December 2006
2006: Content Management Market Year in Review
The Rockley Group takes a look back at the year 2006 in review. What happened in market? How is globalization changing the content management landscape? And, what about new communication vehicles like blogs, wikis, podcasts, and RSS feeds? Ann Rockley takes a look back and provides some key insights and observations.
September 2006
Customer-Centric Content Management – Level 3 Building the Customer Relationship
If you don't have a relationship with your customers, how can you expect to deliver content of meaning to them? Ann Rockley examines the need for a customer-centric approach and explores how MarthaStewart.com can leverage their existing content assets to more effectively meet customer needs, and improve the quality of both their content and their product offerings.
August 2006
MarthaStewart.com: Making the Case for Customer-Centric Content Management
While "putting the customer first" is a common marketing mantra, until recently few organizations had adopted a truly customer-centric approach to communicating with their customers. But today's Web savvy shoppers are changing all that -- they're rewarding companies that recognize them as individuals and that deliver information of value to them. Find out how MarthaStewart.com could become a customer-centric success story.
July 2006
XML Syndication Set to Explode - Are You Ready For Big Change?
In this exclusive Rockley Bulletin article, Angel investor and information technology entrepreneur Salim Ismail outlines how XML content syndication is changing the way we do business on the web and explains the importance of structured content as a critical enabling factor. Find out how much Internet content is currently hidden from your view and learn how you can tap into the power of structured XML content and syndication to find the content you and your clients really want and need.
June 2006
Lessons From The Trenches: DocZone.com Is Doing It With DITA
In this interview with Christopher Hill of [url=http://www.doczone.com/]DocZone.com[/url], the application support pro speaks candidly with Scott Abel about his company’s experience moving into the world of the [url=http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-dita3/index.html]Darwin Information Typing Architecture[/url] (DITA). Lessons learned, suggestions for improving DITA, warnings, and practical advice are included.
March 2006
Making The Move To Content Management: Five Stages Of Career Transition
Moving to content management is as large a paradigm shift as moving to the Web was during the 1990s. It's hard to remember how frustrated we were in dealing with non-linear text, the constraints of HTML, and writing in a less formal style. If the 90s was the decade of the Web, technical communication 2.0, this is the decade of content management. It's techcomm 3.0, and we're entering the field with an improved feature set. Soon we'll reflect on this time of change and say, "I could never go back."
February 2006
Louis Rosenfeld On Enterprise Information Architecture
In this interview with Louis Rosenfeld, The Rockley Bulletin asks the information architecture and user experience guru to talk about enterprise information architecture, what it is, where it's heading, and how you can get started.
January 2006
Content Management 2006: Market Directions and Trends
Ann Rockley provides her annual summary of where the market is heading and explores the twists and turns that got us there. Get Rockley's take on XML use, ECM adoption, translation and localization, open source content management, and customer-centric content management. Rockley points out several emerging trends that should be on your radar screen.
November 2005
Feng Shui of Global Websites: Helping Visitors Find What They Need
Are you planning on translating your website to describe your company to people outside of your home market or to sell your products internationally? Language is just one step in the march to global markets. This tip sheet helps you with another aspect of international websites – how to let visitors know where to find the information they need.
October 2005
Notes from the Field: One Writer's Unwilling Journey Into Content Management
Join one writer as she muddles through the maze of tools and technology to rediscover the value of remaining true to her technical writer roots.
September 2005
Auto-population: Who's Doing It and Why?
Auto-population of reusable content is a smart move. It can eliminate redundant data entry, reduce errors, speed time-to-market, eliminate wasteful and unnecessary expense, and increase content consistency.
August 2005
Information Architecture of Content Management
A key factor in any successful content management implementation is a solid information architecture. Far too often organizations implement content management without first identifying the needs of their authors, without looking closely at their content to determine how it could be most effectively structured to support user/customer needs, and without analyzing their current and desired content life cycles. The result: resistance to adoption, increased cost and failure to achieve desired ourcomes.
July 2005
DITA: Is it the Standard of Choice for You?
There is definitely a lot of hype around the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), especially since it was adopted as an OASIS standard XML architecture for publishing. Standard or not, is DITA the right choice for you?
June 2005
Mining for Information: Locating Useful Content Management Resources on Commercial CMS Vendor Web Sites
You can learn a lot about content management by visiting content management software vendor web sites. Well, that is, if you can find it. But, every once in a while, some really great information gets published to a vendor web site. We’ve selected some content we think might prove valuable to those hoping to make the case for content management in their organization, or those just trying to learn as much as possible, without all that distracting marketing noise.
May 2005
Shopping for Open Source Web Content Management Systems
Finding the right open source web content management system isn’t an easy task. There are literally hundreds of products from which to choose. With so many choices, it’s no wonder there’s a lack of understanding about what web content management systems are available and what these tools can actually do.
April 2005
Should you develop a custom DTD (build) or adapt an existing standard DTD like DITA or DocBook (buy)? Because a DTD provides the foundation for every part of the system, from editing tools to content repository to output processors, this decision is perhaps the most important of all decisions made in the implementation of an XML-based content management system.
March 2005
Lights Out Publishing: The Product Documentation Solution
Discover how "lights out publishing" can help you manage product documentation and deliver the right information, to the right people, at the right time.
February 2005
XML Markup: Creating Self-Describing Data
If you're thinking about moving to XML-based content management, you'll need to understand how XML can help you create self-describing, human-readable markup.
January 2005
Content Management Market Trends
In the December 2004 issue of The Rockley Bulletin, we looked at the year in review and some of the major events that affected the content management industry. This month we take a quick look at trends affecting content management and their affect on the direction of the content management market.
