[Originally Presented as part of the DCL Learning Series http://bit.ly/Wgfmfx] With so many “MSs” on the market today — CCMS, CMS, DMS, WCMS, ECMS, LMS, PLMs, CRMs and more — what do you need, and how integrated can or should they be? Can you have the sought-after unified content strategy without a common software platform? With the myriad of options, many potential users, and worse, the procurement staff who need to supply them with tools, don’t know really know the real, detailed differences between them. This session will help you navigate the forest of MSs by looking at three common types—Component CMS, Web CMS, Document MS—the differences between them, how they can be combined to support some common content scenarios like technical communications, web delivery, and document regulation and audit-trail control (and a little on mobile devices while we’re at it).

1. One Management System to Rule
Them All?
Noz Urbina - @nozurbina
Blogger - www.urbinaconsulting.com/blog
Content Strategy Practice Owner, Mekon - www.mekon.com
Congility Events Chairperson - @congility / www.congility.com
congility.com

2. Agenda
~ Introductions
– The session
– Look who’s talking now (Me/Mekon)
– What is an MS? (vs. a Database?)
– Why do we need MSs?
~ MS overviews by type
– DMS
– WCMS
– CCMS
~ Unification & Conclusion
congility.com

3. Photo (C) http://www.flickr.com/photos/hhoyer/3249473645/
This Session is About Differentiation
~ A comparative overview, not master-class or
specific product recommendations
CCMS DMS WCMS

4. Me
~ Mekon Content Strategy Practice Owner
~ noz.urbina@mekon.com @nozurbina
~ Mekon has 20 years in content-driven business
processes
~ Technology independent consultancy, tool
selection support, training and systems
integration
~ Congility Events Chairperson
– Today’s content needs agility!
– www.congility.com @congility
~ Co-Author
– Content Strategy: Connecting the Dots Between
Business, Brand, and Benefits
www.thecontentstrategybook.com

6. Cross-Industry Experience

7. What makes an MS?
~ Storage
~ Metadata
~ Integration
~ Capture
~ Indexing
~ Retrieval
~ Distribution
~ Security
~ Workflow
~ Collaboration
~ Versioning
~ Searching
~ Publishing

8. An MS is not a DB
~ Management Systems are “business logic
layers” (basically a special kind of application)
built on a repository (almost always a
database)
MS Application – Behaviours, user interfaces,
features, integration, application
programming interfaces (API)
Repository – Storage, transaction
management, fail-over

9. Reasons to use an MS
~ Content Agility
– Right content, right platform, right format, etc..
~ Efficiency
– Publishing automation/single sourcing
– Collaboration
~ Metrics, control & measurement
– Publishing analytics
– Workflow and auditability
– Regulatory or procedural compliance and governance
– Security
~ All vendors will tell you their system is great at all of
these.

10. MSs for Another Day
~ We’re leaving out:
– LMS – Learning MS
– TMS/LMS – Translation/Localisation MS
– PLM – Product LifeCycle MS
– CLM – Client LifeCycle MS
– CRM – Client Relationship MS
– And Wikis...

11. Common MS Types
Component
Content Management
System
e.g. IXIASOFT, Trisoft
(LiveContent Achitect),
XDocs, Vasont,
“Source materials” Building
blocks and media ready for
reuse in any
document/format/output
Document Management
System
e.g., SharePoint,
Documentum...
Whole, formatted documents
Web Content
Management System
e.g., Drupal, Alfresco,
WordPress, OpenCMS...
Web sites, web pages, media
files and downloadable
documents
CCMS
WCMS
DMS

12. Differentiation
~ Manageable Units:
~ Documents
vs
~ Components (aka
modules)
~ Fragments
~ Variables
DMS
WCMS/CCMS

13. Differentiation
~ Structure & metadata:
~ Unstructured, or
Structure &
metadata is UI-
driven
vs
~ Structured source
~ Structure survives
across platforms
regardless of UI
DMS/WCMS
CCMS

14. SYSTEMS OVERVIEWS

15. DMS
Documents, compliance, release, libraries

16. congility.com
Document Management System
~ AKA EDMS (Electronic Document Management Sys)
~ Static and Live Documents
~ Live = updated during day-to-day work
~ Static = unchanged until circumstance or schedule requires
and update
~ e.g. Archives, Reference libraries, Authoritative Copies
~ Organisation-wide document control
~ Document numbering
~ Final formal release

17. congility.com
Document Management System
~ Usually internal but often delivers either to secure
extranet or hands off to WCMS
~ DMS + WCMS in one packaged application =
Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS)
~ List of systems: http://bit.ly/nysDMs

18. congility.com
Document Management System
Strong on:
~ Finance (Accounts
Payable/Receivable, Records
Management)
~ Supplier & Contract
Management
~ Audit and compliance
~ HR and Policy Management
(Benefits Admin,
Performance Review)
Challenges:
~ Requirements management
~ Content reuse and fine-grain
publishing
~ Technical documentation
~ Any sort or content
structural control – DMS
manages at file level
~ XML management

22. WCMS
Web Publishing, Analytics, Communities

23. congility.com
Web Content Management
System
~ Websites and web content (HTML, HTML5)
~ You consume content from WCMSs every day
~ Content structures are controlled usually with
forms or not at all (unstructured)
– Modules are “info-typed” (blog, article, overview,
ad, link bundle, etc.) and assembled into pages
~ Over 1500 known systems in the world
– A short list (still huge): http://bit.ly/cmscrWCM

24. congility.com
Some information
typing on modules.

