Taxonomy and Metadata Strategies for Effective Content Management

There is a lot of mumbo-jumbo like the word "taxonomy" that is being thrown around to describe how to manage so-called unstructured content like business documents, web site pages, and old fashioned technical reports and articles. On the one hand, we want to remember what we already know about how to create a useful core catalog record to describe a content object so it can be found again later when needed. On the other hand, there are some bad habits and obsolete ideas like inverted file indexes that we need to get beyond. This talk is about what we have seen in dozens of applied information management projects over the past few years, and how you can take advantage of what you already know to solve big problems like these in your own organizations.

Busch, Joseph. ASIST (2004). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>Metadata

The Top Five Risks of Not Managing Your Content

Managing content is the key task in keeping a website strategic and fresh. Content management requires commitments to develop and follow a standard set of publishing processes, archiving strategies/lifecycle rules, and coordination with marketing, sales, training and customer service.

Marsh, Hilary. Content Company (2004). Articles>Content Management>Advice

Web Content Management: A Lot of Great Progress

Every day there is tremendous work being done on the Web. Talented, dedicated people are working with limited resources and support to achieve brilliant results. If you’re one of those people struggling to achieve the recognition you need, take a moment to take a bow.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2004). Articles>Content Management

Web Content Management Depends on Trust

You must be able to stand over everything that is published on your website and say that it is all accurate and up-to-date. Trust is a fundamental building block of professional web content management.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2004). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration

Web Content Management Predictions for 2004

This is the year when web content comes of age. Organizations will slowly stop viewing content as some cost that needs to be managed. Instead, they will begin to see content as an asset that can drive profits and productivity. A new role will emerge within many organizations: the publisher/editor.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2004). Articles>Content Management

Why Personalization Hasn't Worked

Personalization hasn't worked because most people don't have a compelling reason to personalize. It hasn't worked because the cost of doing it well usually significantly outweighs the benefits it delivers. It hasn't worked because managers have seen it as some Holy Grail of content management.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2003). Articles>Content Management>Web Design>Personalization

Web Content Management a Process, Not a Project

When something is new, we need to approach it in an exploratory manner. We need to experiment and try things out. And so it has been with the Web. That period is now over. We need to move from seeing our websites as a series of projects, to managing them as a well-planned process.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2004). Articles>Content Management>Project Management

Don't Make These Mistakes When Buying Content Management Software

Most organizations don’t need content management software. Unless you have a very busy website with lots and lots of content being published, the return on investment is not there. The majority of those who do require such software need a very simple, streamlined solution.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2004). Articles>Content Management>Software

Information Technology: Trojan Horse of Information Overload

Information technology has become the Trojan Horse of information overload. It has been invited into the organization as some magical gift that will bring greater efficiency and reduced cost. Once inside, it feeds on resources and spews out unimaginable quantities of low quality data. Information technology has become the problem. The solution is to invest in people again.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2002). Articles>Technology>Information Design>Content Management

Making A Better CMS

This whole category of software desperately needs to be redesigned with writers, editors, designers, and site owners in mind. Here are my recommendations to the folks writing open source content management systems.

Veen, Jeffrey. Adaptive Path (2004). Articles>Content Management>Software>Open Source

Managing the Complexity of Content Management

Content management systems suck. Or so you would think from the strife heard from analysts and practitioners alike. And yet, many websites regularly publish vast amounts of information with superior control and ease compared to manually editing pages. So where’s the disconnect between what’s possible and the too-often failure of CMS?

Lombardi, Victor. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>Content Strategy

XML Content Authoring: Interview with Michael Boses

An interview with Michael Boses about his new role with Quark, the need for user-friendly content-authoring tools, and the role of structured content in the dynamic-publishing paradigm.

Abel, Scott. Dynamic Publisher, The (2008). Articles>Content Management>XML

Dynamic Publishing Makes Creating Localized Communications Easy

International growth is the target for most small companies and is indeed essential in many industries if you want to compete and thrive in this global economy; however, international expansion brings many challenges, especially in terms of communication. For example, how do you implement consistent, global communications that maintain your brand identity, values, and messaging while still allowing for local markets and cultures?

