CMS Watch

A Rant Against “CMS”

Posted in CMS, CMS Watch, ECM on March 3rd, 2010 by Pie – Comments Off

This is a rant. I rarely write rants, but here is one. It is based on one of my largest pet peeves in the technology industry. It is about a commonly accepted term and not about the people who use it.

It is about “CMS”. This is a term that for many is synonymous with Web Content Management. This just gives me the screaming heebie jeebies. Let me illustrate.

An Example of the Problem

I was at a meeting in DC called the Web Content Mavens recently. The topics of discussion should be obvious. I made a comment to a group there that there is content that isn’t web content. This person, an experienced “CMS” implementer did not believe that any such “content” existed. I used the easy examples of Word and Excel files. She immediately jumped to the conclusion that if it wasn’t web content, it was documents. I then fired some examples at her:

Medical X-Rays
Raw news footage
Voicemails
Scanned images
Faxes
Emails
XML

Her eyes lit up as if I had just revealed a whole new world of content to her. I didn’t. I revealed the world of content, not a new one. She hadn’t been living in the world of content. She had been in the world of web content.

There is more to Content Management than managing Web Content!!!

Being able to publish or host a website does not make something a CMS!!!

The Growing Itch

I first noticed the problem several years ago. I went to an event focused on Content Management Systems and noticed that everything focused on publishing a website. Ah, Web Content Management, I know a little on this topic, I thought to myself.

The problem is that people don’t think of it as WCM, or any similar terms. They think of it as CMS. This drives me NUTS! There are systems out there that manage content, quite well, but don’t publish to the web. They don’t get considered a CMS by many people.

I hate the term. It is a term that has such potential, but so many people use it in such a limited fashion. Qualify the thing with “Web CMS” or create a new friggin term.

Let’s look at some of the people using the term (keep in mind I like and respect most, if not all, of the people behind these sites)

CMS Wire: They cover the broad spectrum. They have a heavy focus on the Web CMS products, but they cover others and use the term “Web CMS”. No issues.
CMS Watch: Part of The Real Story Group, the focus is Web Content Management, Analytics, and Collaboration & Community technologies. Sounds like they could talk their way out of this until you realize that IN PARALLEL they have Enterprise Information Watch. That includes both ECM and DAM, among other technologies. Really? Is Artesia not a CMS? What about Documentum’s CenterStage? They aren’t Web CMS solutions, but it isn’t called Web CMS Watch. Tony, you are brilliant and I love the stuff that you guys do over there, but ARGH!
CMS Report: Prime example of my frustration. Check the list of covered CMS applications, current and past. I quote, “CMS Focus is meant to include today’s web content management systems thus this list does change over time to stay relevant.” [Original formatting shown] There is no Documentum, FileNet, Livelink, eDOCS, OnBase, or any other number of systems that I have worked with in the past.

There is a big world out there. All you Web CMS people need to give the term CMS back! It doesn’t belong to you. A long time ago you took it while the broader content community was trying to futz with the term ECM. By the time we realized what was happening, you had taken the term.

To whome does the term belong? That is a topic for another day.

A Quick Breath

This isn’t personal. Far from it. I read the websites listed above and find them valuable.

Pretty much everybody who reads this will have entered the industry with the term CMS firmly entrenched, incorrectly, into daily use. That is life. I had to get this off of my chest so that when I occasionally twitch when the topic of “What is a CMS” comes up in conversation, you know why.

I’m also going to not respond to comments. I’ll allow them and read them, but I’m not going to get sucked into an argument over a rant. This is a rant and there is a lot of irrational emotion that fuels it.

