XrML and Emerging Models of Content Development and Distribution  

With the publication of XrML 2.0, ContentGuard provides an open, flexible, and extensible means of expressing digital rights that not only addresses copy protection, but, as importantly, offers a much broader and powerful means for publishers to experiment with and deploy new business models.

Trippe, Bill. Gilbane Report (2005). Articles>Content Management>Standards>XML

Comparing Open Source CMSes: Joomla, Drupal and Plone

Open source content management systems can make creating and managing your website a lot easier - and there's no licensing fee involved. But which should you use? We look carefully at Joomla, Drupal, and Plone to compare their strengths and weaknesses.

Bonfield, Brett and Laura Quinn. IdealWare (2007). Articles>Content Management>Software

From a Business and Science Search Firm    

Discusses some principles of managing an information search firm and their similarities to managing corporate libraries. Compares information search firms to other professional service firms. Describes the evolution of one small business and science information search firm. Gives insights into managing customer service and client relationships, quality control and processes, risk taking and professional growth. Touches on David Maister's theory of the quality experience and Michael Gerber's idea of the role of the entrepreneur vs the technician in small start-up businesses.

Lesky, Cynthia. Business Information Review (2008). Articles>Content Management>Knowledge Management>Search

Whikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Quickness

The fact that a Workplace could be considered 'quick' is not properly linked with the easiness to find information or with the speedy level of the communications: in this context it is linked to the Wiki feature of assuring a real-time updating access to contents and resources (data, information or knowledge and physical resources).

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2007). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis

Wikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Flexibility

A flexible workplace is characterized by the capability of individuals to manage not only their work, time or resources, but also the possibility to influence and operate in an active way inside the community (from team to organizational level) and for these reasons to be part of the operational process.

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2008). Articles>Content Management>Workflow>Wikis

Wikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Collaboration

The true collaboration occurs when people have the possibility to co-work on the same sub-task, activating a mechanism of new knowledge creation. Collaboration is not so obvious if is not clearly supported: the risk is to exchange this 'together' learning process with a simple cooperation process, producing not new knowledge but only a simple addition of individual regress knowledge.

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2008). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis

Wikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Sharing

The possibility of sharing improves an effective distribution of common resources (meeting room, projector, corporate car...). In a more general acceptation of the term, the availability to ideas or previous solutions useful for different use is an advantage that make co-creation of new knowledge and a healthy circulation of knowledge possible.

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2008). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis

Wikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Peering

A common element between Wiki philosophy and innovation successful case histories, is the partial or total absence of structure or, saying better, of hierarchy. The possibility, in fact, to contribute in the same way, indifferently at which level you are involved in the organization, is one of the first steps towards the reduction of barriers to collaboration, participation and involvement in the organizational life.

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2008). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis

Wikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Openness

Strictly linked with transparency concept, openness is at the base of the principle that people work better if they have access to the right information and possibility to assume that all over the organization. The simple access to other group member data or the possibility to know activities scheduled also in other groups are normal operations in a mature context such as is allowed to look to other team solutions or results in order to decide something for the own team.

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2008). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis

The Full Definition of Content Management

The next time you start a conversation about Content Management with someone, start by trying to gain an understanding what they think content management is. You might be surprised.

Rockley Group, The (2008). Articles>Content Management

Requirements of Content Management Systems: Definition According to Need

In all companies, the requirements of an editorial system are worked out individually from the analysis of existing functioning and the definition of editorial and publication processes required in the future. The first important criteria for analysis are change frequencies and degree of reuse of the published information. The description of the information types as well as translation sequences constitute another starting point for the definition of a modular work process (single-source principle) and publication options (cross-media publishing).

Ziegler, Wolfgang. tekom (2005). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>Workflow

A Peep into the Toolbox

What is the current scenario for applications and systems in the area of technical communication? Who is using which editor? And how many companies are using a Content-Management-System? To answer these and other questions, tekom conducted a survey from July to November 2006, which was conceived as an online questionnaire and made available via the tekom web site. 547 participants took part in the survey.