Malagnac, Stephanie. Dynamic Publisher, The (2008). Articles>Content Management>Localization>XML

The Content Management Dilemna: Good Time to Revisit the Open Source CMS

Open source delivers on the basics. The move to Plone delivered on the basic value proposition of open source: we got a very sturdy platform that worked well for our editors and didn't have to pay a dime in license fees.

Donahue, Henry. Folio (2008). Articles>Content Management>Open Source>Plone

Magazine Content Management System Revolution: From Turnkey to Open Source, Publishers Taking a Fresh Look at CMS

Choosing the right CMS is about making the technology support a company's business needs and not vice-versa. "The software or solution doesn't set your business rules," says Eric Shanfelt, president and founder of Colorado-based eMedia Strategist Inc. "You should know what it is you want it to do first and then find the right solutions that will get the job done." Here's a look at how three very different publishers are tackling their CMS needs.

Ambroz, Jill. Folio (2007). Articles>Content Management>Publishing>Case Studies

Acclaimed Science Magazine "Discovers" Plone

DISCOVER Magazine, the magazine of science, technology and the future, recently launched a newly designed website on the open source Plone content management system (CMS).

Plone.org (2007). Articles>Content Management>Case Studies>Plone

Making the Case for XML Content Repositories

As traditional magazine publishers continue to build out their e-media products, many are looking to new, more efficient ways to manage their content and bridge the gap between separate production systems. One solution is XML content repositories, which convert a magazine’s content to a format that’s easily reproduced both digitally and in print.

Fell, Jason. Folio (2008). Articles>Content Management>Business Case>XML

Moving Toward a Content Reuse Strategy, Slowly and Carefully    

The authors of this article use their own experience in implementing a content reuse strategy to assist the reader in effectively making the changes necessary while minimizing the effect on the departments or the company as a whole.

Evans, Jeannette P. and Julianne K. Forsythe. Intercom (2008). Articles>Content Management>Content Strategy>Workflow

EventDV.net: In the Studio: Apple Final Cut Server

There’s a lot of mystery and misinformation surrounding Final Cut Server, and I’m going to try to sort that all out for you in this article. You can limit which members of your team can access its contents and what they can do with the contents, including who can make changes and who can only look at it.

Baiser, Ben. Event DV (2008). Articles>Content Management>Multimedia>Final Cut Pro

Plone vs. Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS)

CMS software selection with Plone and Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS) as finalists seems to have become a pretty common case. This is true especially for “intranet/extranet” projects in which the primary focus is on web publishing and collaboration features. I’ve been asked several times to work on comparing the two and I’d like to share some of this experience. Also note that this can’t be a “vendor neutral” comparison because of my involvement in Plone; but I’ll do my best to highlight differences and strenghths of the two solutions.

francesco (2008). Articles>Content Management>Software>Plone

Social Publishing ≠ Social Networking - So What Is It?

John Willis recently published a post that equates social publishing with social networking. While the post is pretty good, and I agree with most of the points, I need to correct the bit about the definition of social publishing. It’s way more than social networking. Let me explain.

Whatcott, Jeff. At First Light (2008). Articles>Content Management>Web Design>Social Networking

Top 5 Reasons the "C Word" Should Be Your Priority

I'm not going to tell you that "content is king." You already know that. There are reasons why your best bet for running a successful online business revolve around your content though.

Crum, Chris. Web Pro News (2009). Articles>Content Management

Consolidating Content Delivers More with Less

Software products have found ways to share content and reuse content to deliver more value with limited resources. For example, fantasy football web sites share player news, injury reports, and game statistics. Security products often reuse security announcements and warnings from trusted sources, and present them as rebranded content. We are also seeing software vendors using Twitter and RSS feeds to distribute information and announcements. The next step is when these information feeds are integrated into the product user interface itself, making it the one stop resource for all the information needs of its users. No more need to use google when your product itself delivers the answers to all your questions from the sources you trust.

Answers for All (2009). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>Help

The Discipline of Content Strategy

We, the people who make websites, have been talking for fifteen years about user experience, information architecture, content management systems, coding, metadata, visual design, user research, and all the other disciplines that facilitate our users’ abilities to find and consume content. Weirdly, though, we haven’t been talking about the meat of the matter. We haven’t been talking about the content itself.

Halvorson, Kristina. List Apart, A (2008). Articles>Content Management>Content Strategy>Writing