[Sigia-l] Distributed content authoring

[Gene Smith]

Ziya Oz wrote:

> but what exactly
> do you mean by "distributed authoring"?

In this case, I'm talking about a situation where multiple people across an
organization write and *publish* content (web pages, whatever) to a web site
directly through a content management system.  I realize this might be a
little vague, but I'm not really interested in the specifics of the system
(whether it has version control, multiple authors per document, etc.).

I want to know how people make distributed authoring work (since it seems to
be a given in today's CMSs), and whether there are benefits or pitfalls I
haven't considered.

I received a response off-list from Donna Maurer who has some great
solutions to the problems caused by distributed authoring:
---------------------------------------
I'm redesigning an Intranet at the moment that is fully distributed,
and a total disaster.

In the brilliant new future, we will be allowing distributed
authoring with a difference:
- there will be a range of tools to author content. Most of these
will allow content to be tagged only with a defined set of styles.
The styles will vary depending on the type of content (eg policy
documents will have different styles to newsletters)
- all authors will be given training in using the authoring tools,
plus things like writing online, structuring information, importance
of metadata
- there will be a staging and production environment (at present, all
authoring is done on production, in full view!), and content will
only be moved with approval
- we will be putting significant effort into coaching the authors and
maintaining the site - it won't be redesigned then dropped.

I have spoken with a number of people around town who are running
distributed authoring environments, and things are working well for
them. However, the strength of the system relies on the people and
processes, not the technology.
---------------------------------------

Gene
-------------------------------
gene at atomiq.org
http://www.atomiq.org