25. congility.com
(Simple) Semantic Metadata, but
completely custom-form driven,
and only on the whole module. No
sub-structure is allowed inside the
main content.
Can reuse
whole module
only

26. congility.com
Reusable, but
limited. Needs IT
intervention.

27. congility.com
Web Content Management
System
~ Strong on
– Websites
~ Including responsive
design and mobile web if
implemented properly
– Community management
– Analytics, metrics,
measurement
– Easy-to-source skills
– Out of box social media
integrations (twitter,
facebook)
~ Challenges
– Everything else
– Professional quality
print
– Content structures
are tied into the
(forms)
implementation (not
portable like XML)
– Single sourcing and
reuse can often be a
significant hack if not
totally unfeasible

28. CCMS
Multi-platform, multi-format, source-material management

29. congility.com
Component Content Management
System
~ Structured, “typed” content components
~ Enables compilation of deliverables from smaller,
reusable components and fragments
~ Usually XML-based (often DITA these days)
~ Authors can restructure content without IT support
~ Web CMS and DMS publishing systems, CCMS is about
creation and source management across publishing
channels
~ List of systems (DITA only): http://bit.ly/ditawrCCM

30. congility.com
Component Content Relationships
~ Changes in status of any
related files will be
visible to the owners
~ Cross-references can
easily be managed:
– Across chapters or
documents
– To any published
deliverables with a
known location (web,
intranet)
Fragment
(Variable/Inset)
Map
(Collection)
Sub-Map
Image

31. congility.com
CCMS versioning and status
~ CCMS systems can support complex composite objects
– Able to reuse, compare and edit content from various points
– Branching allows parallel work on topics – separate projects don’t
disturb each other
– Trace back metadata like specific requirements or for compliance
– This table applies to collections/maps as well

32. congility.com
Composite Image Objects
~ CCMS topics link to “image objects” which handle all format
and version relationships.
– The publishing process selects the appropriate image type for the
output

33. congility.com
DMS
WCMS
Case Study
CCMS
Doc Owner: “I’m going to publish
soon. I want to see what’s
happened to every section, image
and text inset that my document
uses.”
~ Interviewees regularly
complain about content
relationship issues:
~ “When stuff changes you
don't know what's what.
Things only go into the
DMS once they are
ready.”
~ CCMS allows flexible
relationship management
and auditing

34. congility.com

35. congility.com

36. CCMSs Need a Publishing Tool
CustomersB
CustomersA
Partners
…out to multiple formats
Check /
Manage
Plan /
Write
Use multiple times...
CCMS
Rendering
Engine
?

37. congility.com
Component Content Management
System
~ Strong on
– Complex documents
~ Tech Docs – manuals,
help, web help
~ (e)Learning material
~ Proposals and
requirements
– Automated publishing,
reuse
~ Challenges
– More complex by nature
– Not many reliable open-
source / very low cost
options
– Require implementation
of publishing channels
– Requires niche skills to
implement and maintain
– Some have usability
issues

38. Unification

39. Unification
~ The systems can share content either
programmatically or with manual updates
across MSs
~ Metadata is the key
– Tagging things with the same top-level metadata
allows sharing without deep integrations
– XML / DITA publish out in other formats like PDF
and HTML to live new lives in the downstream
systems (DMS/WCMS)

40. Standardisation Enables Reuse &
Integration
~ Some standards are
company-wide,
some are local

41. MSs in an Enterprise Systems Context
CustomersB
CustomersA
Partners
Translate
…and back comes business
intelligence (metrics, user
contributions, feedback)
Review Testing &
Quality
Checks
…out to multiple formats
Check /
Manage
Plan /
Write
Use multiple times...
CCMS
WCMS
DMS

42. Socially enabled across silos
Let users build and
share their own
deliverables, for any
format

43. Hits are tagged with
their source
Search across MS
and silo boundaries

44. Conclusion
~ The common types exists for very different
reasons
– Apples, Oranges and Bananas can be compared,
but they are not the same. Don’t end up with an
Orange Pie or a Duck a la Banane
~ Large enterprises and even many small-to-
medium enterprises need all 3

45. Conclusion
~ Some vendors are looking to buy up a “whole
set”
~ Few are still pushing the “master system”
approach