[Sigia-l] Content Modeling Process Questions

[Alexander Johannesen]

Hi,

NMCCRAVE at rochester.rr.com wrote:
> I'm curious what process people are using for creating structured
> content (for entry into a content management system) out of existing
> static sites. In my case, it is a messy 8,000+ page site where there is
> a ton of duplication and barely any layout uniformity at all -- hence,
> we've had to force a lot of pages into the layout template types we
> defined.

Not sure this is relevant to you, but before there is a model, there
must be a strategy, and in my experience the best strategy (which
lends itself to content modelling, which is why I'm mentioning it) is
making people take ownership of content. Perhaps easier said than
done, but there are many ways of doing this.

Through ownership you get a lot of working bees for free, you can use
this process for sorting out content importance and scope, and you
don't have to second-guess your model.

(But all of this is a slight fake digression, as my view on strict
content models are that they defeat the purpose of long-term knowledge
representation, but hey, that's a story for another day)

> - First of all, is 'content modeling' the generally accepted term for
> this process?  I've also heard 'content structuring' thrown around.
> Though, this is a lesser issue for me if there isn't any general
> consensus.

Content modelling is a much used term, but around here we say ontology
modelling, but that may be because we're lucky in the people we've got
and the tools we use. :)

> - What tools do people use for analysis at this stage - Excel,
> database, other?

Umm, I'm sure most people use Excel, but me, being the semantic geeky
freak that I am, use Topic Maps (XTM) for both the ontology work, and
both test and production data. But don't worry too much about this; if
you're not into this kind of work and you have to fit your stuff into
a traditional CMS and / or Portal framework, you're stuck in those
paradigms.

> Well, this is relatively new territory for me, so any feedback in terms
> of process or best practices would be welcome.

1. Get people to take ownership of content. If it is important
content, someone will. Whatever's left, make tough descissions.

2. Have those people tell you what their content is, what it does,
about readership, importance, etc." It is a policy. It is important.
It is used by the bosses. It's important to our clients. Etc." Use
these explanations with simple card-sorting techniques, and you've got
a bare-bones model you can expand ... if you must.

3. If you can, make the model as loose as possible. But not looser.

Apart from that, the only thing to say is "it depends."


Alex
-- 
"Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know."
                                                         - Frank Herbert
__ http://shelter.nu/ __________________________________________________