[Sigia-l] DMS vs CMS

[Matthew deStwolinski]

Tanya,

> Thanks for the helpful comments so far. I think one thing
> that has added to my confusion is that the strategy has been
> to solve the "web content" problem and the "document"
> problem as two separate unrelated things.

I'd like to step back a little bit and just talk generally about one of
the big differences (and one of the easier to explain) between DM and
CM--how the inputs and outputs relate to each other.

With DM, as has been mentioned, we're primarily concerned with
artifacts. A DMS is not particularly concerned with how each document
was created. It takes their existence as a given, allows people to store
them, and provides a way for people to access them. (It can do a lot of
other stuff, yes, but those are the basics.)  For DM, what goes in is
more or less what comes out.

With CM, we're primarily concerned with content and its transformation
from source to central repository to publication. While DM tends to
treat documents as a whole, CM attempts to divorce content from
presentation and its other earthly trappings...at least for a while. It
lets you slice and dice your content, dress it up, take it out on the
town, etc.  For CM, what goes in can be quite different from what comes
out.  

Documents have a role in a CMS; they can be some of the inputs and
outputs of a CMS (or all of them if you define "document" loosely
enough) and can even be the form in which content is stored in the
central repository (e.g. an XML document). But when the document that
goes in is the same as the document you want to come out, a full-blown
CMS, in all of its transformative wonder, is a bit overkill.  And it
makes it even more complicated when all you want to do is save that Word
doc where other people can get to it. ("But I SAVED it!  Whaddya mean I
have to publish it!?!")

As for the "web content" and "document" problems being treated as
separate things, that could be partly because of this distinction. Or it
could just be that one group started doing one, another group started
doing the other, and nobody every thought to or could manage to pull the
two together.

Just some thoughts.

-Matthew