CMS Going-Ons That (Almost) Didn’t Make it Here

Posted in #jboye09, Aarhus, Alfresco, CMIS, CMS Watch, Cloud Computing, EPiServer, Enterprise CMS, Enterprise Content Management, Gilbane, JSR 283, Magnolia, Nuxeo, OmniUpdate, Open Source CMS, Open Text, Percussion, RedDot, Semantic Search, Sitecore, Vignette, Web CMS, Web Content Management, Web analytics, blogging, cloud, cms selection, content migration, crownpeak, day software, digital asset management, dotcms, ektron, ektroncms400.net, gilbaneboston, jcr, magnolia cms, nstein, open source, open text web solutions, personal, social media on December 30th, 2009 by Irina Guseva – Comments Off

Recently, I got an e-mail newsletter (from: company name redacted) – one of those that goes almost immediately to trash following a quick scan. What made me ROFL was this line: Blogging is easy, usually free, and most importantly, fun! Now, I am not perfect (well, am nearly ) and could use more self-blogging discipline, [...]

Redefining the Core Tech of ECM

Posted in AIIM, CMIS, CMS Watch, ECM, emc, gartner on December 16th, 2009 by Pie – Comments Off

For several months, I’ve been tinkering with an idea in my head. I’ve watched as EMC and other large ECM vendors fell further behind in the WCM space. For every advancement that has been made, there were losses to the market. It is at the point that if you aren’t deploying massive websites to server farms, you wouldn’t even look at the larger vendors.

And yet, nothing changes. The large vendors keep taking one step for every two that the market makes. I think there will be a change, and CMS Watch, in their excellent 2010 Predictions, made a prediction similar to my thought process:

1) Enterprise Content Management and Document Management will go their separate ways

When you read the description, it is clear that they are seeing the same things, but they appear to be throwing the emphasis in the wrong direction.

Separating WCM from ECM

If you’ve read my definition of ECM, or AIIM’s definition for that matter, you’ll notice that the focus is on the content and the business problems, but not on the specific technology. There is no mention of Web Content Management, Collaboration, or any of the actual business solutions specifically.

Enter Gartner. In their latest MQ, they define ECM as having six core components: Document Management, Document Imaging, Records Management, Workflow, WCM, and Document-Centric Collaboration .

I think that if an ECM vendor has the right tools in the platform, they can skip the WCM-specific offering and allow WCM systems to access the functionality through either CMIS or their vendor specific interface. Let open source vendors, or smaller vendors with shorter release cycles, try and keep-up with the web technology.

What Do We Need From an ECM Platform?

So, if we turn our attention away from the business solutions to what we need to support the building of those business solutions, what are we left with for the platform? Without trying to ask for too much, here is a quick list…

Scale: Big or small, it just has to work for whatever volume of content I have.
Security: This is both Authentication and Authorization. There doesn’t have to be Identity Management built-in, but it needs to work well with Identity Management solutions.
Native Content Handling: Needs to be able to recognize XML, email, HTML, images, and other formats and treat them accordingly. For example, if it is an email, extra metadata will be captured and stored. Content transformations fall under here.
Records Management: While not necessarily requiring full-blown DoD 5015.2 certification, retention, holds, and other core RM concepts are important.
Interoperability: This is now CMIS support as well as documented API and SOA-based interfaces to provide deep functional support.
Workflow: This can be as big as full-fledge BPM, but the ability to model the lifecycle of content and the processes that govern their life is important. This means decision points, parallel flows, and loops, not just simple approval processes.
Basic Content Services: Versioning and all that other fun stuff that we take for granted.

This is not all-inclusive, but you get the point. These components allow applications like Collaboration and WCM to work.

A New Prediction..

I would like to offer a modified version of the CMS Watch prediction…

Enterprise Content Management and WCM will go their separate ways.

Okay, that isn’t going to happen, but it NEEDS to happen. Why? Because it is distracting them from their core, which is the platform and their core applications.

I’ll take this concept and apply it to EMC’s product strategy to illustrate, but that is a separate post.

Hello CMS Watch

Posted in CMS Watch, Uncategorized, Wipro on October 10th, 2009 by Apoorv – Comments Off

Well, like all good things, my vacation is over. However, for a change, I am actually looking forward to next week - I am joining CMS Watch and would be starting work on Monday, October 12th. I have been a fan of CMS Watch since its inception and owe much of my current thinking & knowledge to CMS [...]