Content Management Concepts
What is information and what is content?
Computers have only recently become ubiquitous in the world of information. Traditionally, computers have been tasked with handling data. As opposed to data, which is a fairly concrete term, information is a very vague term. Just about any communication (including data) can be described as information. For the purposes of this discussion, information will be taken to mean all the common forms of recorded communication: writing, recorded sound, images, video, and animations.
Content, stated as simply as possible, is information put to use. Information is put to use when it is packaged and presented (published) for a specific purpose. More often than not, content is not a single 損iece?of information, but a conglomeration of pieces of information put together to form a cohesive whole. A book has content, which is comprised of multiple chapters, paragraphs, and sentences. Newspapers contain content: articles, advertisements, indexes, and pictures. The newest entry to the media world, the Web, is just the same; sites are made of articles, advertisements, indexes, and pictures ?all organized into a coherent presentation.
What is content management?
Content management is effectively collecting, managing, and making information available in targeted publications.
- In collection, information is either created or acquired. It is then converted to a master format (such as XML) and segmented into discrete chunks called content components. Components are metadata containers for the content that make it easier to organize, store, and retrieve the information.
- Content is managed within a repository that consists of database records and/or files containing content components, plus administrative data (i.e. the system抯 users).
- To make content available, the content management system publishes to targeted publications such as Web sites, printable documents, and email newsletters.
A content management system helps organize and automate collection, management, and publishing processes. A content management system is needed when:
- There is too much information to process by hand.
- Information is changing too quickly to process by hand.
- More than one publication needs to be created from a single base of content.
- The design of a publication needs to be separated from the content so that as design changes each page of the publication need not be modified by hand.
Core Concepts Behind Content Management
As simply stated as possible, content management is a discipline that involves the collection, management, and publication of content. Content management concepts include the following:
- Understanding content domain, from which all of the structural decisions flow
- The notion of content components, which allow content processes (collection, management, and publication) to be automated
- Target publications, which are the end result of any content system
- A Metatorial™ framework, which unites all of the content into a single system of meta information
The Purpose of Your Content
A good place to begin discussing content management concepts is with content domain. The content domain is the scope or range of information that is intended to be captured, managed, and published. The content domain is directly related to your goals of the content management system overall. In fact, the content domain is the realm of information that needs to be controlled in order to meet stated goals. Conversely, it can be asked, 揌ow will the stated goals be met??The answer is, 揃y providing content and functionality.?Functionality, which is not covered in this discussion, is the set of features and abilities provided to an audience for getting to content and for performing transactions (monetary or information transfer) with an organization. Content is of interest only if it falls within the stated content domain.
All content management systems should have a concise domain statement. Effective domain statements are no more than a few sentences. When heard, one can immediately imagine what is part of the content and what is not. An individual will know immediately if the content is of interest to them and what questions or interests it should satisfy.
If a content domain ends up being something like...
All information needed by consumers to complete their income tax forms.
...a domain has been created that cleanly defines what is and is not of interest.
If a content domain ends up being something like...
All information that is useful to high school students.
...the approach is too broad to be of much use, unless an organization has the wherewithal to actually make good on it.
Content Components
Once a content domain has been established and there is a clear idea of all of the types of content, the content can then be broken up into its component pieces. Components divide information into convenient and manageable chunks. They are a set of discrete objects whose creation, maintenance, and distribution can be automated. They typically share some common attributes, such as format or length, and they should be able to 搒tand on their own.?In other words, a component should have meaning in and of itself, without needing the context of other components to make it meaningful.
Each component travels through a content system as a unit. When new content is created it is done one entire component at a time. When content is archived or deleted, it is done by components. When a page is created, it is by pulling together one or more components into a page frame or template.
The concepts of object-oriented programming are very similar to the notions behind content components. Programmers used to write one long program that had to be run from start to finish without stopping. Today, programmers write objects, smaller programs that do small things and then stop. Objects are small, reusable pieces of functionality that the programmer links together to achieve a larger result. For example, an e-commerce Web site might include an object for processing transactions.
