Online content. The quest for control seems never ending, the growth overwhelming. The endeavor to manage it has become more a question of how than why.

The first newsletter in the "Pursuit of Quality Online Content" series gave an overview of the importance of delivering valuable Web site content to your online customers. The second newsletter provided insight and tips to improve the content on your site using specific online copywriting methods and usability recommendations.

Getting a handle on all your content is another matter altogether.

Looking at some history
Content Management Systems, or CMS, have been at the forefront of business technology solutions for a number of years and have experienced several periods of change.

The top CMS vendors watched their stock prices fall after the dot-com bubble burst. Many have remained low. Faced with shrinking IT budgets, customers began to slow the rate of new and add-on software acquisitions and instead focused on maintaining the status-quo and "cleaning house." Vendors found new and add-on sales generation difficult and turned to product support improvements as a means of maintaining their existing customer base.

Technology analysts began to warn of "imminent, massive consolidation within the CMS software industry."¹ Existing customers became nervous…how long would their highly expensive software packages be viable and who would end up supporting them? Potential customers were wary…which vendor appeared the most stable and should they consider a mid-market solution or a custom built application instead?

Most of the consolidation fears were never realized. In fact, the CMS market seems to be picking up. Over the past year or so the top CMS vendors began expanding their toolsets through acquisitions and many have added the term " Enterprise " to their product names and scopes. These products seek to support the full life-cycle of information throughout an organization. From documents, databases, media and records, to online content and email. The term "ECM"—Enterprise Content Management—is now synonymous with "CMS" at the top levels of the market.

Add to this frenzy a host of middle- and low-cost vendors and the market has become more confusing than ever.

So, what is it about CMS that keeps it hot and full of hype? And why should you care?

Handling the information overload
Content management tools address very real business needs. When companies began publishing online information, it was typically in a manageable form and quantity. That quickly changed. Research data published prior to May 2001 stated that "the volume of Web content [was] doubling every 110 days."² Given that this data was published almost three years ago, it's not a difficult stretch to assume that the rate has since increased. The University of California-Berkeley published the following findings in 2003 based on research data from 2002³:

• "Print, film, magnetic, and optical storage media produced about 5 exabytes⁴ of new information in 2002. Ninety-two percent of the new information was stored on magnetic media, mostly on hard disks."
• "Five exabytes of information is equivalent in size to the information contained in half a million new libraries the size of the Library of Congress print collections."
• "The World Wide Web contains about 170 terabytes of information on its surface; in volume this is seventeen times the size of the Library of Congress print collections."

With this ever-increasing amount of content online, it's no wonder that Webmasters and their departments have become publishing bottlenecks. The CMS niche grew out of this information overload and the resulting cumbersome publishing processes.

Balancing skills and knowledge
One of the biggest selling points of CMS is the empowerment of non-technical users with Web publishing capabilities. Through CMS, business users can contribute content without knowing HTML~. And while it's never that simplistic or straightforward, it's a far cry from training HTML experts in every department/division or relying on one department to handle all of your online content needs. Furthermore, HTML skills can only go so far with dynamic, data-driven sites where highly skilled (and typically high salaried) developers are required to create and maintain a functional, engaging and consistent site.

Content management applications seek to strike a balance between low technical skills and a high level of detailed information—to simplify the communication or delivery of the information online. Therefore, an ever present and underlying goal of CMS is to enable business personnel to use a complex and robust tool with a simple and straightforward interface. It's a logical approach. Your business personnel know your product or service better than anyone and they understand the mission critical information. They should be the ones deciding what gets published online and how users need to interact with it.

The usability of a product's interface can make or break implementation success and determine a product's longevity within an organization. Will your business users find the product intuitive and easy to navigate or will they require extensive training and support to perform simple tasks? Pay attention to other customers' ease-of-use experiences with products you are interested in. A difficult interface can quickly turn business users off and winning back their support can be difficult.

Also, be aware that even with an excellent user interface, content management applications will require development and user training support, especially for products at the ECM level. "Out-of-the-box" and "plug-and-play" capabilities are not all they seem, even with low-cost solutions. Consider that every Web site is unique in structure and presentation and the necessary level of complexity, customization and instruction will start to become clear.

Gaining consistency
Another key benefit of implementing CMS comes from consistencies gained in branding, your online message and the overall user experience. CMS allow a development team to control the look, feel and flow of a site, typically through the use of full page or component (header, pull-quote, body, etc.) templates. This structure enables standardization with brand presentation, navigation elements, design styles and functionality. Content contributors can stay focused on the information and not be concerned with other elements (easier said than done).

Users will benefit from the organized approach and quickly set their expectations when using the site. A consistent brand location provides validation that users are on the right site and the navigation as well as the design elements (headers, link colors, buttons) start to become familiar and learned.

Integrating workflow
The benefits of content approval within CMS are often overshadowed by content publishing improvements. Workflow processes build in automated checks and balances to ensure content consistency and accuracy (especially claims that require legal support). It also allows another set of eyes to check for editorial errors and proper-functioning elements (hyperlinks, form submissions, etc.).

Workflow extends the sense of ownership in your Web site to employees beyond content contributors. By actively participating in the online message, these employees will naturally become closer to the content and thereby more in tune with the direction of your online business.

