Deane Barker

Looking to select a web content management system (CMS), but confused about the promises, terminology, and buzzwords? Do you want to understand content management without having to dive into the underlying programming? This book provides a clear, unbiased overview of the entire CMS ecosystem—from platforms to implementations—in a language- and platform-agnostic manner for project managers, executives, and new developers alike. Author Deane Barker, a CMS consultant with almost two decades of experience, helps you explore many different systems, technologies, and platforms. By the end of the book, you’ll have the knowledge necessary to make decisions about features, architectures, and implementation methods to ensure that your project solves the right problems. Learn what content is, how to compare different systems, and what the roles of a CMS team are Understand how a modern CMS models and aggregates content, coordinates workflow, and manages assets Explore the scope and structure of a CMS implementation project Learn the process and best practices for successfully running your CMS implementation Examine the practice of migrating web content, and learn how to work with an external CMS integrator

Systems, Features, and Best Practices

Web Content Management

Jaydee (she/her)

Many people have tried to draw a distinction between the fuzzy concepts of data" "information," content, and even "knowledge" Bob Boiko dedicated the entire first part of his seminal work The Content Management Bible (Wiley) to this question-– some 5 chapters and 61 pages. 

We're not going to go that far, but we'll summarize by simply differentiating between content and raw data, which is likely the highest-value return we can get out of the question. How is content managenment any different from managing any other type of data? There are two key differences:

Content is subjective and open for evaluation and interpretation. It has nuance. It is artisanal.

The editorial process is iterative-content is rarely created once, perfectly, and then never touched again. Rather, content is roughed in and refined over and over like clay on a potter's wheel, often even after being published. Content can change with the passage of time and the evolution of circumstance. What was relevant at one point might need to change or be withdrawn later. 

Content is constantly in some state of flux and turnover. It's never right." Its just "right now."

Content is an investment in the future, not a record of the past.

The discipline of content management-the accumulated theories, best practices, and accepted patterns of the field-transcends any specific system. In this sense, it's a Platonic ideal: an abstract, subjective representation of how content is to be managed. 

The specifics of this ideal can be very different depending on the experiences, preferences, and needs of the observer. This means there's no single, accepted definition for content management as a discipline, just a set of debatable best practices. While peo- ple might try to lay claim to a Grand Unified Theory of Content Management, no such thing exists. 

Thankfully, this means that skill with a particular content management system can be somewhat transferable. Even if System A differs from System B in extreme ways, they both still need to solve transcendent problems of the discipline, like workflow, ver- sioning, publishing, etc. While specific technical skills might not transfer, working with a content management system requires the exercise and development of skills in the content management discipline.

Web Content Management quotes

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