The Web site programmer links an object with other objects to create the entire site mechanism. How does the programmer link objects? The core resources of the object are wrapped in a standardized container that programmers know how to use. Thus, by knowing how to use the standard container (usually called an Application Programming Interface, or API) the programmer can easily make use of the possibly complex internal programming of the object. For example, on the e-commerce site, the programmer might call the transaction object to do tasks such as total up the order, compute tax, or process a credit card. The programmer doesn抰 need to understand the code in the object that accomplishes the task, only how to find the object and ask it to do its thing.
Content objects, or components, are based on the same basic idea. Content components are small reusable pieces of content that can be linked together to achieve larger results. For example, on the aforementioned e-commerce site, each product might exist as a component so that multiple products can be combined together into catalog pages, list them on an invoice, or show the user full product detail. With each product component opened, a lot of possibilities open up for mixing and matching them, and customizing their appearance to the particular situation. For example, in one circumstance only the name and price of a product might need to be shown, and in another circumstance full detail of the product, including a complete description, product dimensions, and a picture, may be needed.
In a content management system, content components are used in the same way a programmer would use objects. Small pieces are linked together to make a larger whole. Users of content management systems learn how to work with components, not the information within the components, to achieve the same sort of independence that the programmer gets with object-oriented programming. To build a page, what is inside the component does not need to be known, only how the standardized container of the component operates.
In the e-commerce example, each product offered on the site is a component. That is, all product information is packed inside a component for ease of management. Staff members create product components, store them in some sort of database or file system, and then call these components onto a Web page when they need to be shown to the user.
Some content management systems store components in files. Most store them in a relational database, and a few store them in object databases that use XML hierarchies rather than relational tables to store the components.
The correct method of dividing content into components is the one that gives the organization using it the biggest advantage within current abilities and resources. This is not to say that this is an ad hoc process. On the contrary, the content must be divided according to well-defined and universally understood rules. The rules can and will change, but, at any instant, there has to be one set of rules so that at all times the content is organized.
Target Publications
The audience (the viewers or readers of content) doesn抰 care about content components, nor does it care about the way these components are collected and managed. In fact, all the audience cares about is that it receives a coherent presentation of the information it wants. When all is said and done, an audience expects to see what it is used to seeing ?a normal publication, like a book, magazine, or Web site.
Publishing is simply releasing information that was previously being developed. Following this definition, any content shown can be called a publication. However, that definition opens up the concept so far that it is not very helpful. To close the definition down a little, all publications should have these aspects to them:
- Purpose
- Publisher(s)
- Author(s)
- Audience
- Format
- Structure
These qualities, format and structure especially, define a publication for this discussion.
Publication Purpose
All of what has been said about purpose applies as much to a target publication as it does to the content as a whole. Moreover, when the whole system exists to produce a single publication (i.e., a Web site), then the purpose of the content system is the same as the purpose of the site.
Publication Publishers
The publishers make sure that the publication comes together and gets out to the audience. They assure that the publication serves its purpose, and in the electronic world, they assure that the publication works (does not crash or do other nasty things). Broadly speaking, electronic publishing groups have these sorts of players:
- Management staff ?responsible for the business of the publication (expenses, revenue, and staffing).
- Editorial staff ?responsible for acquiring, creating, and formatting content for publication.
- Technical staff ?responsible for building the system that collects, manages, and publishes the content.
- Creative staff ?responsible for the look and feel of the publication as well as its appeal and ability to resonate with the target audience.
- Architectural staff (who fall somewhere between the editorial, technical, and creative staff) ?responsible for the structural design of the content system and the content itself.
Publishers are people with strengths and weaknesses which will inevitably have an impact on the publication. A classic weakness is one in which the technical staff and the creative staff don抰 get along. They speak to each other without understanding, and end up with a good measure of rancor between them. Their inability to work out personality issues has nothing to do with purpose of the publication, but results in a publication whose purpose becomes proving a point and whose execution resembles a tug-of-war. It is important to remember that publishers are people and that what they can and can抰, and will and won抰 do has as much impact on the final publication as any other factor.
Publication Authorship
Every published work comes from somewhere. Nothing is ever read, watched, or listened to without some consideration of who is responsible for it. There is not much argument about that statement, but there should be. What happens when a publication is not authored by any single person or group? Is there authorship at the search engine site Lycos.com? At first glance the answer is clearly no. Lycos does not create the content; it dispassionately displays it. Lycos is merely an aggregation point where everyone else抯 authored works appear.
