Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy

Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy

Released October 2002
Publisher(s): New Riders
ISBN: 9780735713062

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Book description

Today's businesses are overwhelmed with the need to create more content, faster, cutomized for more customers, and for more media than ever before. Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy provides the concepts, strategies, guidelines, processes, and technological options that will prepare enterprise content managers and authors to meet the increasing demands of creating, managing, and distributing content.

Author Ann Rockley, along with the Rockley Group team, provides techniques that will help you define your content management requirements, build your vision, design your content architecture, pick the right tools, and overcome the hurdles of managing enterprise content. This book will help you visualize 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.

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
    1. Dedication
  2. About the Author
  3. About the Contributing Authors
  4. About the Technical Reviewers
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Tell Us What You Think
  7. Introduction
    1. Who should read this book
    2. How this book is organized
      1. Part I: The basis of a unified content strategy (Chapters 1–3)
      2. Part II: Performing a substantive audit: Determining business requirements (Chapters 4–7)
      3. Part III: Design (Chapters 8–12)
      4. Part IV: Tools and technologies (Chapters 13–18)
      5. Part V: Moving to a unified content strategy (Chapters 19–22)
      6. Part VI: Resources (Glossary, Bibliography, Appendixes A–E, Index)
      7. At what level is this book written?
      8. What you should take away
    3. Conventions
  8. I. The basis of a unified content strategy
    1. 1. Content: The lifeblood of an organization
      1. Content: Where does it all come from?
      2. Understanding the Content Silo Trap
        1. What causes content silos?
        2. The effect of silos
          1. Poor communication
          2. Lack of sharing (“not invented here” syndrome)
          3. Reduced awareness of other initiatives
          4. Lack of standardization and consistency
          5. Higher cost of content creation, management, and delivery
          6. Content users suffer, too
      3. A unified content strategy
        1. Unified content benefits
      4. Components of a unified content strategy
        1. Content management system
        2. Reusable content
        3. Unified processes
      5. Where does a unified content strategy fit?
      6. Scope of a unified content strategy
      7. Summary
    2. 2. Fundamental concepts of reuse
      1. What is content reuse?
      2. Why reuse content?
      3. The historical foundation for reuse
        1. Manufacturing
        2. Software industry
        3. Technical publications
        4. Web content management
        5. Learning materials
        6. Media
      4. Reuse methods
        1. Opportunistic reuse
        2. Systematic reuse
          1. Example: Systematic reuse
        3. Locked reuse
        4. Derivative reuse
          1. Example: Usability reports
        5. Nested reuse
          1. Example: Product description
          2. Example: Procedure
      5. When doesn’t reuse make sense?
      6. Summary
    3. 3. Assessing return on investment for a unified content strategy
      1. Addressing the goals
        1. Identifying the goals
        2. Qualifying the goals
        3. Quantifying the goals
      2. Calculating investment costs
        1. Technology
          1. Authoring
          2. Content management system
          3. Workflow
          4. Delivery
        2. Training and consulting
        3. Lost productivity
      3. Calculating return on investment
      4. Summary
  9. II. Performing a substantive audit: Determining business requirements
    1. 4. Where does it really hurt?
      1. Identifying the dangers, opportunities, and strengths
        1. Dangers
          1. Common dangers
        2. Opportunities
          1. Common opportunities
        3. Strengths
          1. Common strengths
      2. Identifying the goals
        1. Common goals
      3. Identifying the challenges
      4. Where a unified content strategy won’t help
      5. Summary
    2. 5. Analyzing the content life cycle
      1. Your task
      2. Identifying your content life cycle
        1. Content creation
          1. Planning
          2. Design
          3. Authoring and revision
        2. Review
        3. Content management
          1. Version control
          2. Authoring access control
        4. Publication and delivery
      3. Identifying the players and issues
        1. Content users
          1. Sample internal audience questions
          2. Sample external audience questions
          3. Common issues for content users
        2. Content authors
          1. Sample author questions
          2. Common issues for content authors
          3. Sample translation questions
          4. Common translation issues
          5. Sample global author questions
          6. Common global author issues
        3. Reviewers
          1. Sample reviewer questions
          2. Common review issues
        4. Publication and delivery
          1. Sample publications questions
          2. Common publication issues
        5. Information technology
          1. Common IT issues
      4. Summary
    3. 6. Performing a content audit
      1. What is a content audit?
      2. What’s involved in doing a content audit?
        1. Identifying scope of the audit
        2. Selecting representative materials
        3. Analyzing the content
          1. Top-level analysis
          2. In-depth analysis
      3. Content audit examples
        1. Example 1: Medical devices
          1. Top-level analysis
            1. Interpreting the findings
          2. In-Depth Analysis
            1. Interpreting the findings
          3. Conclusion
        2. Example 2: Consumer electronics
