Tuesday 30 April 2013

Content Management Systems

I have begun to use Joomla, and obviously like the online version, but a few comments from people who are professionals in this strategy, point to a different scenario too, take your decision :

1.  Content creation should keep privacy in mind, propriety content should not be available to any third party vendor.
2.  Content creation also requires a concern for organizational concerns, there might be multiple content developers working together to get a site up.
3.  Collaboration requires a software that can share data across a team based in locations across the world.
4.  Team work and Quick Response to the success of any website.

Based on these feedbacks, I decided to write more about the other strategies available for a Content Development Team.  The first point I mention was crafted by Kapil, who leads a team of skilled Financial Consultants in India, it has to be said though, that he is a very hands on gentleman, and a pro when it comes to webmaster techniques.  "There is a skill set that everyone must work towards, it is a skill game after all, the more we work on a skill, the easier it gets for the rest of the team.  Mandy, I need you decide on what  is worth taking a risk on," he said getting his almost bald headed lean frame out of his chair.  He moved to the drawing board with a marker in his hand.
"The blueprint you gave your Content Developers, says it all," I said almost stopping him midway and regreting it immediately.
"Yes, I know."
"Content Management consists of content creation and publishing.  If content is the king, then the king must dictate the Site Design and not the othe way around," I repeated what he had told me two days ago, and was very proud that I had been taking notes while he spoke.
I referred my notes, walked over to the drawing board and took the marker from his hand and quickly wrote on the board :

Service Design
1.  Build a Scenario and Story Telling.
2.  Task Analysis.
3.  Prototyping.
Service to Business
1.  Visualization of the Actual Content.
2.  Innovation.
Innovation Design
1.  Visualize.
2.  Assess.
3.  Innovate.

He, at that point took the marker from my hand and changed a few things on the board, drew three large circles, marking them as Content Design, Business Content and Designer Toolkit
"You design the service before anything else is done, I know you write, and write well, chose the service that you want to offer to the customer, the Site Creator."
I understood what he was trying to tell me and looked at the research that I had done earlier, before I had met him.  I understood that I was just a salesman today, selling my wares to the best possible buyer and here I had a team of people who wanted my product.  As a salesman it was my job to talk and talk and talk to figure out what was going on in the organization.  So from the Content Creator in my team to the Web Designers, I had to talk to bring it all together.  The Content Creator might have a thought in his mind that was required to be passed on to the Web Designer and the Sales Team may want their own inputs on the creation of content.  The Marketing team might have got its inputs from the Finance Department that said, the budget for the project was less 30% of the initial estimate. It was all about learning, a learning organization never fails, the curve need not be steep but it needs to be on a constant rise for development to happen.

"Go for the best you can deliver within the constraints of the organization, voice out the need for quality content, yet tone it down, sober it down to the budget." he sounded very sure of what he was talking about.
"I understand Kapil, that the 3 process's, Content Design, Business Content and Designers Toolkit are not a serial in process, they might happen concurrently as well," his confidence was infectious and I could feel myself beginning to talk to reality.
"You will further are required to do the  following things to bring content alive, plan every detail of the content, what to write and when to write and when to publish.  Set a very strict deadline to it and stick by it.  Your project though large should not take more than 2 months of writing to accomplish," I knew that  he made this barb because he had seen me go crazy writing stuff on my blog.

He walked to his chair, the office Aircon was blowing cold air on this hot summer evening, it seemed like the smell of leather was overpowering, I had already undergone one project before this where I had analysed and solved a problem for a sales team.  The content that I really wanted to write about was Sales, thats where my experience lay, I had worked during the past 4 years getting Techno-Commercial teams together, it was no means a coincidence that today I qualified as somebody who could write a book and sell this book around the world.

 The second comment had come from Jyoti, who was the Area Manager for another large company, who believed that there was nothing in this world that was more important than the organization, it made the world move.  Team work made the world tick and " I believe we should understand that writing content for a large organization should be a team effort, which requires Collaboration, Combination and Cohesion, the three C's of teamwork, it makes sense to involve people who are really feel for your project, who emote and feel the pain of success and failure."
He suggested the following softwares relevant at the time of this writing :

1.  Pligg ver 1.2.2
     requires MySQL and PHP

2.  Drupal
     Apache Webserver and MySQL

3.  OpenCMS
     MySQL 5.0.15 or higher
     PHP

I could feel all this coming together now, and I was on my way, Adsense was the way and I would go that way.  To earn money while developing an idea was worth trying, it was like saying I invest in a project and earn while I pay the EMI of the project, worth a thought isn't it ?
All successes come with time, thought and hard work.

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