Look again. Lycos is the author of their site. When a user can抰 find what she wants, Lycos is blamed and the user switches to Yahoo! Furthermore, there are very tangible artifacts of the authors at Lycos. Lycos?name is prominently displayed. There is the style and layout of the site, the way they provide search capabilities, and the way they display hits. Finally, there are the moneymaking ads and inducements by which portals like Lycos earn their living.
What Lycos and the other portals understand, classical publishers have always known and Net publishers tend to forget. The user assumes authorship whether it is planned or not. Why? Because authorship is a pivotal part of the context put around any content to determine its credibility and meaning. Consider this:
The world is flat. ?Joe Nobody (A raving guy you passed on the street)
The world is flat. ?Alan Greenspan (Chairman of the U. S. Federal Reserve Bank)
In the first case, one is led to believe that the comment is about geography and one is not likely to believe it. In the second case (with the context that Alan Greenspan is a very famous Economist), one is lead to believe that the comment is about financial performances and is likely to believe it. Authorship is useful and unavoidable.
Publication Audiences
A publication is an asynchronous conversation. It does not happen in real time. The authors imagine as they write what a reader is likely to think next, and respond to it in the next sentence. Readers then read and respond in their heads to the author抯 words. To the extent that the authors can guess what the reader will think next, and can convey it in text, and to the extent that the user can understand and wants to understand the text, the conversation continues. In fact, it might be said that a quality of great works is that they inspire a lively exchange with the author in the user抯 mind.
So, just as every publication has an author, it also has an audience; and just as electronic publications can forget to account for the author, they also tend to forget to account for the audience. The subject of audience analysis deals with how to understand the target audience and how to tailor content to them. There has been a lot written on this subject and it generally boils down to these seemingly simple questions:
- What are the audience抯 ages, interests, jobs, needs, and desires relative to the subject matter and beyond?
- To what kind of presentation style will they respond favorably?
- What publications do they already trust, and to which ones will they compare the target publication?
- What is the author抯 relationship to this audience ?a peer, an expert, an outsider?
- What does this audience already know and believe about this subject?
- How will a publication establish credibility with this audience? What do they consider to be good arguments and examples?
In the electronic publication world, a single audience does not exist. First, because of the ubiquity of the Web, a publication can reach a huge range of people. It is not easy to say who will be drawn to a publication and why. Second, the technical ability to detect and record the personal profile of each Web site visitor now exists. Armed with this information, publications can be tailored to every visitor, effectively creating as many different audiences as there are people viewing the site.
Regardless of the wide variety of people potentially reached by a site, the true audience is not who will be reached, but who the publisher wants to reach. There is always a group of people that are of the most interest. There may also be other groups in which there is less, but at least some, interest. The rest of the world can抰 be taken into account if a publication is to be created that is of particular interest to a core audience.
The fact that each user can now be targeted individually, and the fact that everyone can抰 be catered to may seem contradictory, but it isn抰. In fact, the former depends deeply on the latter. If an audience isn抰 narrow enough, it is impossible to provide what they really want. Precise enough profile information will not be collected from them and the content provided will never be able to be adequately segmented.
Publication Format
Format has two basic flavors. Format is the way information is encoded, and format is the codes used to determine how to visually render information. A publication needs both of these. Take a printed magazine for example. The publishers might use a product such as Quark® Xpress. Quark has a particular way that it encodes the information entered into it. The publisher works with files that only Quark can decode and manipulate. Additionally, Quark has a set of formatting features (character, paragraph, section, etc.) that can be applied to the information entered that determine how the information will be rendered on the printed page. Again, only Quark knows how to decode and manipulate these formatting features.
The main content management issue with publication formats comes when there is more than one format. If all that抯 being produced is a Web site, then everything can be standardized into HTML. However, if the goal is to create both a Web site and a set of brochures from the same content, and the brochures are produced from Quark files, and the site is HTML, publication requires a more involved solution.
Publication Structure
Even the simplest publication has some structure. Look at any flyer tacked to a telephone post. There is usually large type on the flyer announcing the flyer抯 purpose. This is the title. There is also likely to be details subordinate to the title, differentiated by type size or position. Finally, there is some indication of the author or provider of the flyer, generally at the top or the bottom. Thus, the flyer can be broken down into a title, detail, and author info ?structure. Of course, as the complexity of the publication increases, the structure increases, and more and more of the structural techniques discussed in this paper are required to manage the complexity.
