Simple Content Management
Unfortunately in business many have the notion that “weblog” software is for blogs. All to often I see businesses investing thousands in Content Management Systems costing anywhere from $10,000.00 and up, yet as Jeffry Veens writes in Why Content Management Systems Fail
The idea is enticing. Empowered departments of a big enterprise, all publishing content directly to their customers through standard templates. The site continues to grow, but in a controlled way. And these business units have complete control of what is and isn’t online.
Sounds good, but just try putting it into practice. In a report published last year, Jupiter Research uncovered some startling findings. “Of just under 100 companies…only 27 percent of companies surveyed planned to continue using their Web content management systems as they do now.”
This was written back in 2004 and the situation hasn’t changed. What’s the problem?
A recent post at ExpressionEngine shows this is very relevant today:
SPX Cooling Technologies switches to EE
We are the leading cooling tower manufacturer in the world with over $1 billion in sales and offices in 20 countries. Our parent company, SPX Corporation, is a Fortune 500 company and still produce their website with Dreamweaver - yikes. We built our site exclusively in ExpressionEngine and launched it in December, 2006. It’s been three months now and we’ve had a chance to shake out all of the quirks.
We abandoned our $50,000 Vignette installation as our CMS after it took too long to develop pages, was too complex, and didn’t allow for flexibility. Thanks for making ExpressionEngine!
I would suggest it’s the attitude that bigger and more costly is the answer to content problems. That an inexpensive solution isn’t viable and that if a $10,000.00 (or $50,000), system is problematical or cannot do it, then how could one costing $250.00 work?
Jeff continues:
...But there is a larger issue at play. Even the most thoughtful projects may be misguided. Over and over I’ve heard the same complaint about these projects, “Turns out, after all the budget and time we spent, we really didn’t need a content management system at all. We just needed some editors.”
...Content management is not a technology problem. If you’re having trouble managing the content on your Web site, it’s because you have an editorial process problem. Your public-facing Web site is a publication. Treat it like one.
What is needed is an easy to customize CMS. Expression Engine fits the bill. Do not make the error of thinking of these as blogging software, or course they can be and often are, but it is so much more. The template system publishes anything put in them.
That feature makes it possible to manage your entire website for all editing and publishing requirements.