Content Management: Modern Mastodon in a Tar Pit, Part Two
April 20, 2009
Part 2: Challenges and the Upside… Sort of an Upside
The CMS Tar Pits
Today, search and content management systems are a really big problem. There’s no easy solution for several reasons:
- CMS in many cases have become larger and more complex over time. At the same time, the notion of an information object has raced along about a half mile ahead of the vendors’ software. In an organization, folks want to do podcasts, create fancy reports with embedded videos, and sometimes animated charts and graphs. “Search” is an overburdened word and it is unlikely that the wide range of content objects can be indexed without considerable resources.
- CMS has morphed into more than Web content. As a result, the often primitive workflow and repository functions choke when asked to support a special purpose retrieval; for example, eDiscovery. The solution to this problem is not to upgrade the CMS search system but to license another solution, pump the content into the specialized system, and run the eDiscovery with spoliation features from that system.
- CMS has not solved the problem of Web content. The reason goes back to the relationship between a human writing something and a system that sort of keeps that “something” organized and mostly eliminates the writer’s interaction with a programmer. CMS shifts the focus from setting up a method for creating useful, substantive content to the mechanics of keeping track of content objects and components. As a result, after the hoo haa of the CMS, Web sites have a content problem. The problem is that the information is often out of phase with the needs of the Web site user and the people who want the Web site to generate sales.
- CMS increases inefficiencies associated with writing. Organizations are committee writing machines. One or more individuals may write something. Then that “something” gets routed around, changes are made, a version is created, that version is shuffled around, and then an output occurs. Most document decisions are made at the 11th hour under an artificial “crisis”. This method absolves the “author” and the reviewers of real responsibility. The result is a lot of versions of the “something” and a document that is mostly something that is impenetrable. The “author” is like the guy or gal who sent me the engineering paper with a bunch of names on it. That person does not know what’s in the document and does not understand some parts of it. To see this type of writing in action read the instructions for a 1099 or a patent application.
- CMS costs only go up. Because CMS systems have to handle the content generated by their licensees, the costs for these puppies go one way—through the roof. Here’s why: CMS infrastructure has to be expanded to handle more documents and ever larger content objects. An email may be 4 Kb of XML. Stuff in a video and you get a bit of an extra load. Stuff in 20,000 documents with rich content and you get to buy lots of hardware, storage, bandwidth, and engineers to keep the Rube Goldberg machine running. The CMS has to be rebuilt on the fly which is plugging a leak in a speedboat towing a skier on Lake Huron. The fix is at best temporary.
In this environment, customers want facets, real time indexing, context sensitive queries, personalization, and access to structured data. No problem, but it won’t be cheap, easy, or doable with most of the existing budgets with which I am familiar.
Do marketers say these features can be delivered? You bet your life. Once the sale is made, the marketer goes to the next account. The vendor’s technical team is left to explain the reality and limitations of what search and content processing can do within the CMS environment.
Who’s the Lucky Mastodon?
So what’s the mastodon? The CMS that companies struggle to make work. What’ s the tar pit? The chair in front of the CFO’s desk. The owner of the CMS has to sit down and explain the cost overruns. The CFO may not care that the system is generating massive indirect costs, but she will certainly want to know about the hardware, software, license fees, consulting services, and programming expenditures.
Where do CMS consultants fit in?
There are good consultants (blue chippers) and not so good consultants (azure chippers). The “blue” connotes proven professionals from established services firms; for example, some units of IBM and some McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group folks. The azure chippers come from the companies with a modest track record and probably some wonder marketing lingo. The Regis McKenna school of marketing is a model for the azure chippers.
Consultants are usually a mirror of their clients. So clients get what they purchase and what emerges as “needs”. The result is that clients with a death of expertise in writing, content production, and enterprise publishing don’t get the problem fixed.
What exists now is a feedback loop that leads from the edge of the tar pit to the bottom of the tar pit. After a few million years, a preserved system is dug up, dissected, and compared to whatever tools are available. Because of the turnover among some enterprise technology professionals, the corporate memory is often shallow and the folks responsible for the mastodon have moved on.
The Upside of the CMS Tar Pit
What’s the positive view of this situation?
I see three positives.
First, the disasters of today’s CMS means that a number of individuals have attended the School of Hard Knocks and learned about some of the demands of content creation, production, and distribution.
Second, the newer systems have advanced beyond training wheels. You get air bags. You get seat belts. You get safety glass. You might be injured, but you probably won’t be killed. The US Senate’s CMS after several years of effort with two high profile vendors was shelved and a different approach pursued.
Third, some of today’s systems work and can be used by normal humans with so so writing skills. I know that it is great fun to whack on the Google, but I know that Adhere Solutions (a Google partner) has implemented some nifty systems that use the GOOG as plumbing. I referenced the newer cloud based services from a Web log vendor elsewhere in this essay. I also pointed out that the Xquery outfit MarkLogic may warrant a look.
What should you do if you want to have a CMS with lousy search? My first thought was to ask you to call me. My second thought was to tell you to buy a copy of Successful Enterprise Search Management. You can get information about this 2009 study by Martin White (European guru) and me (American addled goose) here. My third thought was to suggest a Google search. My fourth thought is to start over.
You will have to choose an appropriate path. My suggestion is to avoid the azure chip consulting firm crowd, newly minted experts, and anyone who sounds like a TV game show announcer.
Stephen Arnold, April 20, 2009
Comments
One Response to “Content Management: Modern Mastodon in a Tar Pit, Part Two”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
I agree that the growing requirements have made CMS more complex than ever. People tend to use much more functionality to make web look good. But still I believe that the CMS is the right option for lot of people who are not technical enough and want to have their own website. People need to choose CMS which they feel would be the best for them instead of what others say is the best.