When “content management” = “managing the content”
Gerry McGovern writes an interesting article on his 10 predictions for web content management in 2005. I especially hope point number 1 pans out:
1. The editor—the person who knows the difference between good and bad content—will get increasing authority for the website.
More and more, I’m frustrated that “content manager” means a technological solution, rather than a person who knows their content. As the university web site get more and more pressure to standardize it’s web content, institutions are turning to sophisticated and expensive CMS solutions. I am tending to think that we would be better served to hire a content specialist— an editor— that can work with the departments to produce good content and the web office to get it posted. As Jeff Veen puts it in an inspired article:
Content management is not a technology problem. If you’re having trouble managing the content on your Web site, it’s because you have an editorial process problem.
We need a new model. Something tells me that adding another decentralized process to our already decentralized university web site is going to fail.