This is a good guide for professionals wanting to understand how more about managing global content. From the basics of why use a content management system (CMS) and a (GTMS), to comparing some of the options, from ways to improve processes to looking at system requirements, this publication is packed full of useful information for both the seasoned professional changing technologies, and for the newbie looking to get started on the right foot.

I’m happy to have contributed in a brief way, discussing some considerations when choosing a CMS. This report is available, along with other Best Practice Guides, from the LISA site. The cost of the report is well worth the modest cost, considering the potential cost of even a “small” mistake during an implementation.

For communicators and other content developers, the keyboard is like a paintbrush, and the tool the canvas used to fix the words and images into place as part of the bigger picture. When writers, for instance, knows a tool extremely well, they can devote 90% of their cognitive load to the thought process behind writing, and the other 10% works in the background at the task processing – keystrokes, pointing and clicking, dragging and dropping – without really being aware of what commands are being invoked, because it’s so mundane.

When a new system is implemented, during the adjustment period, the world changes. For the initial period, a large proportion of brain power now becomes devoted to the task processing, as the writers have to remember both the new business processes, the new paradigm within the application, and the new keystroke combinations that go with them. This reduces the amount of cognitive load left for the higher-level thought processing. Instead of the previous 90:10 ratio, it could drop to 20:80 the first week, 25:75 the second week, 50:50 the third week, and so on, until the writers feel comfortable with the new system and have internalized the new system.
The speed with which staff can return to a 90:10 is critical to their feeling of well being, and that depends on how usable the system is – system, not product, which I will explain in the next paragraph. The more usable the system, the less resistance to adoption; the less resistance to adoption, the higher the acceptance rate.

To understand tools usability, understand system usability
A CMS implementation is not simply the implementation of a tool; it is the implementation of a system (a group of independent but interrelated elements comprising a unified whole) that includes process control and change management (which, together, make up about 90% of the project), which is then enabled by a sophisticated tool called a CMS (choosing the tool should take up about 10% of the project). I’ve posted a slide on SlideShare called The Usability of CMS that demonstrates the synergy between the various components.
In any CMS implementation, the goal is to achieve some business goal (such as get to market faster or meet regulatory requirements) by improving processes. So to the logical start to making the tool more usable is making the processes more usable. If that doesn’t make sense, read on. Human nature is such that we take the path of least resistance. If a process is complicated and cumbersome, and there is an easier, more efficient way or doing something – even if it only seems that way – people will find many ways to work around the official way of getting something done. Therefore, to get usability of a tool, you need usable processes. This means paying meticulous attention to the processes you intend to implement.

Numerous systemic changes will need to be addressed within the organization, which you’ll no doubt discover as soon as you start changing processes, and these end up taking as much or more time than anything else in a project. Just as you wouldn’t begin constructing a building without extensive planning and ongoing discussions about how the project is going, you wouldn’t simply jump into buying and implementing a corporate tool that could have critical-path implications without going through the steps of due diligence such a project deserves. As well, the process changes are likely to create changes to roles and responsibilities, which will change the dynamic within the department or between departments. Recent surveys have also shown that roughly 25% of communicators have a hard time transitioning to structured content. This doesn’t necessarily mean that these people become redundant to an organization, but it does mean that a skills re-assessment should be undertaken by a professional who can help with the department re-organization that plays to staff strengths in the new reality.

Once your have the process changes and the change management issues under control, only then, should you be looking at software, because once you’ve worked on your processes and change management issues, you’ll come to table armed with the use cases, IT requirements, and corporate requirements that you need to be able to explain to the potential vendors what you need their software to do. Also, because you’ll be clear in your mind about your requirements, you’ll be less distracted in figuring out what features you want to see, and you can then focus on how the vendor delivers those features, and determine whether the usability of their tool will work for your organization once the vendor has done the customizations. (Vendors will love you for this, as well.) It’s important to ask the “how” question because every vendor thinks their product is “intuitive” and “robust” and all those words that have relative definitions. What you need to take responsibility for is understanding how key features work so that you can determine whether they are suitable for your particular organization.

