Top 3 Myths of Content Management Systems.

By: Chris Murphy

When it comes to choosing a CMS, its a challenge to know where to begin in terms of finding the software that is best suited for your needs -- particular as they may be.

Search Google for the term, “Content Management System”, “CMS” or about any permutation of the concept you might think of, and you’ll get anywhere from 90,000 to 160,000 potential results. If only one percent of those results yield A to B-grade Content Management Systems, that is still a tremendous number of systems to attempt feature comparisons.

The math makes my head hurt already.

If any when you do manage to find a handful of solutions that you feel might answer your particular needs, your challenge will be in settling on one system out of many. How do you decide what stays and what goes?

Here are some of the top three myths that lead people astray:

Myth No. 3 — A CMS is ready “out of the box”.

General Perception:

Content Management Systems provide website administrators with everything they need to launch, manage, and maintain a website with little to no effort.

Reality Check:

Launching a website is never as easy as 1, 2, 3.

The level of effort and resources required to get a CMS up and running corresponds directly to the business requirements of the site, and size/complexity of the CMS.

Forget what was advertized on the box.

If you’re in a position where you’re still thinking about which CMS to go with, consider talking to customers who are actively using the software. Compare notes. Ask specifically about how key features worked for them or more importantly, what didn’t work for them and why.

This is a good opportunity to consider your own requirements for needing a CMS. It’s easy to get lost in all the hype and lose sight of why you needed it in the first place, so put your needs into writing and use your list as a guide post when evaluating features.

Myth No. 2 — Anyone can use a CMS.

General Perception:

“If you can use MS Word, you can use a CMS”.

Reality Check:

Understand that every CMS subscribes to a different philosophy when it comes to working with content. The methodology behind the workflow might make sense for one group and be totally alien to another, which makes it more difficult when you’re attempting to do feature comparisons (ultimately, they all follow a few common strategies).

It comes down to the User Experience.

You cannot legitimately equate the whole experience of using a CMS to something like MS Word. You can legitimately equate a feature of the CMS to MS Word (if it exists).

The User Experience between a system like “Joomla!”, “Magnolia”, or “Drupal” are dramatically different. I won’t get too deep into the how and why of things, but suffice to say that if your comparison between package was based only on side-by-side comparisons of their interfaces, you’d immediately see how different they are from each other.

Consider who will actually be using the CMS. Is it a group of developers or is it a group off general staffers tasked with the responsibility? Think about the end user here; it’s not the site visitor who will be directly affected by the CMS, but the people managing the content.

What kind of interface are they most comfortable using (WYSIWYG, form based, code)? Do any of them have working experience with HTML, CSS or a scripting language?

This is your red flag.

Stop.

Take a step back and look to your content team — get their input.

Myth No. 1 — A CMS should manage everything.

General Perception:

Content Management Systems are designed to manage all of a website’s content and features.

Reality Check:

Content Management Systems come in all flavours, but not one of them handles every facet of a website in an elegant manner (thus the reasons for Myth No. 2, 3).

I’m not quite sure how this myth started, but I’m sure anyone who has had the opportunity to work with a CMS understands this: there is an expectation that a CMS has the ability manage the content of every single asset, feature, function, or concept in a given website.

This is so – dangerously – far from the truth.

Think about it this way: Your CMS does not define your website.

Read that last sentence again. Memorize it for the next time you’re making recommendations to your clients or shopping around for yourself.

A CMS is designed to help you manage content, but unless engineered to be, two websites are never the same beast. Content volume, features, design, strategies can vary wildly, and so it is next to impossible to have a single CMS (out of the box) manage every aspect of a website without running into the need to extend, include plug-ins, or write unique code to support the site’s particular requirements.

Consider that feat the Holy Grail of all CMS.

Be realistic about what you need a CMS to do. Think about the content of your site, and if you haven’t already, consider bringing on a Content Strategist to help you define the Information Architecture.

An important thing you should try to understand is that you don’t need one tool to manage everything – in the real world, you need a toolbox full of the the most reliable, appropriate tools to help you manage your website content.

Things to consider when you do manage to find a suitable CMS.

It’s easy to get misled by the marketing and hype, and technical jargon around a CMS. If you can only remember three things before you start searching, keep the following in mind:

1. Find a tool that your organization can implement: Speak to your development team/IT to get a realistic scope on what it will take to get up and running.
2. Realize who will actually use the software: Most importantly, interview your content management group to find out what their expectations (and level of experience) is with a CMS or similar software.
3. Develop a content strategy: Interview the key stakeholders to find out what the common needs are, and what the business requirements are for the website – don’t engineer your content to fit the limitations of one tool.

Ultimately speaking, a CMS is just one tool for the task of managing the content of your website, and sometimes you need different tools to do the job. There is no doubt that finding the right tool is going to be an easy task – expect a difficult road – but with a little forethought, some planning, and a good understanding of your needs (not wants), choosing a CMS will be less painful in the long run.

• Posted: February 6, 2009
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