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JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD
CIDM Director
www.infomanagementcenter.com
"Where is that white paper we need for the new product Web
page? Isn't Jan writing it? Has she finished? Was Tom
supposed to approve it? Did Jan get it to him already? We're
supposed to have it up on the site by Friday at 5 pm. I
guess I'll have to call Jan to find out if she'll make the
deadline. I know Tom is on the road; I wonder if he's
reading his email?"
If this scenario sounds familiar, you are not alone.
Managing even the simplest content has inherent problems.
Whether you have tens or thousands of employees, content
doesn't happen by accident. Unfortunately, many developers
of Web content-management systems seem to believe that
content has no life cycle before it appears at the door of
the Web manager.
Despite all assumptions to the contrary, content has a long
and sometimes convoluted life before it is ready to go live.
But in too many organizations, that life cycle starts on
someone's hard drive and remains there under little or no
management. In a typical case, content begins with Jan, who
gets the assignment to prepare a white paper. She's not the
subject-matter expert (SME) on third-tier widgets, so she
has to begin by finding those who are and getting copies of
whatever information they have on their hard drives or
departmental servers. Most of the time, those nuggets of
source material are transferred by the SMEs to the content
developer by email. Now there are two copies of the source
material, one on the SMEs' drives and another in the
document that Jan is preparing. If the SMEs update any of
the source information, it will be sheer luck if Jan finds
out. The success of an informal information flow depends
upon having conscientious people with extra time on their
hands.
Content Access
With content management, as soon as the white paper is in
the planning stages, the source material on the SMEs' hard
drives is checked into the content database with appropriate
labels to categorize the content that trace it back to the
originators. The categorization of content (using metadata
dimensions) follows a scheme that promotes the interests and
concerns of the business. The categorization scheme might
include administrative information about the authors as well
as categorization that label the information according to
brand, product model or version, geography, language, and
others.
An author like Jan designates a "virtual" location in a
working area once she begins work on the white paper. All
the source material is catalogued in the working area while
the white paper is under development. Anyone who might have
to take over Jan's responsibilities in an emergency knows
exactly where to find all the relevant material without
chasing around to different departments, getting access to
obscure server areas, or finding people who might know where
the sources originated.
But you might argue, can't we handle source control by
having well-labeled work areas, folders, and files without
content management? Just what value does content management
add to the equation?
Jan's working area is just one small piece of a much bigger
content-management problem. In most organizations, there are
thousands of folders holding tens of thousands of files,
many of them applicable to more than one ongoing project.
Searches that are restricted to file and folder names rarely
yield usable results. Finding a particular piece of source
material is like finding the proverbial needle in the
haystack, but now there's not a single haystack but hundreds
of them.
Content-management systems provide mechanisms for assigning
metadata to individual documents or even elements within
documents if additional granularity is needed. For known
situations, much of the metadata needed to identify the
author, subject, date, and other data can be automated or
semi-automated so that the author selects from a
predetermined and limited set.
Automated content analysis and categorizing tools are also
making a strong entry into the content-management market.
The purpose of these tools is to analyze and label content
using textual and domain analyses, sometimes including
elaborate context algorithms. Be aware, however, that
automated analysis has its limitations. If the authoring
environment is under your control, a well-planned taxonomy
with authoring aids may be easier to implement and maintain.
Workflow
As Jan works on the white paper, she sends some of the
content out for review to the SMEs and to the product
managers who are responsible for the final approvals. When
her draft is ready, she checks the draft back into the
content-management system and updates its status. An
automated workflow system routes it to the appropriate
parties through email notification. Blake finds out, for
example, that the section of the white paper that discusses
his product segment is ready for review. He clicks on a link
to the document in the automatic email that checks the
document out of the content-management system (securing it
from others while Blake is reviewing) and opens it in
Acrobat. Blake uses the online comment facility to mark up
the copy and add notes. When he's through, he checks the
document back into the system. Workflow routes the draft
back to Jan, who can accept or reject the edits and make
revisions.
Automated workflow proves to be a significant productivity
enhancement in most organizations, but as you evaluate
content-management systems be aware that workflow products
differ considerably. Some allow only simple activities and
limit the number of workflow scripts that can be developed.
If you have complex workflows that require custom
programming to enhance usability, be certain to write a
comprehensive requirements definition before evaluating
competing systems.
Supporting Version Control
Jan is ready to send the white paper out for final approval
before it is published to the company's Web site. She checks
the draft in as complete and the workflow system routes it
to the VP of Marketing. The marked up copy Jan gets back
indicates that the VP would like to see a stronger Return on
Investment (ROI) analysis in the paper. In a previous
version, Jan had included that analysis but had decided to
omit it because of comments from the engineering people. She
uses the content-management system to trace back to the
earlier version where she had added a note that she'd
removed the ROI analysis. She then inserts the ROI section
into her final copy. She routes it back to the VP, who signs
off immediately. Version control saves her time because she
will not have to write the ROI analysis again, and it helps
her make changes easily.
Version control and check-in/check-out security provides
staff members with the flexibility and security they need to
manage content during the development life cycle, well
before it is deployed on an intranet or Internet site.
Not only does content management support information that
will be published to the Web, but it also supports an
information-development life cycle that is completely
internal to an organization. Content authors are able to
secure their information, make information easily available
to others in their workflow, and provide access to
information that they need to enhance internal business
activities.
In any organization, information created in one part of the
organization is critical to the business activities of many
other parts of the organization. But for the most part, that
information is difficult to locate. Typically, content is
exchanged through a flood of emails. Behind every email
interchange is the time spent by each staff member to
request information and fulfill the requests of others.
Calculating the Cost of Content Chaos
How much does this unproductive activity cost? More than
you would imagine. Conservatively, staff members spend 5 to
10 percent of their time locating content and directing it
to others. What is the cost of 5 to 10 percent of people
time in your organization? Even if you calculate only the
time spent by core staff, you will easily end up with
millions of dollars of lost productivity in a mid-size
organization.
So—is content management in your future? If you don't think
so today, think again.
Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery
JoAnn T. Hackos
John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 0-471-08586-3
For more information about the book, visit
the Comtech Web site
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