and organizations that have large amounts of information to provide to users need a method for guiding that information from creation through editing, approval, publishing and maintenance to archiving. This process is generally referred to as content management. While the concept of content management has been around for a long time—newspapers have been using it for decades—it’s a relatively new term for most people.

This article is a must read not only if your business or organization is involved with content management, but also if you are the guy or gal that will be working, developing, or implementing the CMS.  I believe one of the problems us software folks have is that we often define a CMS by the software alone.  This is a good reminder that a CMS not only includes information technology but also involves organizational goals, strategic planning, project management, and most importantly of all...the people in the organization involved with content management.

As it became easier to publish content on the Web, many organizations discovered the need for a system to consistently manage content. A content management system or CMS is usually computer- or Web-based software that helps organizations manage their content collaboratively and efficiently.

In the above paragraph, Michael Silverman chose to use the phrase "A...CMS is usually comptuer- or Web-based software" and not that a CMS is computer- or Web based".  Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but one of my pet peeves when talking to others about information systems is when the business and the role of its people is left out of the system.  The article's nine tips for a successful CMS project (near the end of the article) should keep any CMS project manager on course.