Content Management - How Did We Get Here?
Reprinted from Silverchair's newsletter, Context Matters:
By Jabin White
Recently I presented a webinar called “What Publishers Should Know About Content Management,” and in putting together my presentation I thought a lot about the progress – and lack thereof – of content management over the years.
It made me think about the huge amount of misinformation and resulting frustration in the publishing community about the term Content Management, and the reasons for this. During the session, I was asked a similar question about the gap between unfulfilled expectations and reality in this area, and it really made the matter hit home.
Content Management may be near the top of a long list of over-hyped and misunderstood terms out there, although one can argue that it has gotten better in the past few years. But to fully appreciate this “gap,” we must go back a few years to look at the root causes.
Think back to the turn of the century, the time known as the “Dot Com bubble.” Lots of companies were rushing to get to the web, publishers included. Publishers had really been there already, but they were, as always, looking for more efficiency to be gained in the production process.
Enter content management, and content management vendors. Or more accurately, vendors who performed some aspect of content management. One of the problems was that the term content management came to symbolize what were, in fact, lots of diverse technologies. Document management, workflow, digital asset management, and web content management each have unique characteristics and should be thought of separately, but they were all thrown under the umbrella of content management, hence the confusion.
This was made worse by the fact that the potential market for these services suddenly became as large as one’s imagination, as every business could conceivably have the need to “manage” content. As a result, lots of non-publishers were suddenly in the game, and oh, the promises they made. You can start to see how the gap was created, as vendors eager to please made promises and sales. Publishers, hoping to take advantage of the promises of content management, soon hit the wall of realization that publishing for publishers sometimes has a very different meaning than publishing for non-publishers.
But it’s gotten better. Through the frustration and disappointment of the early 2000s, smart companies have realized that many of the old publishing truisms still hold. Careful thought about the structure of content, workflows, and product creation needs should drive decisions about content management, not the other way around.
The vendor landscape is stabilizing, and the good CMS systems are making strides. And while there are some success stories out there, others may need to overcome their hesitancy and fears based on unmet expectations of a few years ago. It is clear that content management is still a promising technology for publishers, and can pay big dividends in areas of content acquisition, enrichment, enforcing rights and permissions, and multiple product deliveries from the same source content.
As long as we keep those pesky expectations in line.
Next Newsletter: Where are we now with content management, and where are we going?
Jabin White is Silverchair’s Vice President of Marketing, and can be reached at jabinw@silverchair.com.
By Jabin White
Recently I presented a webinar called “What Publishers Should Know About Content Management,” and in putting together my presentation I thought a lot about the progress – and lack thereof – of content management over the years.
It made me think about the huge amount of misinformation and resulting frustration in the publishing community about the term Content Management, and the reasons for this. During the session, I was asked a similar question about the gap between unfulfilled expectations and reality in this area, and it really made the matter hit home.
Content Management may be near the top of a long list of over-hyped and misunderstood terms out there, although one can argue that it has gotten better in the past few years. But to fully appreciate this “gap,” we must go back a few years to look at the root causes.
Think back to the turn of the century, the time known as the “Dot Com bubble.” Lots of companies were rushing to get to the web, publishers included. Publishers had really been there already, but they were, as always, looking for more efficiency to be gained in the production process.
Enter content management, and content management vendors. Or more accurately, vendors who performed some aspect of content management. One of the problems was that the term content management came to symbolize what were, in fact, lots of diverse technologies. Document management, workflow, digital asset management, and web content management each have unique characteristics and should be thought of separately, but they were all thrown under the umbrella of content management, hence the confusion.
This was made worse by the fact that the potential market for these services suddenly became as large as one’s imagination, as every business could conceivably have the need to “manage” content. As a result, lots of non-publishers were suddenly in the game, and oh, the promises they made. You can start to see how the gap was created, as vendors eager to please made promises and sales. Publishers, hoping to take advantage of the promises of content management, soon hit the wall of realization that publishing for publishers sometimes has a very different meaning than publishing for non-publishers.
But it’s gotten better. Through the frustration and disappointment of the early 2000s, smart companies have realized that many of the old publishing truisms still hold. Careful thought about the structure of content, workflows, and product creation needs should drive decisions about content management, not the other way around.
The vendor landscape is stabilizing, and the good CMS systems are making strides. And while there are some success stories out there, others may need to overcome their hesitancy and fears based on unmet expectations of a few years ago. It is clear that content management is still a promising technology for publishers, and can pay big dividends in areas of content acquisition, enrichment, enforcing rights and permissions, and multiple product deliveries from the same source content.
As long as we keep those pesky expectations in line.
Next Newsletter: Where are we now with content management, and where are we going?
Jabin White is Silverchair’s Vice President of Marketing, and can be reached at jabinw@silverchair.com.
posted by Silverchair at
4:29 PM
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