December 2004
Content Management: The Year In Review
2004 was a busy year for the content management industry. The biggest news? Mergers, acquisitions, XML, content reuse, enterprise content, and a new trade association for content management professionals.
November 2004
New Roles Require New Skill Sets: Training Ensures Content Management Success
If your organization is planning a move to content management, it’s likely you’ll need to obtain training from experts who understand the challenges content management projects introduce. Because content management is a paradigm shift that requires the creation of new roles, modifications to existing roles, and the development of new skill sets, it’s best to identify -- up-front -- what new knowledge your staff will need to succeed.
October 2004
Optimizing the Content Supply Chain: Realizing Opportunities to Reduce Costs and Improve Outcomes
Company executives are continuously searching for new and creative approaches to reduce expenses, increase efficiency and profitability, and delight customers with innovative products and services. In this fight to achieve competitive advantage, many companies may be overlooking the processes required to create, manage and produce content. Discover how technological limitations can break down the content supply chain and learn how content management systems, authoring and publishing tools, and industry standards can be used to reduce costs and improve outcomes.
September 2004
If you have a hard time finding the information you need on your corporate intranet, on the web, or even on your own personal computer, you’re not alone. Read this article to learn how you can improve your search and retrieval efforts and provide the information your customers need when they need it.
August 2004
Where do CRM and Content Management fit in the Customer Experience?
Carolyn Watt, President of The Customer Experience Company explores the importance of a unified content management strategy as a key enabler for organizations hoping to consistently deliver exceptional customer experiences.
July 2004
Managing Legacy Content - To Convert or Not To Convert?
Legacy content conversion is an important issue for content management project teams to understand before they tackle a CM project. The results of a 2003 Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture [url=http://aifia.org/pg/the_problems_with_cms.php]survey[/url] help underscore the importance of legacy content planning. Over 53% of survey respondents complained that content management systems do a poor job of handling legacy content. Gaining a thorough understanding of legacy content issues is a prudent first step – prior to selecting content management tools or authoring software.
June 2004
Understanding XForms: An Introduction
XForms 1.0 is an XML recommendation from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). While commonly described as a replacement for the forms functionality provided by Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), XForms is a great deal more than that.
May 2004
Applying a Unified Content Strategy to Learning Materials
Applying a unified content strategy to learning materials means that you can connect learners with the materials that best suit their objectives, as well as their particular learning styles. You can also connect the right content with the right course, making sure that wherever a piece of content is used, it is consistent. Inconsistent content, either within a course or across courses or even across other information products, is a sure way to introduce disconnects to learners and other users of your information.
March 2004
Managing Life Sciences Content
Life sciences has been called the least automated industry in the world, but some pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, and healthcare-related organizations are working to dispel that image by implementing targeted content management solutions aimed at shortening the amount of time it takes to get new products to market. Time-to-market is of critical importance to life sciences organizations, especially pharmaceutical firms. A one month delay in a blockbuster drug's approval can yield $41.7 million (U.S.) in lost revenue.
February 2004
Managing enterprise content involves more than managing text-based information. It may also involve the management of voice mail scripts, video files, audio files, images, graphics, archived web conferences, charts, scanned images, and more. In this issue of The Rockley Bulletin, we explore ways to manage the voices and sounds we hear, the still images and moving pictures we see, and the instructional training we receive.
January 2004
An overview of the enterprise content management landscape during 2003. Includes details about software vendors, regulatory and compliance issues, technology and more.
November 2003
How A Global Unified Content Strategy Can Help You Reduce Translation And Localization Costs
Discover how a unified global content strategy can help cut costs and simplify the complex management of business rules and content when localizing content for international audiences. The article, by Dawn Curtis, Senior Consultant, The Rockley Group, provides information about the tools and technologies available, as well as considerations for overcoming the common challenges encountered when implementing a unified global content strategy.
October 2003
Six Sigma And Quality Improvement
Six Sigma Black Belt, Tom Pearson, explores the world of quality improvements and answers the question, "Can Six Sigma be applied to content management?"
September 2003
A Unified Content Strategy: Changing Roles And Responsibilities
Moving to a unified content strategy involves the creation of new roles and responsibilities. Discover what new roles are needed, and what training and skill set is required of those selected to fill them.
August 2003
Change Management For CMS Projects
Content management initiatives involve change. Lots of it. And, with change comes fear, resistance, and confusion. Learn how managing change from day one can help make the transition easier.
July 2003
Issues In Information Modeling
Pamela Kostur, Senior Consultant at The Rockley Group, demystifies many of the complex issues information modeling raises. Discover why its important to learn the language of information architecture, distinguish between reusable structure and reusable content, and visually represent the structure of your information assets.
June 2003
Strategic Planning: The Key To Content Management Success
This overview article from The Alliance for Non-Profit Management will help you get a firm grasp on what strategic planning is (and is not) and how it can help you plan for content management success.
May 2003
How Business And IT Can Work Together
Discover how building a bridge between IT and business can help you successfully manage your information assets, share content and knowledge, and break down silo walls that hinder content management success.
April 2003
Collecting Metrics To Demonstrate Return On Investment
What’s the value of building a business case that demonstrates return on investment? Plenty. Making the case for your project using real-world metrics and salesmen-like savvy is critical.
March 2003
Why Enterprise Content Management?
Discover the reasons for adopting an enterprise content management strategy. Learn how you can begin taking the "next logical step in the evolution of communication".
February 2003
Opportunistic Reuse vs. Systematic Reuse
To reuse or not to reuse? That is only one of the questions. Learn the diffference between opportunistic and systematic reuse and how selecting the right reuse approach for your particular situation can add value to the content you create.