The CMS Myth - All Comments

re: Why Switch to a Commercial CMS Product?

Kevin Shoesmith — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:06:14 GMT

I've repeated a paraphrased version of your post to clients (and potential clients) several times in the last few months.

Thanks for writing the post.

re: Why Switch to a Commercial CMS Product?

George — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:03:58 GMT

Open Source can work just as well (if not better) for the right organization. Like commercial you need to do your homework on how viable the solution is. I touched on this here: www.isitedesign.com/.../open-source-versus-commercial-web-software.cfm and here: www.cmsmyth.com/.../size-does-matter.aspx

re: Why Switch to a Commercial CMS Product?

Chris Thorpe — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 08:30:47 GMT

Commercial can be risky too - eg Serena Collage going end-of-life. How about the 3rd option - Open Source?

re: A Good CMS Salesperson will….

Tom — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:35:08 GMT

Great points. I've worked closely with CMS salespeople for 8 years+ (at my employer, Interwoven) and the most successful account executives have all the qualities you've listed.

You can tell a lot about a CMS salesperson by simply asking how long they've been at the company. If they've been there for a few years or more, chances are they have a happy customer install base. High sales turnover is often caused by unhappy customers, since the bread+butter of any CMS salesperson is selling into their customer install base. Great sales people don't want to work at companies with unhappy customers.

re: Shifting from Content Management to Content Delivery

Robert Carroll — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:40:11 GMT

Really a well written and interesting post. But I wonder whether many of these arguments hold up in a SaaS CMS environment vs. a traditional on premise solution? Innovation is so much faster and responsive to the market when it happens in the cloud.

Full disclosure: I work for a SaaS-based Web Content Management company.

re: Does it Matter Which CMS Product You Choose?

wCubed — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:16:16 GMT

Obviously, the CM tool you choose matters. I was at the same session as Jeff at Gilbane. The area that the panel never really got to is mapping the functionality available in the CM tool to the needs of your users. From first-hand experience, my company eliminated one contender because the user-interface was too "klunky" -- our content authors would never use it. Infrastructure differences aside, once you've got a shortlist of potential players, providing them with some specific use cases to demonstrate on-site will give you a better glimpse into the reality of the tool and its capabilities/interface and whether or not it would work for your users.

re: Go Beyond Feature List When Seeking CMS

David — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:54:58 GMT

Tom, Good points across the board. Especially the idea that CMS buyers need to make available the real users of the systems, the internal resources who have those business issues to solve --- and, who will end up living with the CMS decision for (probably) long time.

re: Go Beyond Feature List When Seeking CMS

Tom — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:46:19 GMT

Couldn't agree more.

I work for a large CMS vendor and I'm often the one who responds to RFPs. RFPs give vendors little perspective on what companies are actually trying to do with a CMS. The best questions to ask a CMS vendor tend to be open ended. By asking open ended questions, you'll get detailed responses and a better understanding how each CMS vendor approaches a particular problem. There are indeed very significant differences among the CMS vendors and these differences often don't show up on the typical RFP.

Take the typical RFP question... "Does the CMS support workflow?". This leads to the generic "Yes, our CMS supports workflow" response. A better way to ask the question might be: "Describe how your CMS helps automate the publishing process". Save the checkbox items for factual information like platform support and architecture.

I'd also recommend that CMS buyers provide more access to internal resources during the RFP process. RFPs alone often don't provide enough information for us to accurately prepare a response. By speaking with the business users of the CMS, vendors can better understand the unique challenges and requirements in your business and make sure our RFP response (and then later, demo) are tailored to your specific needs.

-Tom

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re: Shifting from Content Management to Content Delivery

Web Designer — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:20:58 GMT

i think it's a great idea because most of the CMS forget totally about the user Experience.

it's time to push for some real work...

Thanks All

re: Shifting from Content Management to Content Delivery

Dave Q — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 07:42:11 GMT

Wordpress is a CMS or rather a content delivery system. Though many still scorn it as an "ugly step-sister" blog software wannabe, it is a full-packed CMS (or CDS) which focuses on design and usabilty from day 1.

re: Shifting from Content Management to Content Delivery

Garito — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:20:48 GMT

Hi!

I'm absolutely agree with you in this case

But there are a variable you don't use: simplicity

The whole industry is worried to add more and more functionallity and add more features but no one seems to be worried about make it simpliest as the last version

For example: how an CMS like Zope (put here your preferred CMS name) is every time more and more complicated and has more lines of code?

Shorter code runs fast and has less bugs

With this idea in mind: what is the shorter CMS?

re: Shifting from Content Management to Content Delivery

TJGodel — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:01:45 GMT

Very Good article and timely. I'm in the processing of deciding on an enterprise level what is the best solution for content delivery with an existing commercial CMS. I was leaning toward a best of breed solution versus an integrated approach because I think it offers more flexibility. This article has validated some of my analysis. Thanks!

re: Powering Corporate Content, Collaboration and Community with CMS

David Aponovich — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:03:52 GMT

Doug - Thanks for the feedback. Indeed, the evolution of CMS systems to support people, process AND content is feeding the need to share and collaborate -- and do it efficiently. Organizations that 'get it' and make changes to support this vision are in a great position. --David

re: Powering Corporate Content, Collaboration and Community with CMS

Doug Cornelius — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:29:36 GMT

A few things happening with CMS and KM are the embracing of 2.0 themes.

It is as important to connect people as it is to connect people with content. It is important to make it easy to contribute content, easy to find the content and easy to organize the content that makes sense for the individual.

CMS and KM are becoming less about the management and more about sharing.

Thanks for giving the presentation.