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Director, The Center for Information-Development Management
http://www.infomanagementcenter.com
In preparation for my Trends update talk at the
Best Practices conference, I've been thinking a
lot about the move of information development into
content management. Except for using content
management as a publishing tool to do Level 1
single sourcing (same content, different output
media), many managers are reluctant to turn their
organizations upside-down. The question becomes—is it worth it?
Is it worth the time and effort to move to modular
writing, create modules in XML, store them in a
repository, and construct compound documents from
collections of modules? Is the upfront work
required to reinvent the documentation and
restructure the processes worth the cost?
Many information-development organizations look at
the price tag on a typical content-management
system and cringe. The thought of spending
$100,000 or much more on technical publications
provides a case study in sticker shock for upper
management. People keep asking me if there aren't
less expensive alternatives—something in the $700
per license range. My answer: not really, not if
you want to make a difference.
I believe the key to addressing the price dilemma
is broadening, not narrowing the scope of the
content-management solution. Generally, I urge
reluctant publications managers to look beyond the
cubicle to other parts of the organization that
may have a vested interest in managing content.
In the most recent issue of the Gilbane Report
(Vol. 9, No. 6, July 2001), Frank Gilbane (a
content-management technology guru), argues that
enterprise-wide implementation as a whole is not
very practical—too many conflicting goals.
Instead, we should be looking at content-management
solutions that support customers in
well-defined ways. He points to the product
Catalog as the key killer application for content
management. Because the product catalog is
usually controlled by sales and marketing, they
have been getting the funding they need to place
catalog upkeep under content management. While
other software vendors in general have seen
considerable falloff in sales, content-management
vendors appear to be holding their own because
they can promise two critical results:
- greater efficiencies that lead to reduced costs and an
improved competitive position
- higher quality service to customers
The Catalog on which Gilbane centers his argument
becomes a metaphor for delivering critical
information to the customer. Gilbane focuses his
discussion of the Catalog as part of the sales
cycle. We know that companies spend money on sales
even in the worst of times.
I argue that we need to look beyond the sales
cycle to the entire support chain. I credit David
Davidoff of Enigma with alerting me to the support
chain concept in content management. The support
chain contains the entire process of delivering
information and learning to customers as they
consider, purchase, configure, and use our
products. At each stage in the support chain,
customers rely on information.
For the complex technical products that we
support, some of the critical support chain
information comes from humans. The sales
representative and the applications engineer
engage the customer directly, providing
demonstrations, explanations, and working models
with customer data. Because our products are
typically very difficult to touch, we rely on
people to present information. At the decision and
purchase stages, those people come from the sales
and consulting teams. Afterward, the key people
are from training and customer service.
Yet we recognize that for most technical products,
the people, no matter how much they are preferred
by our customers, cannot stand alone. Their
efforts must be supported by content that is
effectively managed for accuracy, completeness,
appropriateness, and accessibility.
We need to regard our function in content
management as the linchpin, the key part that
holds all the others together. The information
that we generate, or others generate and we help
make understandable and retrievable, should be the
core of the content-management solution. This
information is distributed to marketing, sales,
customer service, consulting, and training. They
may reuse the information intact or modify it for
their own needs. The content-management system
must, in fact, support both direct reuse and
modifications that remain linked to the source
information. But, most important, we must partner
with all of these organizations to obtain
feedback. Each member of the support chain
provides value to the information collected under
content management. They note shortcomings and
omissions, find errors, and discover better ways
to explain, at least partially closing the
feedback loop to the end-customer.
My advice, then, is to consider the role of
information development in the support chain.
Establish a partnership with the other key
players. Together you will find the support and
funding for a comprehensive content-management
solution.
Critical reading: If you haven't yet read Dr.
Michael Hammer's description of the Support Chain
problem, download it today. It's critical reading
for ID managers. Find the white paper at
Enigma's Web site.
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