Content Management - A Process, Not a Technology

November 03, 2003 | 4 Comments

I just got through reading Gerry McGovern’s article Content management: web publishing needs real discipline and it got me, as his articles usually do, to thinking about content on the Web and how, for the most part, it’s still done all wrong more often than not.

I feel like, most of the time, when the goals for a site are laid out the first thing on the docket it the design and look and feel. This has been going on for years and it seems like after all we’ve learned about the Web and how people use it we should know by now that without content there is no point to having a Web site.

The Web has big content problems and it’s taking way too long for those of us who create and manage Web sites to learn. We need to stop putting the cart before the horse. There are too many sites out there that are all flash and no substance, even in 2003 the majority of Web is still publishing like it’s 1999.

I’m not talking about content on personal sites and blogs. In fact I think big business could learn quite a bit more from us independent publishers. They’re starting to, but there is still along way to go.

How many times have you been working on a project and it’s rolling along and you run into a wall because your client or stakeholder doesn’t have the content to you when they should, or they want to make all sorts of edits at the last minute? This happens to me all the time, on almost every project. This costs everyone involved time and money. It’s bad business, right?

This is a direct result of not placing the content first. The content should be treated with more care than the design, but how often doesn’t that happen? In my experience almost never. It’s always the “fun” stuff first, and we’ll fill the pages later. Shame on us.

Content Management is a term that most people associate with a technology. A technology that more often than not is a complete waste of time, effort and money because when implemented it’s seen as the savior to all the content problems and proper thought isn’t put into the content itself and the process behind the technology.

To have good content you need good people. A CMS might help you, but before you invest in that, get yourself an editor, hire a writer, produce a schedule, train your content contributors about the Web, think about your process and/or encourage your Web folks to take an active interest in the content they’re pushing (but don’t expect a designer or developer to do it all). If you can’t manage your content, you might want to rethink your whole Web strategy. A CMS won’t manage it for you.

It’s about people, people. Take that fifty thousand dollars you spent on a CMS and turn that into a person who “gets” Web content. I guarantee you’ll see ROI on that.

Filed under: Web General