Let's Get Personal

If you're in the middle of a content management implementation right now, I don't have to tell you how hard it can be. Decisions come fast and furious, and you never know whether you are over doing it, or just doing enough. Too many fields, or too little? Too little structure, or overly "cookie-cutter." Too much workflow, or not enough? If you are trying to select a content management system, it isn't much easier. Everyone in your organization claims to need a content management system, but what do you really need your solution to do well, versus what needs to be just "good enough."

It's easy to blame vendors, industry analysts, system implementers, and of course, your managers and co-workers. But for a real bit of insight, take a look at yourself first, specifically your C-drive.

Now I'm an old fashioned "live in the file system" user. I still call it "File Manager." And in the 10+ years I've managed mine, I've yet to come up with a satisfactory way to organize it -- not the programs and configuration stuff either -- just "my" stuff, like documents, presentations, research (and now blog ideas). I still can't find anything. I have agonizing debates with myself over things like: should I have a "Marketing" folder and then each product release folder under it? Or, should I have a "Products" folder, and then a "Marketing" folder for each release? I've actually done both.

For a while I thought, this is all because of file system limitations. Things can only be "in" one folder at a time. The new "WinFS" will fix this, someday. But then I took a look at my mail file. I use Lotus Notes, and there you can put any single mail into as many different folders as you want. Nirvana, right? I can put something into Marketing and Products at the same time! Trouble is, as bad as my C drive is, my mail file is worse. Basically I have twice as many places to look to not find anything. Based on the popularity of the Google Desktop I'm not alone either. If you must sell your soul to full text searching, should we even bother with folders or metadata?

The point is, if you can't decide for your own files or email, where you generally have total control over how you want to organize and find it -- then imagine how hard it is for some business manager to figure it out for a whole set of users how they will work best. More importantly, recognize that what they are asking for, is most likely just a guess or a feeling on their part. Are these decisions asking others to do what you wouldn't do? Are you asking technology to save them from themselves?

This doesn't mean giving up. It does suggest that "know thyself" may be a good place to start in making these tough choices. It also suggests you should ask users how they work today in other areas to get a better sense of what they will actually use in the content management system.

Use the link below to tell me what you think. Have you over- or under-engineered a content management implementation, or struggled to select the "right" content management system not knowing what you really need it to do?