As with format, the big issues with structure arise when there is more than one structure. When there are two publications, three structures are needed ?one for each publication and one for the content, since base content should not be constrained by one format or another. In order to produce more than one publication from the same content base, the content base itself must be structured neutrally enough so that the structure of any of the end publications is derivable from the structure of the content base. Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) is becoming and increasingly common way of doing this.
An Editorial and Metatorial™ Framework
All professional publishing groups use an editorial framework to guide their work. This framework consists of these types of rules:
- Correctness rules that assure that content is prepared in accordance with generally accepted standards. Rules on punctuation, word usage, and grammar are all within this realm.
- Communication rules that assure that content projects a specific image, and targets a specific audience. Rules concerning the voice of the content (active, passive, first person, third person, etc.) as well as other stylistic rules are within this realm, as are rules concerning the proper way to communicate with the intended audience (such as the correct vocabulary to use).
- Consistency rules that assure that all of the other rules are applied evenly over the entire content base, and that once defined a term is always used the same way.
Without such a framework, publications lack unity and can seem disorganized and unprofessional. For static publications (such as books and magazines), which are manually produced and hand crafted, the editorial framework is all that you need to assure unity.
In dynamic publications, like Web sites, which are often automatically generated, not hand crafted, additional rules are needed to assure that the publication stays organized. Chase Bobko has defined these additional rules as the Metatorial?framework. Whereas editorial rules govern the presentation of the content, Metatorial rules govern its management and accessibility. In static publications, content is managed and accessed by hand. In other words, the rules about how content is managed and accessed are in someone抯 head. In dynamic publications, these rules must be made explicit so that the computer can use them to manage and access the content.
The Metatorial framework is a system of meta information. Meta information means information about the information you have created. For example, meta information about an article might be its publication date, author, the section in which it belongs on the site, its target audience, etc. This framework provides the 揾andles?on the content needed to find it, evaluate its appropriateness, and assemble it into useful publications. An editorial framework provides rules for creating content, a Metatorial framework provides rules for tagging previously created content with meta information.
The Metatorial framework has rules for tagging content with these types of meta information:
- Divisional meta information segments continuous content into discrete content components in a consistent and useful way. This type of meta information also sub-divides the content within a component into smaller blocks (called elements) that can be accessed independently of the component.
- Access meta information determines how content can be located. There are four major categories of access meta information:
- Hierarchies are outlines that list the content in the context of higher and lower order concepts
- Indexes are sets of terms that categorize content using words and phrases
- Associations are links between one piece of content and another
- Browse orders specify which piece of content should be seen before and after a given piece of content (if the content has a sequential order)
- Management meta information adds additional parameters to content such as unique IDs, author name, create date, status, statistics, and content version.
- Inclusion meta information allows one piece of content (like objects, scripts, files, shapes, and auto text) to be embedded in other content.
Just as an editorial framework has as its product an editorial guide, the Metatorial framework results in a Metatorial guide. The Metatorial guide establishes the guidelines that staff uses to divide and tag all of the content that crosses their desk.
To create the guide, two overlapping analyses are used:
- Target publication analysis. This is a set of assumptions about the types of publications the system will be called upon to create. At the highest level, it includes the purpose of the publication, its audience, its general outline, and the types of content it will include. By the time the analysis is complete, it includes the complete meta information schema for the target publications, as well as the specific selection criteria and rules for drawing content and meta information into each publication.
- Content base analysis. This is a set of assumptions about the full body of content in the system. Like the target publication analysis, it defines the purpose, audience, outline, and content types of the content to be managed. If the system will create only one publication, the publication and the content management system will have the same high-level assumptions. To the extent that multiple publications need to be created, the assumptions behind each target are a subset or are derivable from the assumptions behind the entire system. While the target publication analysis details what is currently needed, the content base analysis details what its possible to create given a stated content domain.