All three factors – process control, change management, and CM tools – must be present to make the system usable, and these factors must work together to make the system effective and ensure timely user adoption.

I did make it there for my own presentation on Content Management Success: Separating Fact from Fantasy, Marketing from Mayhem, and Silliness from Sensibility, but only by inching backwards out of a meeting at a client site and disappearing out the door and making a mad dash downtown. Despite being pitted against some industry heavies, the session was well-attended and a number of people stayed later to ask questions. What seemed to resonate was the whole SharePoint issue. Let’s be clear, folks. You cannot use SharePoint to create, manage, and generate technical documentation!

I often use vehicles as a metaphor for content management – CM is basically a vehicle to move content around in sophisticated ways to accomplish a business purpose. SharePoint is mainly for document management systems, and can manage some Web content. But for component content management, don’t bother. Let me explain.

There is a TV reality show called Jon and Kate Plus Eight about couple with twins and sextuplets, all under the age of six. They have serious vehicle needs. When they took a multiple-day trip to Disneyland, they packed up a full-size van for their eight children in their eight car seats, and towed a full U-Haul because they had very specific requirements: 8 children with car seats, food, supplies, and so on. If we were talking moving content instead of children, then giving them SharePoint would be like renting them a bicycle. Of course, the rental agency (a.k.a. the IT department) would talk about all the benefits: you get your daily workout while using it, a bicycle is good for the environment, your don’t have to pay for carbon offsets, and it’s so affordable. Yes, very affordable – if you don’t count the amount of lost productivity, sales, and deceleration in production (or marketing or other corporate area) roadmap due to efficiency loss. What you need is the work horse of the content management world: a component content management system that can process content in sophisticated ways and generate it to multiple outputs.

The audience members who do use SharePoint agreed that it is a good place to output the documents that come out of the super-robust content management system, as long as you have a good version control system to go with it. Having a good SharePoint integrator makes a huge difference in how SharePoint works, but there were some “big name” organizations in the room, and the common version control system in the room was eerily similar. It went something like this:
- Create a folder where the document goes.
- Create a sub-folder called “Archive”.
- Give the document a suffix that includes the creation date, time, and the author’s initials.
- Before uploading any new version, copy the old version to your desktop.
- Copy the old version to the Archive subfolder.
- Delete the old version from the main folder.
- Change the suffix of the document to reflect the new time and date.
- Upload to indicate that it is the latest version.

Enough said on that topic. More about DocTrain West in my next post.

This report, authored by Ann Rockley and other consultants from The Rockley Group, has been in the works for over a year, and runs well over 300 pages. And so it should, as it covers both authoring systems and component content management systems. The information in the report stays true to the CMS format: unbiased, unvarnished, and fair opinions of the vendors in this space. There is enough information for a technical reader to understand the difference between this type of CMS and the other types available. There is a good argument for an executive reader to understand what the business benefits are, and why taking what may seem to be the easy road could result in costly setbacks. There is enough detailed information for the front-line users to grasp what they’re getting themselves into, and how this can benefit them.

The report is budget-priced, given the TCO of any system being put in. For example, Part 4 of the report is comprised of relatively universal scenarios, followed by decision-making keys that demonstrate how to take a critical look at a system and its features. To use an apt analogy, this report is the equivalent of the Consumer Reports New car Buying Guide: don’t go shopping without it.

The short answer is about breaking down silos – as we move to content management, we may not have desktop silos or department silos, but have we simply replaced that with a content management silo? The demands on content – to be flexible, portable, re-usable, recyclable, with the ability to syndicate, aggregate, converge, and integrate – are growing exponentially. The technologies are replicating faster than we and our IT departments can keep up. How is a person to keep up? Read the interview.

Woman, Idiot, Lunatic, Criminal were the categories of people not allowed to vote. The play puts a new spin on the story of women’s suffrage, a story that is fresh news for women around the world.

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