Why are CMSs not magic?
It is well known that ‘CMS’ stands for Content Management System. But few people know that CMS aren’t actually enough to manage content. There litterally are hundreds of CMSs out there, each of them suitable for specific purposes. There are also in house built CMSs, developed to fit a particlular organisation needs. But none of them can magically make content management easier and more efficient.
A CMS is a system that helps to manage content by storing content in a database. Such tools have facilities to create, edit and publish content. They make website manager life easier thanks to template managed pages and quality control (eg links check). CMSs are also useful to content contributors, they can organise their work with workflows and amend content in WYSIWYG editor. These systems help to give consistency to a website content and layout, and allow to manage in one place content published to several websites.
From the previous list of features, it transpires that CMSs are not magic though. Here is a non extensive list of what they can’t do:
- define content categories and categorise it,
- decide who is liable for each part of content,
- know which are strategic pieces of content,
- find out when to review a particular sub section of the site…
Here is the bottom line: CMSs are tools, one kind of tool which is only part of the full tool kit of any accomplished Content Manager.
