Whit AndrewsTalked to XyEnterprise last week about its content component management capabilities — something we’ve wrestled with in a variety of ways, including a recent presentation I wrote with my colleague Rita Knox titled “Yes, Delete All.” Our central thesis is that content will go the way of SOA — that componentization of content is inevitable and ultimately a fundamental shift in how content is created, described and maintained. XyEnterprise tells a very interesting story in that direction, as do JustSystems and Mark Logic. I’d love to hear of more.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Dave Kellogg December 10, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Hi Whit,
Nice note. Both I and many of our professional publishing customers call such componentization moving from a focus on the container to a focus on content. It’s not the magazine, it’s the article. It’s not the book, it’s the chapter. It’s not the record, it’s the song … or the the ringtone.
Even our scientific publishing customers (e.g., Elsevier with thousands of medical journals) are looking for the ringtones in their content.
Best,
Dave
2 Phil Caisley December 15, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Whit,
I agree with Dave, and it’s hitting us all in different ways. We’ve been pursuing content componetisation now for several years. It certainly takes time to get your content into this granular form, to separate the content from how you ultimate render it (whether print, online, integrated etc) and to manage the capture, creation and delivery processes. It’s also surprised me that we’ll end up (at least in the short term) using several content management systems to manage the various components we’ve created, whether text, images, audio, videos, marketing etc. Even when you’ve created these information assets and have put in place the mechanisms to manage them, it doesn’t stop there. You then need to integrate with the CMSs, the means by which these assets are ultimately delivered in their rendered forms… which opens up a whole new ball game. Its not just content management, its content delivery too, along with the means to control who gets access to what, and under what terms and conditions.
Assuming that there is on-going value in the information assets you hold though, along with processes that will need to be run over an extended period of time, the value of making these CMS investments should be recouped through both improved process efficiency, but more importantly, the ability to re-purpose this content (perhaps in conjunction with the content of others) in ever more creative and value-adding ways.
The opportunities continue to increase.