[Sigia-l] Distributed content authoring

[Paula Thornton]

Gene was singing the anthem: ...the strength of the system relies on the
people and processes, not the technology.

And then Ziya chimed in: you'll find that many/most of your
interface/workflow choices will have been made for
you by the technology

My first inclination was to jump on Ziya's comment, but realized it was very
true...but easily misinterpreted. The point is that it's a lot of work. You
fundamentally have to 'embrace' the limitations of the technologies (because
they are what they are) and twist them into being something other than what
they were designed...since they weren't designed from a people and process
perspective.

For example, in Interwoven a content 'approver' could be looking at an
'inbox' of 100s of items (obviously a scenario Interwoven never considered).
The labels on each of those items is 'fixed' programatically -- it's built
into the template. But if you're really creative, you will design specific
tempates for specific processes and force hints into the labels so that the
recipient has some clue as to how to distinguish the various items they're
looking at. Bottom line: you can manage your mailbox better than you can
looking at a list of content items needing your approval (you'd think they
would have leveraged existing technology/metaphors...go figure).

Paula Thornton
~ Putting people and process before technology to design solutions...