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The Web CMS Project Lifecycle

One of the reasons web CMS projects are so hard is that organizations don’t do them very often. Lessons learned are forgotten a year or so after the project is finished, people move on, and, by the time the web CMS is under review again, most of the previously acquired knowledge of the CMS marketplace is out-of-date.

Lack of experience in running web CMS projects often leads to sketchy planning. Not seeing clearly how the project will develop and what challenges each of the project stages brings makes accurate estimates difficult.

Here is a quick overview of the lifecycle stages … Read more >

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Assembling a Winning WCM Project Team

EContent Magazine - Summer 2019Assembling a Winning WCM Project Team, Marianne Kay

The roles and skills required for a successful Web CMS project completion can be divided into three groups: business, content and technical. These groups often work in different departments with conflicting priorities. The first two (business and content) typically belong to marketing, and technical roles are staffed by IT.

When a web CMS project goes well, it’s because of the hard work of people behind the project, who are able to surface and deal with the challenges, not only individually, but also as a team that builds on each other’s expertise.

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Web Content Management systems in Higher Education (UK)

What content management systems (CMS) do Universities use? Here are some examples.

University of Aberdeen  OpenText
Abertay University TERMINALFOUR, Umbraco
Aberystwyth University TERMINALFOUR
Anglia Ruskin University Cambridge Sitecore
University of the Arts London TERMINALFOUR
Aston University Easysite
University of Bath Bespoke system, developed in-house
University of Birmingham Contensis
University of Bolton Contensis
Bournemouth University Drupal
University of Bradford TERMINALFOUR
University of Brighton  Contensis
University of Bristol TERMINALFOUR
Brunel University London Contensis
University of Buckingham WordPress
University of Cambridge Plone, Drupal
Canterbury Christ Church University Contensis
Cardiff University  Squiz Matrix
Cranfield University Sitecore
University of Cumbria TERMINALFOUR
De Montfort University Leicester
… Read more >
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Transforming the Future of Digital Journalism

Transforming the Future of Digital JournalismHaving worked with Web CMSs for more than 15 years, I’ve seen a wide range of CMS products—including bespoke solutions built by digital agencies to suit the needs of their existing customers, open source platforms developed and supported by large communities, and proprietary commercial products developed by software houses serving a wide range of industries and use cases. I’ve worked with market-leading CMSs, as well as average, “good enough” CMS platforms. I’ve worked on selection and procurement to replace end-of-life, officially dead CMSs too.

Some of these WCMSs were better than others, but most of them proved frustrating to the … Read more >

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Changing the World Wide Web, One Language at a Time

Changing the World Wide Web, One Language at a TimeI grew up in Ukraine and studied English in school every day from age 7. Speaking English fluently was by far the most valuable skill I acquired during my school career. It provided access to better education and a wider range of career opportunities. It enabled professional development beyond what my own country and my native language could offer.

When I built my first website in 1995, it was in English and in Ukrainian. Back then, 80% of all online content was in English, and I was determined to fit in with this trend. I wanted my website to be … Read more >

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SharePoint at a Glance

EContent Magazine - Spring Issue 2018If you work in digital marketing, IT or internal communications, chances are you’ve heard about SharePoint. Perhaps you’ve heard that SharePoint is difficult to use, ugly and immobile – so bad in fact, that it’s pretty much a dying platform. Or maybe you’ve heard that SharePoint is a market leading product, adopted by many large organisations and supported by one of the most talented and active development communities in the software industry.

So which one is it?

As I’m midway through the migration of the University of Leeds faculty intranet from legacy platforms to SharePoint, let me share some first-hand … Read more >

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Content Strategy for Ultra-Large Digital Presences

Thursday Nov 9, 2017, JBoye Aarhus 2017

The world is overwhelmed with web content. Yet many organisations publish content blindly and operate without a documented content strategy, exposing themselves to business risks and missed opportunities.

Content strategy is planning for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content [1]. It guides web content management projects to deliver business value. Effective content strategy relies on a variety of skills and disciplines, including marketing, communications, editorial planning, web development, user experience and analytics.

In this session we will cover:

  • The WHAT?
    Evaluating what you have in terms of content, skills
… Read more >
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How to Write a Business Case for a WCM System

An opportunity to make a business case can be a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it’s an indication that the project is taken seriously. On the other hand, it formalizes the intentions, emphasizes responsibility, and implies approval by multiple stakeholders (smell internal politics, anyone?). Writing a good business case requires a pragmatic approach, strategic thinking, and persuasive language. Done well, it can convince the top management to invest in your project. Done poorly, it can cause delays or even stall the project entirely.

Web CMS implementations take time and cost money. The purpose of the business case … Read more >

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Lost and Found: Content Modeling for Large Digital Presences

The keys! Not in my pockets. Not in the drawer. Not on the table. Where are they?

It’s bad enough to have to turn everything upside down when your house is, sort of, tidy. It takes longer, and drives you crazier, when the house is a mess. Chaotic, disorganized places are stressful.

The same is true for websites. Managing badly structured web content is hard. When content authors are stuck with an unusable editorial interface or with content types that don’t make sense, they start working around the CMS. At some point, there are so many workarounds that training and … Read more >

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Content Quality in Devolved Authoring Environments

In the beginning, there was the word. It wasn’t content managed. There was no HTML. There were no templates, no workflows, and no CMSs. Things were easy. But then there was a paragraph, a heading; there were links, images, and interactive content. Before long, things got complicated. Updating words, webpages, and websites became hard work.

CMSs made this hard work easier. People without specialist knowledge of web development started to create web content too. It became possible to publish more content faster—except there was a catch. The CMS didn’t produce quality content. It simply published whatever it was that people … Read more >