Content Management Systems (Tools of the Trade)

The first chapter about the foundations of CMS defines the problems with an unmanaged site. The chapter could have been written from interviews with our organization--they hit the nail on the head.

The rest of the book provides practical advice on what to expect with a CMS, what features to look for (whether you are buying a system or building your own), and the implementation and migration processes. This is a quick read, but packed with solid information and little fluff.

This book is not a review of current specific CMS software (there are websites that keep up to date on these things.) Nor does it provide any cut-and-paste code for developing your own (although it provides helpful tips on platform choice, open source solutions, etc.)

If you are tired of hand-coding HTML and think, "there must be a better way", read this book.


A must-read for those involved in web content deployment   November 5, 2002
A. Shiell (Edinburgh, Scotland)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

This is a very comprehensive book which manages to be both technical enough to keep developers happy and yet clear enough to be understood by managers. As a web developer with experience of working on a number of intranet and extranet projects under a variety of managers I would thoroughly recommend this book to all those involved in any aspect of managing a content-driven website or intranet.

A Content Management System, whether it's an actual application or a set of procedures, is absolutely essential for the delivery of a large amount of content in a consistent and structured manner. Once a website or intranet reaches a certain size, the benefit of having a rigid application in place as opposed to relying on people following procedures becomes clear. Every single piece of information on the system is catalogued, it is known who is responsible for it, and it can be easily found. Even when a website is small, adopting a content management system early means that the growth of the site is tightly controlled. Furthermore, there is a clear division between content and presentation, so that they can be changed independently of one another, which is an essential business requirement. And of course, the ultimate benefit of a CMS is that the responsibility for putting new content live and maintaining existing content can be handed over to the business users whom the content is meant to serve, thus freeing up valuable web developers for other projects.

A CMS can be a very complex beast, which must be tailored to the exact requirements of an organisation so that it best serves their needs. Additionally, an organisation must clearly define their needs and be prepared to modify their business procedures around the proposed system. This book goes into detail about how to go about how to help an organisation define their requirements and proposes a number of operating models for them to consider.

The question of whether to buy an off-the-shelf solution and customise it or develop one in house is one which lies at the heart of most systems management decisions - and CMSs are no exception. Which option to go for depends on a number of factors which are unique to each organisation - this book discusses these factors in detail, then goes on to describe all the things to consider when buying or building a CMS.

And that's still not the end of the story! Once the system has been purchased or built, it still needs to be implemented and the existing data needs to be migrated. This is a process that needs to begin long before the system is complete. This book shows how to divide up the responsibilities for migration and implementation, and discusses all the relevant issues.

Take a look at the authors' section, and you will see that this book has been put together by people with a serious amount of experience and expertise in this field. It has been thoroughly well researched and really does cover the entire process of choosing, building and implementing a CMS.

I will stress again, it is a must-read for all those involved in deploying content over the web!!


Content Mang Systems - Tools of the Trade - ? are the tools   November 1, 2002
Valdez Ladd (Raleigh, NC USA)
9 out of 20 found this review helpful

I breathlessly brought and read this book expecting it to have information about the current leading CMS software vendor tools. It was disappointing to read my second high level book covering the conceptual overview mostly without any vendor /software tools evaluations such as Interwoven, Microsoft Content Management Server, RedDot, Ektron, and Vignette!

I had hoped that this book's title indicated that it would be different than Web Content Management: A Collaborative Approach [Paperback] by Nakano, Russell. This book gave me the high level overview. I read it BEFORE this book.

So where are these products /tools mentioned? Only in terse statements that had no meat. The reader was just left to decide "if you buy a CMS system as opposed to build it yourself then you are locked in to it!!

What most readers want are Methods - yes, provided, Overview - yes, provided and the Software tools reviews - no where is sight.

Save your money and read From "Chaos to Control"
September 17, 2002
From Chaos to Control
By John Clyman
PC Magazine online.

If the authors (four) had added this "Content" I would have given this book 5 stars instead of two.

Valdez Ladd