WordCamp Boston 2011 (full disclosure: I helped organize the conference and Connective DX was a sponsor) included a number of strong presentations of interest to CMS Myth users:

• Jake Goldman on Introducing WordPress as a CMS
• Margot Bloomstein on Hoarders: Bloggers without Content Strategy
• Arwin Holmes on Enterprise WordPress Dos & Don’ts
• Jay Collier on Web Strategy in Higher Education

My own rant talk late in the day Sunday afternoon focused on the critical role strategy plays in web content initiatives, arguing that we’ve been focusing on the wrong “S” in CMS, which should mean Content Management Strategy.

We often hear about failed projects involving content management systems, and we’re quick to blame the technology: but it’s more often the strategic flaws in the plan which bring down the project than failures in the technology.

Content Management Strategy takes into account:

• Business Strategy: what is the purpose of the organization? what are we trying to make happen?
• Technology Strategy: how is the organization managing its technology investments? what methodologies, platforms, and processes are we adopting or avoiding, and why? how effective is our use of technology to support the organizational mission?
• Content Strategy: what are we trying to say? what impact do we want our content to have on our audiences?
• Engagement Strategy: what opportunities do we have to interact with our audiences, and enable them to interact with each other?
• Measurement Strategy: what data will we use to evaluate our success? how can we get beyond the individual project to a culture of optimization?

(I kept trying to find an easy-to-remember acronym out of  B, T, C, E, and M but ultimately decided there aren’t enough vowels.)

Content Management Strategy doesn’t supersede or eliminate the need for those disciplines but coordinates and orchestrates them, resulting in a healthy, sustainable, digital ecosystem capable of consistently meeting or exceeding organizational goals.