          1. Top-level analysis
            1. Interpreting the findings
          2. In-depth analysis
            1. Interpreting the findings
          3. Conclusion
        3. Example 3: Banking institution
          1. In-depth analysis
            1. Interpreting the findings
          2. Conclusion
        4. Example 4: Learning materials
          1. Top-level analysis
            1. Interpreting the findings
          2. In-depth analysis
            1. Interpreting the findings
          3. Conclusion
        5. Example 5: Pharmaceutical product label
          1. Top-level analysis
            1. Interpreting the findings
          2. Conclusion
      4. Building a reuse map
        1. Identifying opportunities for reuse
      5. What comes after the audit?
      6. Summary
    4. 7. Envisioning your unified content life cycle
      1. Addressing issues
      2. Sample unified content life cycles
        1. Background
        2. Comparing the life cycles
          1. Create
          2. Review
          3. Manage
          4. Delivery
      3. Summary
  10. III. Design
    1. 8. Information modeling
      1. Understanding information architecture
        1. Benefits of information architecture
      2. Modeling based on analysis
        1. Understanding structure
        2. Why is structure important?
      3. Understanding granularity
      4. Information product and element models
        1. Mandatory and optional elements
        2. Information product models
        3. Element models
        4. Elements as containers
      5. Components of models
        1. Semantic information
        2. Base information
        3. Metadata
        4. Architectural information
        5. Production information
        6. The complete model
      6. How are models used?
      7. Summary
    2. 9. Designing metadata
      1. What is metadata?
        1. Benefits of metadata to a unified content strategy
      2. Types of metadata
        1. Categorization metadata
        2. Element metadata
          1. Metadata for reuse
          2. Metadata for retrieval
          3. Metadata for tracking (status)
      3. Creating a controlled vocabulary
      4. Ensuring metadata gets used
      5. Summary
    3. 10. Designing dynamic content
      1. Why dynamic content?
      2. When does dynamic content make sense?
      3. Examples of dynamic content
        1. Example 1: Universal Reach, Inc.
        2. Example 2: Investors Guide, Inc.
        3. Example 3: IPlan, Inc.
      4. Supporting dynamic content
        1. Identifying user needs
          1. Personas
        2. Designing metadata and user profiles
          1. Matching metadata to the user profile
          2. Dynamic user profiles
        3. Identifying dynamic elements in models
        4. Designing dynamic content business rules
      5. Systematic reuse
      6. Summary
    4. 11. Designing workflow
      1. What is workflow?
      2. Benefits of workflow
        1. Improving and simplifying processes
      3. Depicting workflow
        1. Flowcharts
        2. Swimlane diagrams
        3. Swimlane diagrams or flowcharts?
      4. Roles, responsibilities, and processes
        1. Roles (players)
          1. Who is a player?
          2. Depicting roles
        2. Responsibilities (tasks)
          1. Types of tasks
          2. Writing and depicting tasks
        3. Processes (flow)
          1. Business requirements often govern workflow
          2. Depicting processes
      5. Designing effective workflow
      6. Summary
    5. 12. Implementing your design
      1. Factors affecting implementation
        1. Scalability
        2. Ease of use
        3. Ease of finding information
      2. Physical granularity
        1. The impact of making your content granular
        2. The impact of not making your content granular enough
      3. Options for implementation
        1. Implementing your model in XML
          1. What is a DTD?
          2. Is a DTD required?
            1. How many DTDs?
            2. DTD or Schema?
        2. Authoring forms
        3. Structural templates (traditional authoring tools)
      4. Semantic versus generic element or style names
        1. Number of elements or tags
        2. Identifying content
      5. Metadata
      6. Style sheets
        1. Style sheet purposes
        2. How many style sheets are needed?
        3. Capabilities of XSL style sheets
        4. Designing style sheets for output
          1. Modular style sheets
          2. Generated text
          3. Control of production style sheets
      7. Summary
  11. IV. Tools and technologies
    1. 13. Evaluating tools
      1. Identifying your needs
        1. General criteria
        2. Weighting your criteria
      2. Creating a list of potential vendors
      3. Narrowing down the list
        1. Proof-of-concept
      4. One size fits all?
      5. Summary
    2. 14. The role of XML
      1. A brief history of XML
        1. First SGML
        2. Then HTML
      2. What is XML?
        1. Design goals of XML
      3. A look at XML
      4. Importance of XML to a unified content strategy
        1. XML and structured content
        2. Separation of content and format
        3. Built-in metadata
        4. Database orientation
        5. Use of XSL
        6. Personalization
      5. Summary
    3. 15. Authoring tools
      1. An overview of authoring tools
        1. Traditional word processing and page layout tools
        2. Structured editors
      2. Capabilities and requirements for unified content
        1. Familiarity
        2. Technical complexity
          1. Vendor questions
        3. Functional maturity
          1. Vendor questions
        4. Book-building capability
          1. Vendor questions
        5. Structural and stylistic control
          1. Vendor questions
        6. Separation of format and content
          1. Vendor questions
        7. Conversion
          1. Vendor questions
        8. Dynamic/virtual documents
          1. Vendor questions
        9. Support infrastructure
        10. Integration with a content management system