Essential Parts of a Content Management System
Content management is the collection, management, and publication of content. A content management system starts with a purpose and a set of target publications. From these, a set of content components is derived that serve the stated purpose, and can be combined to create any of the target publications. A Metatorial framework is then built around these components to allow them to be created, managed, and drawn into publications by a staff whose actions are guided by a set of codified procedures called workflows. To make the content available, the system creates publications such as Web sites, printed documents, and email newsletters. A content management system is needed when there is too much information to collect, manage and publish by hand.
- The collection system is the tools, procedures, and staff that are employed to gather content, and provide editorial and Metatorial processing
- The management system is the database of all content and meta information, as well as the processes and tools employed to access, update, and administer the collected content and meta information
- The workflow system is the tools, procedures, and staff that are employed to assure that the entire process of collection, storage, and publication runs effectively and efficiently according to well-defined timelines and actions
- The publishing system is the tools, procedures, and staff that are employed to draw content out of the repository and create publications
Collection
The collection system is the tools, procedures, and staff that employed to gather content, and provide editorial and Metatorial processing.
When content is collected, it is brought inside the content management system. The content collection process is one of adding new components to the existing repository. Content collection can be broken into these categories:
- Authoring. This is the process of creating content from scratch. Authors almost always work within an editorial framework that allows them to fit their content into the structures of a target publication. Authors should also be made aware of the Metatorial framework that has been developed for the downstream use of the content. Authors are in the best position to tag their creations with meta information. So, to whatever extent possible, authors should be encouraged and empowered to implement the meta information framework within their content.
- Aggregating. This is the process of gathering preexisting content together for inclusion in the system. Aggregation is generally a process of format conversion followed by intensive editorial and Metatorial processing. The conversion changes the formatting of the content, while the editorial processing serves to segment and tag the content for inclusion in the repository. Obviously, the closer the original content is editorially (its style and elementation) and metatorially (its componentization and the meta information that has been entered) to the content management system抯 framework, the easier the aggregation is.
- Converting. This is the process of changing the elementation scheme (i.e., the tagging structure) of the content. In this process the structural as well as the format related codes must be handled. One conversion problem comes in identifying structural elements (sidebars or footers, for example) that have only format codes marking them in the source content. Another problem comes in transforming formatting elements that don抰 exist in the target environment.
- Editorial/Metatorial Services. Editorial services fit each new content component into a system of formatting, voice, and style. Metatorial services fit each new component into a system of structures and connections. To do their work, editors use a style guide. To do their work, 搈etators?use a Metatorial guide. Like the style guide, the Metatorial guide details the meta information system and gives direction on how to fit new components into it. All types of content collection depend on solid editorial and Metatorial guides.
Management
The management system is the repository of all content and meta information, as well as the processes and tools employed to access and manage the collected content and meta information. The repository holds all of the content and meta information of the system.
Repositories perform the following functions:
- Store content. The repository may be one or a set of databases of various kinds. It can include the file system and network resources of the host computer. If the repository is distributed among databases, one database is often in a master position, organizing the information in the others. The repository must be able to store:
- Textual content. This content is either flat text, or more often markup. In a relational database the markup is usually saved as text within fields. In an object database, the markup is broken into all its elements and made accessible.
- Components. The repository must be able to link content into manageable components. The better the repository, the greater the ability to create, modify, and find components.
- Binaries and file-based data. Whether in the file system or inside a custom data store, the repository needs to be able to effectively manage a range of data, media, and executable files.
- Meta information. The repository must be an effective store of the variety of meta information that needs to be collected. Some of this meta information is coded into the structure of the repository itself (for example, a database table can be created especially to store meta information for a particular component type). However meta information is stored, the repository must provide for the amount and kind of meta information needed to describe your content.
- Select content. The repository must allow access and selection of content from within itself. The repository should offer fielded querying to find components with particular meta information associated with them, as well as full text querying against text in the system. In repositories with multiple databases it can be difficult to issue a search that queries all databases in a consistent way.
- Manage content. The repository must facilitate these management tasks:
- Security, including read and write access permissions for components
- User maintenance that interfaces to system user management resources
- Content statusing and tracking for staging publications, workflow triggers, and maintenance operations
- Transaction logging and rollback of major changes in individual databases or to the repository as a whole
- Bulk automated processes that run periodically against subsets of the repository
- Input/output processes that load in and push out information
- Connect to other systems. The repository must be able to communicate over the network with a variety of clients. Ideally, the repository should be able to communicate with LAN-based Web browsers, Internet-based Web browsers, and LAN- or internet-based non-Web client applications. Internet connectivity to the repository enables authoring and other publishing process to take place from multiple locations, a frequent requirement for today抯 content-intensive Web sites.