Publishing speeds
Deployment times can be drastically reduced using most high-end CMS powered tools. Gone are the days of wading through directories for updated files to FTP to the Web server. Deployments can be predefined, controlled and even automated, all but eliminating the publishing bottleneck that has plagued so many organizations and their Webmasters.

Complying with regulations
With the advent of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, public companies face increased regulations and reporting procedures. CMS vendors were quick to point out the power of their toolsets to address new needs of content security and records retention through version control measures and document histories. Consider the following excerpts from the article, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Compliance," from the December 1, 2003, issue of CIO Magazine⁵:

"A year ago, everyone was afraid of Sarbanes-Oxley. It looked as if companies were going to have to spend millions automating everything from ledger balancing to revenue accounting. Compliance promised to become a new cottage industry for software vendors. Now, it appears none of that need happen."

"Both the proposed and the final versions of the SEC rule require companies to identify weak points in their internal control processes and take steps to mitigate the risks those weaknesses create. But rather than making it necessary for companies to fix control weaknesses through automation, the new rule neither requires nor regulates how companies do it…

That means it's left up to the enterprise to decide whether it wants to make a significant investment in technology that will automate its manual processes (which are still found in most every company) or make a smaller investment in additional people to run around and do the double-checking. And because no one is sure how the SEC will enforce the current rule or whether future changes will make the Sarbanes-Oxley Act tighter or looser, many companies are choosing the latter route. If they're wrong, there still will be time to buy and implement automation technology. If they're right, a small cost in human resources now will allow them to make IT investments on their own time line, not the government's."

CMS is one of the automation technologies that can help you become better prepared for regulations. But, let's be clear. Anytime new processes are implemented, you achieve a higher level of organization and automation, both of which will help you gain critical structure and control.

It's also important to remember that there are many other technologies and factors to consider in light of regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley—internal accounting and reporting procedures, add-on functionality for existing financial management systems, business process management systems (BPM), records management (RM) systems, data warehousing and hardware storage requirements just to name a few.

Enabling integration
The content published on your Web site often has more than one purpose, function, target audience and location. One example is investor information. Much of the background and overview information found in your online investor section will come straight from the hard copy corporate annual report. No doubt you'll also want accurate daily investment data made available on your public Web site for your customers and shareholders as well as on your Intranet for your employees.

Achieving efficient content reuse and repurposing like this can be challenging. CMS tools can help by storing pieces of information in one central repository and even distributing to various ending points as you direct. While some of this functionality is available through add-on toolsets such as portal technologies, a CMS application can get you started with content organization and compartmentalization.

Supporting search
It's widely accepted and proven that the more structured your content, the more successful search functionality will be on your site. Structure can point a search engine to the right components, such as page titles or key words, to help drive accurate results. A CMS application is ideally suited to lend this type of structure to your site.

Many CMS applications have built-in or add-on metadata and keyword generation tools that integrate within existing content contributor processes, once again empowering those who are close to the information to maintain some control over how the user will interact with it. Also, many top- and mid-level CMS vendors have partnered their products with well known search engines to achieve greater integration and more accurate search results.

Additional considerations
There are many other things to keep in mind when considering CMS for your company. Here are just a few:

• Balance of power: Who is responsible for the look, feel and flow of the site within the CMS templates and who is responsible for the content? Are you prepared to address criticism from one group to another? Do business users have a voice in the functionality of the site?
• Presenting a united front: If given content reigns, will the various business users/groups become too self-focused and create micro-companies on your site? Will they stand behind the bigger picture and work within it?
• Organizational change management: How receptive are your business users to adopting new processes and responsibilities?
• In-house resources: Are you able to provide in-house user training? Does your existing development staff have the skills to administer and support the technology?
• Product integration and expansion: Will the product integrate with existing/legacy systems, processes and applications? Is the product capable of expansion?

Conclusion
There is validity to the hype surrounding content management. CMS applications can be found on the technology tool belts of companies of all types and sizes. CMS initiatives offer process improvements, help your online content stay fresh and accurate, and keep you close to your customers.

No technology initiative is easy. CMS implementations require careful planning, significant process changes, employee- and corporate-level commitment, and long term support.

Throughout the "Pursuit of Quality Online Content" series, we've emphasized the value and importance of your online content to both your customers and your internal operations. Your approach to achieving the highest quality of online content can be like building blocks. First become aware of the value, then strive for clear and action inspiring copy and finally implement tools and processes that will support the content life-cycle—from creation to approval to delivery. Follow these steps and you'll be well on your way to a high quality and successful online presence.

Article References

1. "What to Make of ECM Mergers and Acquisitions." Tony Byrne, CMSWatch. August 28, 2003.
2. "Online Content Still Mushrooming... for better or worse." CMSWatch, November 1, 2003.
3. "How Much Information? 2003." Executive Summary, The University of California-Berkeley.
4. The prefix Kilo represents 1000 1 or 1,000. Exa comes from the Greek word hex, meaning six, and represents 1000 6 or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000.
5. "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Compliance." Ben Worthen, CIO Magazine. December 1, 2003.

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