          1. Vendor questions
      3. Criteria for selection
      4. Summary
    4. 16. Content management systems
      1. The content management process
        1. “Saved as” elements
          1. Vendor questions
          2. Metadata
            1. Vendor questions
        2. The management system
          1. Access control
            1. Vendor questions
          2. Check-in/check-out
            1. Vendor questions
          3. Version control
            1. Vendor questions
          4. Updates
            1. Vendor questions
          5. Repository
            1. Vendor questions
          6. Search and retrieval
            1. Vendor questions
          7. Archive
            1. Vendor questions
          8. Translation
            1. Vendor questions
          9. Workflow
      2. The types of content management systems
        1. Web content management system
          1. Advantages
          2. Disadvantages
        2. Transactional content management systems
          1. Advantages
          2. Disadvantages
        3. Integrated document management systems
          1. Advantages
          2. Disadvantages
        4. Publication content management systems
          1. Advantages
          2. Disadvantages
        5. Learning content management systems
          1. Advantages
          2. Disadvantages
        6. Enterprise content management systems
          1. Advantages
          2. Disadvantages
        7. Other
        8. Database versus CMS
        9. Can one CMS do it all?
      3. Summary
    5. 17. Workflow systems
      1. Creation
        1. Vendor questions
      2. Processing
        1. Routing
          1. Vendor questions
        2. Rules
          1. Vendor questions
      3. Administration
        1. Players (role assignment)
          1. Vendor questions
      4. Security and electronic signature
        1. How and where does security apply?
          1. Vendor questions
        2. Deadlines and escalation
          1. Vendor questions
        3. Reporting
          1. Vendor questions
      5. Other considerations
        1. Vendor questions
      6. Summary
    6. 18. Delivery systems
      1. Capabilities
      2. Aggregation
      3. Transformation
        1. Output support
        2. XSL support
        3. Book building
        4. Partial or full publishing
        5. Collection publication
        6. Full graphics support
      4. Conversion
      5. Distribution and output management
      6. Assembly
        1. Dynamic content
          1. Personalization
      7. Automation
      8. Summary
  12. V. Moving to a unified content strategy
    1. 19. Collaborative authoring: Breaking down the silos
      1. What is collaboration?
        1. Exploring collaboration further
      2. What does collaborative authoring require?
        1. Strategies for organizational change
          1. How groups are organized and managed
            1. Organizing based on content requirements
          2. How groups work together
            1. Relinquishing ownership
          3. How individual authors work
            1. Developing new skills
          4. How models are implemented and used
        2. Strategies for technological change
      3. Summary
    2. 20. Separating content from format
      1. Why separate content from format?
      2. Writing structured content
        1. What is structured writing?
        2. Principles of structured writing
          1. Basing structure on information type
      3. Applying the model
        1. Reading the model
        2. Using the building block approach
      4. Same content, different uses?
        1. Writing guidelines for different uses
        2. Example: Same content, different uses
          1. The information model
          2. The finished product
      5. Summary
    3. 21. Managing change
      1. Change management
        1. Identify the pain, issues, and consequences
        2. Communicate
        3. Elicit the help of “change agents”
        4. Get a champion
      2. Overcoming resistance
        1. “These ideas come from a different kind of company.”
        2. “That’s not how we do things here.”
        3. “I can’t be creative under these conditions.”
        4. “It’s not worth all this extra work.”
        5. “You’re making my job obsolete.”
      3. Why some projects fail
      4. Changing roles
        1. Enterprise project coordinator (new role)
        2. Information technologist (new role)
        3. Business owners or analysts (modified role)
        4. Information architects (modified role)
        5. Authors (modified role)
        6. Content owners (modified role)
        7. Editors (modified role)
      5. Summary
    4. 22. Transition plan
      1. Scoping your unified content strategy
      2. Structure without structured authoring tools
      3. Working with a limited budget
      4. A phased approach
      5. Summary
  13. VI. Resources
    1. Glossary
    2. Bibliography
    3. A. Checklist for implementing a unified content strategy
      1. Phase 1—Analysis
      2. Phase 2—Design
      3. Phase 3—Selecting tools and technologies
      4. Phase 4—Development
      5. Phase 5—Testing and system modifications
      6. Phase 6—Pilot
      7. Phase 7—Implementation
      8. Phase 8—Post-implementation
    4. B. Writing for multiple media
      1. Writing online documentation
      2. Writing for the Web
      3. Writing for wireless devices
      4. Writing for paper
      5. Summarizing the guidelines
        1. Accommodating different media, levels of detail, and styles
      6. Conclusion
    5. C. Vendors
      1. Authoring systems
      2. Content management systems
      3. Workflow systems
      4. Delivery systems
    6. D. Tools checklist
      1. Authoring tool functionality
      2. Content management
      3. Workflow
      4. Delivery
    7. E. Content Relationships
      1. Basic relationships
      2. Complex relationships
      3. Managing the complexity
      4. Conclusion

Product information

  • Title: Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: October 2002
  • Publisher(s): New Riders
  • ISBN: 9780735713062