[Sigia-l] Re: Notes from IA/UX discussion on CMS

[James Robertson]

At 03:37 AM 1/23/03, Doug Howell (IT) wrote:

>Stacy wrote:
><q>
>      I was a lead in the initial working group to study the issue,
>      and experienced first-hand the pain of the project and technical staff
>      as we all grappled with comprehending what a CMS is and what life
>      would be like if we implemented one. The company is now bearing down
>      on a choice, which is exciting, but I'm somewhat fearful about my 
> future
>      as an IA in a CMS environment.
></q>
>
> From the reading/thinking I've done on content management, it seems that 
> for any CMS project to be successful, the IA-related functions will 
> become more important than ever, not less. File management is difficult 
> enough without a CMS, but when information is chunked to the 
> _subdocument_ level, authoring, editing, approving, assembling and 
> publishing content give difficulty a whole new meaning. Wouldn't easily 
> more than half of an IAs time might be spent on behind-the-scenes 
> structures and classifications, just so the CMS can operate efficiently 
> and fulfill its business goals? Whether others would see it that way is 
> another question, though, I guess.

This is something that I wrote an article
on quite a while ago:

* Losing sight of the content in a CMS
   http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_content/index.html
   Why spend millions on managing content that no-one
   understands or needs? This article provides tips for
   getting the best value out of your business content.

Regards,
James