Straub, Daniela and Wolfgang Ziegler. tekom (2007). Articles>Content Management>TC>Surveys

Dokumentenmanagement für den Mittelstand  

Dokumentenmanagement schien immer eine teuere, aufwendige Angelegenheit der Großunternehmen. Die Einführung einer Document-Related-Technologies-Lösung gleich welcher Ausprägung erfordert Anpassungen an Infrastruktur, Abläufe und Arbeitsorganisation. Dies wollten sich bislang viele Mittelständler nicht leisten. Ihr Credo lautete: "Durch so ein elektronisches Dokumentenmanagement-System bekomme ich doch keinen einzigen Kunden mehr". Diese Situation hat sich geändert. Auch der Mittelstand wird zunehmend in elektronische Geschäftsprozesse eingebunden. Die Abhängigkeit von Software in Verwaltung, Logistik, Kundenbetreuung und Produktentwicklung wird immer größer.

Kampffmeyer, Ulrich. Doculine (2002). (German) Articles>Content Management>SMEs

Single-Source from the Reader's Point of View

Documentation written for single-sourcing (topic based, like that found in DITA) has great potential for efficiency. Writing once and publishing in many publications (Developer Guides, User Guides, etc.) and many formats (pdf, html, HTMLHelp, etc.) turns into cost and time savings. However, these efficiencies can cause inefficiencies for the users. Many online help users complain they cannot find the information they need while using the search function. Readers are more likely to comprehend texts with a classical book architecture, an architecture which is often sacrificed in single sourced documents and online Help files. When texts are cohesive, readers are more likely to consider information to be clear, well organized and easy to follow. For comprehensibility, it is essential to have a manual review, even when composing is partially automated.

Mulvihill, Teresa. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Audience Analysis

Content Management: When Do We Need It?

By ensuring a document process is put in place and all people in your company know where to find information, how to request changes, update, and distribute new content, and who has the permission to manage the content you will be well on your way to having a viable content management system. Adding the software to automatically manage the content will only come when core principles of the organization require it.

Stuhlemmer, Barbara. ClearComm Information Design (2008). Articles>Content Management

What They're Saying About CMS and XML

Assuming the tools are now within the range of an average small to medium business and all the other costs associated with implementation are still there, what incentive is there for a business to want to change to CMS or XML?

Stuhlemmer, Barbara. ClearComm Information Design (2007). Articles>Content Management>XML

Companies Struggling with Unstructured Content

Firms wrestling with unstructured data such as emails and spreadsheets don't see enterprise content management as the answer to their problems.

Milne, Janine. Computer Business Review (2008). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>Metadata

No Small Task: Migrating Content to a New CMS

Content migrations are often the dirty little secret that folks in the CMS world like to avoid. It’s hard, it’s messy and very few organizations do it well. Truth be told, the content migration can often be the hardest part of implementing a new CMS.

Short, Kyle. CMSwire (2008). Articles>Content Management>Software

Story Scrapbooks: Tools for Engagement 

Thank heavens for big sisters—especially mine. I was over at Franca's house sipping hot chocolate and catching up on life. While we spoke, she was assembling another one of her family scrapbook masterpieces. We started talking about her work—she is an international marketing and publication relations consultant. As we discussed the internal communication challenges one of her clients was facing, I had a flash of brilliance. What if we helped the client put together a story scrapbook and then used it to facilitate conversations around the organization?

Gargiulo, Terrence. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Content Management>Knowledge Management>Business Communication

Reusability 2.0: The Key to Publishing Learning   

What would you do if you had to develop and deliver personalized training to 900,000 employees, located in 34,000 different locations globally with a complex set of variables that changes training on a location-by-location basis? The key is reusability 2.0. While technology-delivered training has become mainstream in many organizations, most are still not fully leveraging the power of reusable learning content to meet their instructional needs.

Chapman, Bryan. Xyleme (2007). Articles>Content Management>Instructional Design>White Papers

Multilingual Websites with Open Source Content Management Systems   

Open source content management systems can be installed free of charge on an entity's servers or web hosting account, and provide a way for organizations to develop multilingual web sites. There are some challenges in finding a good open source content management system, but there are several that can fit a variety of needs. An example CMS is Plone, which has strong support for different languages, and which also integrates tools for managing the translation of content.

Kelsey, Todd. Association for Business Communication (2006). Articles>Content Management>Localization>Language