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I feel like I have been doing Content Management for my whole life. It actually has been a long time, but the real calculation places me just short of 1/3 of my life. In that time, I have run the gamut in terms of "What is Content Management". I have been through Web Content Management, Enterprise Content Management, Records Management, Catalog Management and more. Content Management can take many forms, but I wanted to look at it a little closer and see what makes "sense". What makes "sense" in this world of ever reducing costs is to be able to do content management better, faster and cheaper both today and in the long-run.
The first thing I look at is we need to agree that following the KISS method is of the utmost importance. (Keep It Simple Stupid).
The second thing to look at is your Information Architecture. After realizing that Content Management needs to be easy, this is the most important in order to understand so that all of your base level pages, media types and content items can be defined. Your solution should be able to accept new media types and the addition of pages should be simple and straight forward. By identifying your content types and what pages they live on, new pages and new content can be easily automated.
Many people feel strongly that the creative defines the content management system, however this is one of the biggest mistakes in the field. Since we all know the only constant in life is change, we can assume that the creative will change and in some cases change significantly. When this happens, it is important that the content management solution doesn't need to be rebuilt. Content types should be defined by what they are, not how they look. Defining content in this manner is called loose definition and it allows for the best reuse of content and the most flexibility. Most pure content sites can be handled with less than 5 content types (navigation item, media item, article item, and promotion). CSS can and should handle the details. Since we know the sites will change every 12-18 months, changing the out the content management system (CMS) as well makes even having a CMS questionable based on the cost to implement one. there is no ROI in saving 500K by having a CMS if it costs you 700K to implement it every 12 months.
The next question is eCommerce. Products are just content at the end of the day, and should they really be managed as anything other than as another content type? The obvious answer is no. I am amazed how often I see content and products managed by different systems. The cost for something like this is almost unimaginable. Now, a product may be a more strictly defined content type depending on the requirements for making attributes searchable.
“Keeping it Simple” means keeping your content simple and keeping the number of solutions simple. If multiple solutions are in place for products and other content, it might be time to re-evaluate your solution to something like ATG (Art Technology Group) as a solution that handles all content within a single application. Additionally, if your system has more that 10 content types, it might be time to re-evaluate your solution to see where things can be streamlined in order to not have the cost of implementation become a barrier to entry for updating your site and keeping your brand fresh.