| |
Choose The Right Content Management System For You
By crown peak
With an explosion of online content there is consequently an explosion of content management systems (CMS) available to help you manage that content, with literally thousands of vendors to sift through. But most CMS' still end up being too expensive, too difficult to maintain, and eventually inadequate. This is often the result of purchase decisions based on technology, and not business requirements.
So then, how are CMS solutions chosen? You will usually compare product features, ask friends and colleagues, and look to different analyst ratings. In theory, this should be an excellent way to pick the right solution and sometimes it is. But content management systems have been around for over two decades and the features and functionality for the most part are starting to become commoditized. The 'bells and whistles' that these solutions try to distinguish themselves with, ultimately have no bearing on your content-specific needs. And this is why most solutions you purchase will end up being junked after they fail to do what is asked of them.
To ensure successful implementation and adoption, the CMS solution must be implemented like any other large enterprise application, with clear objectives and systematic planning mechanisms. So lets look at some best practices that should be on everyones checklist before deploying any CMS within your organization.
#1 Define CMS Goals
Before installing a CMS, it is extremely important to identify key business goals that must be achieved. Business goals can be defined around parameters like productivity, efficiency, quality, ROI, or branding. Without this clear vision of the business goals, CMS implementations are very likely to fail. It is not surprising to find that most CMS implementations often overshoot budgets and in the long run, consume far more time, energy and resources than ever expected--just to stay functional.
Think of this step like vacationing in an exotic locale. You can go two ways: hope that when you get there, everything you need and want to do will be waiting for you. Or like most of us you plan accordingly: where you're going to stay, what sites you will visit, and find all the best deals in the process. Which makes more sense to you?
#2 Evaluate the Content Information Landscape
The next step is to start gathering details of your content information landscape. Rather than looking only at technology, you should look at how processes,
Article :: Adobe Fireworks CS5: A Rock-Solid Contender
Jim Babbage, coauthor of <a href="http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321704487">Adobe Fireworks CS5 Classroom in a Book</a>, reports on some of the many changes in the newest version of Fireworks, with particular emphasis on mobile design and efficiency improvements.
Article :: The HTML Pocket Guide: Lists
HTML affords you three list types: definition list (dl), ordered list (ol), and unordered list (ul). Bruce Hyslop explains each in depth in their respective entries in this chapter.
Article :: Flexible Web Layouts with CSS3 Media Queries
Can your website handle the various screen sizes and other features of modern electronics? Chris Mills, one of the authors of <a href="http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321703529">InterACT with Web Standards: A Holistic Approach to Web Design</a>, shows how to use CSS3 media queries to combine multiple CSS formatting options into a single stylesheet, optimizing your site to adapt dynamically to match any device.
Article :: Time to Learn PHP? Dreamweaver CS5 Is Here to Help You
David Powers, author of <a href="http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321719840">Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 with PHP: Training from the Source</a>, discusses the dramatic improvements to PHP support in Dreamweaver CS5 that should appeal to designers and serious coders alike.
Article :: Working with Type in the Adobe Illustrator CS5 Perspective Grid
In print or online, readers are unimpressed by text that's just plonked down onto a graphical background. On the other hand, type with tasteful effects can make a publication or web page much more inviting. David Karlins, author of <a href="http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321719867">Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium How-Tos: Essential Techniques</a>, shows how to manipulate text in Adobe Illustrator CS5 to lend great visual perspective.
Article :: Designing CSS Page Layouts with Dreamweaver CS5
David Karlins, author of <a href="http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321719867">Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium How-Tos: Essential Techniques</a>, is enjoying the improved page layout capabilities of Dreamweaver CS5. In this tutorial, he demonstrates some of his favorite features.
Article :: InterACT with Web Standards: Positioning
Chris Mills covers positioning, one of the hardest concepts to grasp in CSS. He also sneaks in some words about z-index and media queries for an extra special crunchy treat.
Article :: InterACT with Web Standards: Learning from the Web
Much like anything, learning effectively on the Web requires a skill set that goes beyond constructing a solid keyword search in Google. Denise R. Jacobs shows you how to identify your learning style, introduces you to useful online tools, and explains the best ways to collaborate, share, and find inspiration.