Workflow
The workflow system is the tools, procedures, and staff that you employ to assure that the entire process of collection, storage, and publication runs effectively and efficiently, according to well-defined timelines and actions.
A workflow system supports the creation and management of business processes. In the context of a content management system, the workflow system sets and administers the chain of events around collecting, repositing, and publishing.
To be successful, the workflow system should:
- Extend over the entire process. Every step of the process, from authoring through final deployment of each publication, should be able to be modeled and tracked within the same system.
- Represent all of the significant parts of the process including:
- Staff members
- Standard processes
- Standard tools and their functions
- Time and data flow with a variety of transitions and charting representations
- Represent any number of small cycles within larger cycles, with some sort of drill down to the appropriate level of detail.
- Have a visual interface that shows cycles and players in the process graphically.
- Make meta information in the repository available. The workflow system should not have to store its own staff members, content types, outlines, and other meta information. It should be able to read the data that is stored in the repository, and make it available when appropriate in its dialogs and selection screens. For example, an editor might select a content type for an article in a workflow screen order to forward it to the next reviewer. The list of content type selections should come from the repository, not from the workflow system抯 own internal data store. As an alternative, the workflow抯 data store (which would need to be some sort of open database) could be considered part of the repository that is responsible for storing certain meta information.
- Provide a conduit to the repository for bottom up meta information. Whether or not the workflow system stores meta information, its screens will be a natural place for staff to enter meta information. Data such as author, status, and type are naturally entered in workflow screens. This data must be able to be transmitted into the repository from the workflow system.
Publishing
Content publishing describes the process by which content is drawn out of the repository and formatted into Web sites and other publications. To be flexible enough to produce a wide range of publications, the publishing system must include:
- Publication templates. These templates draw content into the appropriate context for each particular publication. The templates must instantiate:
- The formatting syntax and surrounding standard text and media elements of the target publication platform
- The page structure and syntax of the target publication platform
- Content components and meta information on the target pages
- Standard text and binary files from the repository onto the target pages
- A full programming language. The wider the publications and more open the repository, the more complexity there will be in transforming content in the repository into a publication. The system needs to have complete programming abilities so that this complexity can be managed. The language should provide:
- All of the standard variable types and control structures of major programming languages.
- Complete access to the repository databases and files.
- Access to external objects and libraries.
- Runtime dependency resolution. When content is added to the repository it cannot be determined where and when it will be used in a publication. Therefore, the publication system must be able to read and resolve content links when the publication is being produced. For example, if component A has a link to component B in the repository, but component B is not being published, then A抯 link must be suppressed by the publication system to avoid a bad link in the publication.
- File and directory creation. The publication system must be able to create the appropriate file and directory set for the target publication. Additionally, the system must have some mechanism for deploying the built publication to its final storage location.
There are content management systems in existence today that meet the requirements as described here ?to varying degrees. There are dozens of commercial products available as well as developers who are willing and able to build custom content management systems. The choice of 搕o buy or to build?depends largely on the results of a content and publication analysis. As the discipline of content management matures, the field of players will likely narrow to a few comprehensive and relatively easy-to-use solutions, similar to the way word processing, project management, and accounting software has evolved over the years. In the meantime, a system must be chosen carefully in order to ensure that it has both the comprehensiveness and flexibility needed to deliver the appropriate publications.
Conclusion
As long as has been communication, there has been content. And, while there have been various methods for managing that content, the discipline of Content Management has only surfaced recently with the advent of electronic publications ?specifically the Web. Thus the discipline of Content Management has not fully matured. That said, Content management, as we know it today, is understandable, useful, and truly critical for anyone who wishes to communicate on a large scale.
Fortunately, with knowledge of the core concepts described in this paper, combined with the wide variety of content management system options, the information beast can be tamed today. With Content Management, information can be delivered in a manner that produces a richer, more timely, more targeted experience for audiences, and a rational, cost-effective process for the publisher.
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