Seybold Warns of Content Silos

In Content Islands - Your Content Management Systems Are Multiplying: What Should You Do? (registration required), The Patricia Seybold Group says: “Content management systems are proliferating. You have one for every application that helps you deliver your customer experience on the Web�your customer portals, ecommerce systems, marketing automation systems, and self-service customer support systems. The cost of these ‘content islands’ reduces the potential benefits of an otherwise excellent customer experience. But these systems are the best that you can do with today�s content technology and products. In the future, a combination of content services, XML, and ‘content bases’ could be a better approach.”

Seybold is surprised that organizations have not been adopting an enterprise content management (ECM) approach—unifiying disparate organizational content a for maximum return on investment. Recent Seybold research indicates there are four major obstacles blocking ECM adoption.

High price
Excess functionality
Complexity
Dated product perception

Seybold says there’s no quick fix on the horizon. Until organizations realize that ECM is about managing content, not documents, problems will proliferate. Additional obstacles also need to be hurdled...complexity, excess functionality and price all need to be reduced in order to affect widespread adoption.

Driver’s for ECM adoption, according to Seybold: customer requirements for sharing and integration. Key component for ECM success: XML—because the technology provides the ability to build content and metadata models that can integrate disparate content and metadata by encapsulation, says Seybold.

Other reports by The Patricia Seybold Group

How to Think About Content Management: Confused about Content Management and Portals? Reframe Your Questions (registration required) - Don�t make the mistake of selecting a Web-only content management solution. Online content vs. print content is an arbitrary distinction. Focus first on the audience(s), then the information collections they need. For each information collection, think about your requirements for five key activities: findability, manageability, update-ability, reuse and measurement.

Content Management Goes Back to the Future: Content Management Is Evolving Today as Data Management Did Twenty-Five Years Ago (registration required) - We know where content management is going because we know its past. All IT has evolved in a predictable sequence of phases from innovative, raw, and unstructured technology through commoditized, standardized, packaged products. It will be no different for content management.