January 2008 - Posts

• Duck and Cover: Avoiding Drive-by CMS Implementations

  Although it’s not quite an epidemic (yet), we’re encountering examples of a problematic trend that fits squarely into CMS Myth. We suspect it’s only going to grow, so fair warning. We term it ‘drive-by CMS implementations.’ It’s a trend in which third-party web agencies and tech shops doing CMS projects, well… leave a trail of smoke and mayhem in the rear-view mirror. Too many agencies—through neglect, lack of expertise, shoddy development practices and other factors– botch the project, sometimes aggressively so. Others fail to offer a long-term strategic vision for their client, which inevitably leads to bigger issues. The injuries inflicted by CMS drive-bys are many. We’ve seen search engine rankings drop off the face of Google; the complete content of a website stuffed into a single back-end folder; authoring environments that simply don’t work; sites whose dynamic home page barely loads; and many, many more examples. There are many reasons for this situation. A big one is: CMS projects can be difficult. It’s not hard for a CMS project to jump the tracks, even for the most competent developers and agencies out there. But a more critical factor that's been flying under the radar: We see a land-grab underway among agencies, big and small, that want to ride CMS momentum to big-ticket web consulting gigs. And no wonder, as hundreds of right-sized/right-priced and “easy to use” CMS systems (mid-market, low-tier, and open source) are enticing all sorts of organizations to invest in CMS. For integrators/agencies, there’s a relatively low barrier to entry to put themselves out there as a CMS consultant.  The net-net? Anecdotally, we see integrators/agencies jumping in feet first because the initial CMS learning curve appears relatively easy. Nothing wrong with that. But many times they aren’t realizing there’s a much more challenging, long-term strategic learning curve to master to enable them (and their clients) really get CMS right. The implementation itself, or course, is very important; it’s also just the beginning of a successful' CMS project. The situation won't get better anytime soon. As the barrier to adopting and integrating a CMS gets lower and lower (price points, ease of development, point-and-click features) and thousands of companies look for a CMS, the problem only worsens. Hence the big problem: You don’t know you have a problem until you’re done! Been a victim of a drive-by? Let us know your story; we'd love to share your story ... and we'll change the names to protect the guilty.   Posted Jan 17 2008, 05:54 PM by David with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Implementation, mid-market, agency, CMS

• Are You Making the Right CMS Promises?

  With the primary elections officially upon us, candidates are making promises that they will be expected to keep if elected.  In the same spirit, web content management projects are full of promises. More so than a lot of web initiatives in fact. We talk a lot about the expectation gap between vendors that beat the drum of ‘out of the box,’ and ‘easy’ compared to the reality on the ground of a complex implementation. But it’s time to take a closer look at what promises we’re making internally inside the organizations before deploying a CMS. Some common promises include: Enable anyone to easily publish content Save time and money Create better experiences Remove dependency on IT staff Are you keeping those promises to the organization? Probably not. In most cases, a CMS actually adds cost and complexity and takes more effort to maintain and run. Often times enabling more users to edit content means creating a less flexible system for the power users and developers who spend the majority of the time maintaining the site. In my experience, the CMS is often to set up to fail from the get go by the way that success is promised. What if you change the promise? What if the project lead says: “Our new approach to content management is a paradigm shift for the organization and is going to be a difficult transition. It will require significantly more resources and added cost for training, new staff and new technology.  However, if we can make an organizational commitment, the payoff and long term return on investment is tremendous…” Changes the picture a bit doesn’t it? Sure it may stop a few CMS projects before they get started. But that’s not a bad thing for an organization that doesn’t have the stomach to see it succeed. What it will do is help you start to better define success before you start and set proper expectations. After all, it’s better to be the hero at the end of the project than the beginning.   Posted Jan 04 2008, 03:56 AM by Jeff with 4 comment(s) Filed under: strategy