R: [Sigia-l] CMS and IA

[David Heller]

>> Inverted, if all your content was tagged with XML, would you actually
need a CMS,
>> beyond the most rudimentary storage, retrieval, permission, etc
stuff?

Of course, document and content management does so much, from
collaboration management, workflow management, publishing management
(lifecycles & business processes), auditing and digital signing
management, digital asset management (auto rendering), etc.

(Just using Web Publisher as an example here its only b/c I know the
product, I'm not trying to plug it). The CMS, allows you to build a
template in XML, a rules file (rules for the input form for your
contributors), a XSL style sheet and it will auto render it into HTML
for your web server (or JSP, or other), and in WML, etc. You have a
single point of content that can be published out in multiple formats.
But then you can also use that content as a base for translation. You
can manage the relationships of the translations. You can also create
relationships with other content that can be queried against to create
related links in your pages.

But this is just the web side of things.

Someone mentioned the other side, which is the entire enterprise. I
create a press release. Do I do that inside of a WCM client? Why would
I? Its also going to be faxed out and e-mailed and other non-web based
publishing formats, right? Well, The business processes are a lot more
complex and need to be managed accordingly. A good E-CMS will handle
these processes.

Document management in general though is the next level, where I have
manuals that are produced in part by so many authors. Some chapters are
re-used by more than one manual but need to be managed in units. We call
these virtual documents (in XML we call them XML applications). But I
can use the manual for a nut/bolt assembly in the larger manual for a
chair, a wing and a rudder all of which may be in different or similar
airplanes.

Anyway, to say that CMS just does anything is to not really understand
the power of CMS at the enterprise level. Most companies aren't even
touching the tip of the iceberg and to be honest that is partly my fault
b/c the UIs just aren't there yet. I'm workin' on it though. ;-)

-- dave

David Heller
Sr. User Interface Designer
Documentum: The Leader in Enterprise Content Management
925.600.5636
 
david.heller at documentum.com
http://www.documentum.com/
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--"If it isn't useful, it will never be usable."