Content management has become a hot topic as organizations have struggled to manage their content. Web content has received the most press and is the focus of most books on the subject. However, the management of enterprise content—content that spans many different areas within an organization, created by multiple authors, and distributed in many different media (for example, paper, web, and wireless)—has received little attention. Enterprise content management is the focus of this book. This focus is a result of the many years we’ve spent helping our clients to manage their content in a unified way, designing strategies to ensure their content is consistent and accurate wherever it appears and flows along a uniform continuum, from the first information customers see, through the sales process, to the support materials you provide them with as part of your ongoing commitment.
This book was written with a number of audiences in mind. It is designed to assist content managers who are responsible for creating and managing large volumes of content in many different media for many types of content users. Content managers will learn what they need to know about enterprise content management, and what is involved in developing a unified content strategy.
This book is also designed for information architects who are responsible for designing Internet or intranet sites, content management systems, publications systems, learning materials, and supporting multiple media. Information architects will receive practical advice on designing the architecture to support a unified content strategy.
This book is also designed for authors, specifically, anyone responsible for creating enterprise content such as brochures, newsletters, data sheets, product catalogs, proposals, reports, help desk/customer support materials, regulatory documents, user documentation, support documentation, service documentation, and training materials. Authors will receive practical advice on structured writing, writing for multiple media, and collaborative authoring.
The following section, “How this book is organized,” identifies how each of these audiences will benefit from this book.
This book is divided into six sections. Each part focuses on a particular aspect of managing your enterprise content with a unified content strategy. Although you do not have to read this book in chronological order, it is designed to follow the unified content strategy life cycle.
This section provides an understanding of a unified content strategy, where an organization’s content comes from, the issues of creating and managing that content, and the fundamental concepts of reuse. This section also provides guidelines for identifying a return on investment for a unified content strategy. This is an important section for all readers to provide a basis of understanding for the rest of the book. Chapters 1 and 2 are targeted toward all audiences; Chapter 3 is more applicable to content managers.
This section provides guidelines on how to analyze your organizational needs, analyze your content, determine your content life cycle, and build a vision of your unified content strategy. Knowing where to start, understanding the current situation and your needs, and building a vision for the future is important to the success of your project. Although all audiences will benefit from the chapters in Part II—specifically in understanding the content life cycle and auditing the content in your organization—Chapters 4 to 7 are targeted primarily toward content managers who will be responsible for envisioning and documenting the new unified content life cycle.
This section focuses on the design phase of a unified content strategy. Effective design is key to the success of authoring, managing, and delivering content. This section takes you through the concepts of information modeling, metadata design, workflow design, and the design of dynamic documents. The chapters in Part III form an essential core of the book and are targeted to all audiences. Parts I and III are critical to your understanding of what a unified content strategy is and how to design your information architecture to support it.
Managing enterprise content through a unified content strategy is dependent on having the right tools in place for authoring, management, and delivery of content. This section helps you understand how to evaluate tools and the functionality of the key technologies (authoring, content management, workflow, and delivery). It also provides guidelines for evaluating these tools and accordingly, is targeted primarily toward content managers, who will be responsible for selecting the tools to support a unified content strategy.
This section focuses on ways in which you can help your organization to adopt a unified content strategy. The section begins with a discussion of collaborative authoring— a new yet sometimes difficult process to adopt—then moves into the discussion of how to separate content from format so that authors can write content once and still ensure it is readable and effective in multiple media. Often, one of the more complex issues to deal with is the issue of change. This section focuses on change management and helps to identify potential pitfalls. Finally, this section helps you to move forward with a transition plan. Chapters 19 and 20 are applicable to all audiences, but Chapters 21 and 22, in their focus on management issues, are most applicable to content managers.
The book includes a glossary of content management terms and definitions, as well as a bibliography of the works consulted in the writing of this book.
The appendixes at the end of this book provide supplementary material, such as checklists for implementing a unified content strategy and selecting appropriate tools. They also provide a vendor list, an explanation of content relationships, and further suggestions to help you write for multiple media. Content managers will benefit most from the checklists and vendor list, whereas authors and information architects will benefit most from suggestions on writing for multiple media and understanding content relationships.
This book is written with the assumption that readers have never worked with content management, structured content, or XML. It is designed to ensure that all the concepts are clear no matter what your existing knowledge level is.
This book will assist you in creating, managing, and delivering your content. It will help you to define your requirements and build your vision, design your content architecture, pick the right tools, and overcome the hurdles of managing enterprise content. We hope that it will help you to see the broad spectrum of enterprise content, the requirements for effectively creating, managing, and delivering content, and the value of developing a unified content strategy for your organization.