Article :: The Usual Suspects: Detecting and Preventing the Most Common Culprits Behind CSS Problems
Denise R. Jacobs, author of <a href="http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321683943">The CSS Detective Guide: Tricks for Solving Tough CSS Mysteries</a>, presents a lineup of the biggest CSS troublemakers. By arresting these problems in your code, you can create smooth layouts in which all the elements are good citizens.
Article :: Modifying Drupal Themes with Dreamweaver CS5
In this tutorial, David Karlins shows how easily you can change the look and feel of a Drupal website with the help of new features in Dreamweaver CS5.
Article :: The Case for Designing with Progressive Enhancement
Learn how to create sites that deliver the highly interactive experiences that JavaScript, advanced CSS, and Ajax afford, and at the same time ensure that the very same codebase will work everywhere.
Article :: The JavaScript Pocket Guide: Arrays
Arrays and loops have endless uses in JavaScript programming. Lenny Burdette tells you all about arrays.
Article :: Effortless Flex 4 Development: Inline Event Handling
Larry Ullman shows you how to work with inline event handling in this excerpt from his book, <a href="http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321705947">Effortless Flex 4 Development</a>.
Article :: Introduction to The CSS Detective Guide
Denise R. Jacobs introduces HTML best practices: document structure, good semantics, and tag structure. From there, she moves on to CSS, including rule structure, getting the styles into your documents, and commenting.
Article :: The CSS Detective Guide: The Case of the Devilish Details
Help Denise R. Jacobs solve the mystery of CSS code gone wrong in this case study from her book, <a href="http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321683943">The CSS Detective Guide: Tricks for solving tough CSS mysteries</a>.
Article :: Adobe® ColdFusion® 9 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 1: Introducing ColdFusion Builder
One of the most exciting and eagerly anticipated additions in Adobe® ColdFusion® 9 is the ColdFusion® Builder™, a new development environment designed specifically for us ColdFusion developers. Ben Forta describes the relationship between ColdFusion Builder and Eclipse and helps you get started with ColdFusion Builder.
Article :: Adobe Flex 4: Training from the Source, Volume 1 - Using Simple Controls
An important part of any application is the user interface, and Adobe Flex contains elements such as buttons, text fields, and radio buttons that make building interfaces easier. This lesson shows you how to add user interface elements to enable the customer to find more details about the grocery items and begin the checkout process.
Article :: Adobe® Flash® Catalyst™ CS5 - A Smart Choice for Web Designers
Using Flash Catalyst, designers can publish working Flex applications without writing a single line of code. Scott Tapley takes a look at ten features and benefits that make Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5 a smart choice for anyone who produces interactive content for the web or desktop.
Article :: Effortless Flex 4 Development: Fundamental Concepts of Event Management
In order for applications to be truly a user experience (which is to say, interactive), you need to know how to manage events. Larry Ullman shows you how event management works in Flex 4.
Article :: Adobe® Dreamweaver® CS5 Classroom in a Book: Creating Style Sheets for Other Media Types
By creating and attaching style sheets optimized for other media, the specific browsing application can select the appropriate style sheet and formatting for its own needs. In this exercise, you?ll convert a CSS screen-media file to one optimized for print.
Article :: Adobe® Dreamweaver® CS5 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide - Working with Local and Remote Sites
Adobe® Dreamweaver® CS5 has all the tools you?ll need to create your web site, work with its files and folders, and then transfer it to the Web server. Tom Negrino and Dori Smith explain local and remote sites and how to create the local site.
Article :: Adobe® Fireworks® CS5 Classroom in a Book: Using the Compound Shape Tool
The Compound Shape tool lets you temporarily group multiple vector shapes together as you draw them, making it easy to move the objects at the same time, yet also allowing for quick and easy editing of any shape within the compound group. This excerpt from <em>Adobe® Fireworks® CS5 Classroom in a Book</em> shows you how to use the Compound Shape tool.
