Content Management Market Year in Review 2006

The Rockley Group takes a look back at the year 2006 in review. What happened in the CMS market? How is globalization changing the content management landscape? And, what about new communication vehicles like blogs, wikis, podcasts, and RSS feeds?

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Bulletin (2006). Articles>Content Management>Software

Advocating Plain Language: Thom Haller Discusses The Need For Clarity

Plain language is clear, concise, and straightforward presentation of information. It is professional content structured to eliminate ambiguity and confusion in technical, government, and legal documents. Plain language allows readers to fully comprehend complex regulations, practices and instructions by requiring the language of bureaucracy to reflect the language of everyday speech.

Haller, Thom. Rockley Bulletin (2007). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric>Minimalism

A Case Study in Developing Dynamic Content at Ontario Systems

Charles Cantrell, an Information Engineer, describes Ontario Systems' process for delivering dynamically assembled and populated documentation for Artiva, its 'highly customizable' accounts receivable management application.

Cantrell, Charles. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Documentation>Content Management

Content: What Is It and Why Manage It?  

Fuelled by our own frustrations and fear of 'The Server' and 'inspired' by the frustrations of others, we set out to tackle 'content' and figure out ways to effectively create and manage it.

Kostur, Pamela. Rockley Bulletin (2003). Articles>Content Management

Customer-Centric Content Management: Level 3 Building the Customer Relationship

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) relies on both methodologies and technologies to assist an organization with the management of all aspects of interaction a company has with its customer. Companies achieve an effective CRM strategy by centralizing information about their customers, ensuring they have access to effective support channels (e.g., self-service, call centers) and by making a concerted effort to know as much as possible about their customers. Knowledge about the customer makes it possible to closley match customer needs with targeted product plans and offerings, point customers to the right information at the right time, and help them accomplish their tasks.

Rockley Bulletin (2006). Articles>Content Management>Management>CRM

Ensuring A Successful CMS Implementation

The single most important factor in a successful CMS implementation lies with you and your people. Your staff members are the principal users of the system, and the SMEs in your organization are the secondary users. It is their adoption of the new processes and governance structures that makes or breaks a CMS implementation. According to some, process and cultural change accounts for 90%, while technology contributes only 10% to the success of a CMS.

Hamer, Emma C. Rockley Bulletin (2007). Articles>Content Management>User Centered Design>Collaboration

Identifying the Components of Your ROI

Identifying Return on Investment (ROI) for your content management business case begins with a thorough analysis. This article reviews the information you need to gather to identify ROI for an effective business case for content management.

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Assessment>Business Case

Incorporating Usability into Content Management

This article describes the importance of incorporating usability into all stages of implementing content management, including assessing your needs, assessing your users (of both the content and the content management system), and assessing your content. It questions the emphasis of technology in many of the current discussions about content management, and instead, advocates looking to the field of usability to form the basis of a content management implementation.

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Usability

Information Architecture of Content Management

When people think about content management, they generally think about it from a systems perspective, focusing primarily on tools and technology. While it is true that content management usually requires a technological solution, it also requires that content be designed for reuse, retrieval, and delivery to meet your authors' and customers' needs. Content management requires that tools be configured to support authoring, reviewing, and publishing tasks, but first, those tasks must be designed. Designing content and the processes to create, review, and publish it is what information architecture is all about. The Information Architecture section of The Rockley Report will focus on the different aspects of information architecture for content management. This article introduces you to some of the components of information architecture that we will cover in The Rockley Report over time.

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>User Centered Design

Knowledge Management: Do You Really Need It?

The knowledge that we have within a corporation is valuable to internal employees to ensure that they are able to do their jobs as accurately and efficiently as possible, and our customers are requesting more and more information to enable them to use our products correctly. For years this knowledge resided in peoples’ heads and in volumes of paper. Now that information is being moved onto the Internet/intranets and extranets.

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Bulletin (1998). Articles>Knowledge Management

Louis Rosenfeld on Enterprise Information Architecture

In this interview with Louis Rosenfeld, The Rockley Bulletin asks the information architecture and user experience guru to talk about enterprise information architecture, what it is, where it's heading, and how you can get started.

Abel, Scott and Louis Rosenfeld. Rockley Bulletin (2006). Articles>Information Design>User Experience

Making The Move To Content Management: Five Stages Of Career Transition

Moving to content management is as large a paradigm shift as moving to the Web was during the 1990s. It's hard to remember how frustrated we were in dealing with non-linear text, the constraints of HTML, and writing in a less formal style. If the 90s was the decade of the Web, technical communication 2.0, this is the decade of content management. It's techcomm 3.0, and we're entering the field with an improved feature set. Soon we'll reflect on this time of change and say, 'I could never go back.'

Bailie, Rahel Anne. Rockley Bulletin (2006). Articles>Content Management

Managing Your Information

Large paper documents can be difficult to manage and control, but large online documents and huge volumes/suites of information can be a nightmare if you do not use management software from the beginning. There are many different types of ways you can approach managing your materials.

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Bulletin (1998). Articles>Knowledge Management>Content Management

MarthaStewart.com: Making the Case for Customer-Centric Content Management

When you hear the term "customer centric content management", you might think we're talking about marketing content. We're not. We're talking about managing the delivery of all types of content, including marketing content. And, we're specifically talking about providing individuals -- people -- both existing and prospective customers, with only the content that is relevant and of interest to them. You may think you already do a good job at this task, but in most organizations, there is significant room for improvement. Most of the problems are caused by one very big mistake: failing to listen.

Rockley Bulletin (2006). Design>Web Design>Content Management>User Centered Design

Planning and Analysis Articles and Surveys

Provides you with several resources you may find valuable during the planning and analysis phases of implementing content management.

Abel, Scott. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Planning

Planning: The Key to Successful CMS Implementation

So you think you need content management? The temptation is to call your Information Technology (IT) department and ask them to help you choose a content management system (CMS). Being very tool oriented, your IT department will love buying you the latest 'silver bullet' without ever looking at your content requirements or your internal processes. This is the best prescription for failure.

Glick-Smith, Judith L. 'Judy'. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

What's the Best Content Management System? It Depends...

There are a dizzying number of systems on the market that are or can be referred to as Content Management Systems. Determining which content management system is right for you starts with an understanding of the different types of systems and the range of functionality available. Analyzing your needs is critical to selecting the right system.

Manning, Steve. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Why Start with Analysis and Design?

One of the most common mistakes that we see is a company picking the tool first, then trying to make their content management requirements fit the functionality of the tool. However, analysis of why projects fail identifies that one of the main reasons for failure is lack of analysis and design. This article draws on recent literature to identify the main reasons for why content management projects fail and provides some possible solutions.

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

XML Syndication Set to Explode - Are You Ready For Big Change?

Since version 1.0 of XML was released by the W3C in early 1998, its use has been growing by leaps and bounds. Content managers and software packages were early adopters and enterprises are increasingly implementing XML-based systems. A number of events are now converging which will make available an unprecedented number of XML documents on the internet. The implications are numerous and will have trendendous impact on many of the fundamental dynamics of the Internet as we know it today.

Ismail, Salim. Rockley Bulletin (2006). Articles>Content Management>XML