Article :: Adobe® Flash® Catalyst™ CS5 Classroom in a Book: Preparing a Design Document
The way you approach the design and organization of your artwork has a significant impact on the structure of the project in Flash Catalyst and the underlying code. This excerpt from <em>Adobe® Flash® Catalyst™ CS5 Classroom in a Book</em> will help protect the integrity of your design and minimize re-working or re-structuring assets after bringing them into Flash Catalyst.
Article :: Adobe® Flash® Professional CS5 Classroom in a Book: Creating Symbols
In this lesson, you will select the different parts of the imported Illustrator graphic, and then convert the various pieces to symbols.
Article :: Adobe® Illustrator® CS5 Classroom in a Book: Editing the Perspective Grid
This excerpt from <em>Adobe® Illustrator® CS5 Classroom in a Book</em> shows you how to edit the Perspective Grid.
business rules, and the content are defined.
With these details on the content information landscape, parameters can be defined for CMS selection. The CMS purchased should also easily integrate with multiple systems that affect this landscape as well as are necessary to help meet your defined business goals - such as campaign management systems or CRM applications. The sequitur here is: dont purchase CMS before clearly defining your requirements. You will save yourself time and resources with a clearly envisioned road map to guide you.
#3 Select the Right CMS Solution for Your Organization
Selecting the right CMS involves consideration of a host of factors, including:
1. Ease of use for users and IT administrators
Like any other business application, the success of a CMS depends on adoption by the end user community. Subject matter experts (SMEs) with no technical knowledge must be absolutely comfortable using the system to achieve the exact look and feel they want for content presentation. Similarly, IT administrators must be able to easily enforce policies across multiple Websites using a single console, and integrate the CMS effortlessly into the organizations IT landscape. Consider everyones roles and responsibilities and make sure the CMS can meet those demands.
Speed of deployment
There is a direct correlation between CMS implementation/configuration time and costs incurred. A CMS that requires extensive coding will definitely increase implementation costs. Hence, a CMS will only be effective if it can be rapidly configured and deployed, and as such, requires minimal training for use by non-technical professionals.
Total-cost-of-ownership (TCO)
Most organizations make the classic mistake of buying a CMS based on license price. The real work of owning a CMS begins after the site is live and as such CMS maintenance/support expenses far exceed purchase costs. Be sure to factor this into your overall costs and consider the TCO of an application to arrive at an informed decision.
#4 Involve All Critical Stakeholders
Just as it is important to have top management support for CMS implementations, it is equally crucial to encourage the participation of internal stakeholders. These content owners should be identified and their feedback on usability leveraged to build and customize the system. Involving non-technical SMEs in the design of the new CMS will also help minimize reluctance to use the system. The success of the CMS rests on this acceptance of the CMS by the shareholders .
#5 Dont Forget the Services Aspect
As we said in step 3 the real work in any CMS implementation begins post-launch. There is a spike in effort levels at the beginning of any implementation - but for a relatively short period of time compared to the average CMS lifetime.
Change is a constant with most Web sites and your CMS needs to be as flexible as your organization, whether this is a simple template change or an entire site redesign. You need to factor in and expect that you will need to have some level of service be it from your internal IT department, your Web agency or your software vendor
On top of ongoing support and management, you also need basic application and infrastructure support of the installed software. This requires the efforts of a dedicated team, responsible for managing hardware, software, and the network.
For some organizations this is not a problem: with dedicated in-house teams for HTML template creation and modification, workflow revisions, architecture changes, site redesign support, and training, they can prepare for the worst. But for the vast majority, this is often overlooked as a part of an ongoing CMS implementation. Without this dedicated team small businesses often outsource these services to a third party vendor, adding to the implementation costs. To avoid the distress of exceeding budget, these costs must be factored into the total implementation costs.
# 6 Plan for the Future
How scalable and flexible is the CMS when it comes to incorporating new features or managing an explosion of content? You must make sure that the chosen CMS partner/vendor has the technological bandwidth and capability to quickly capitalize on emerging communication media.
Conclusion
CMS implementation processes can be a lengthy and energy-consuming. But following the guidelines illustrated here: clearly defined goals, processes mapped to the application, gaps identified, and looking for a customized application with dependable scalability and flexibility, you can help yourself avoid some common potholes and choose the right CMS for you.
For more information - http://www.crownpeak.com
|
|
