BoBlog

While I'm thinking of it, here's a few thoughts about CMS Implementation that I've been meaning to write down someplace. This blog is probably as good a place as any.

Background: In February at Goucher we rolled-out a big-bang site redesign and CMS implantation. In one fell-swoop we launched a soup-to-nuts site redesign and content management system.

CMS Vendor: Our CMS vendor is Ingeniux CMS. This small Seattle CMS shop offers an XML content management system vertically located in the higher ed, news agency, and financial services marketplace. It is a very versatile system that XML to maximize content reuse. What does this really mean? It means that with Ingeniux it is very easy create content and use in in multiple places on multiple websites. It turns out that Goucher is under utilizing this aspect of the system. We have more of a "page editing" workflow, where most of our content exists in a single place on our single website. The content reuse model would work for ideally in a newsroom setting where content authors simply create news stories, enter them into the system, and then down the pipeline and editor places those stories in multiple locations on various websites.

Anyway, it turns out that Ingeniux has a great authoring UI, a very customizable user permissions and workflow system, and it's a great tool to let a short-staffed webmaster leverage his time and development efforts to maximum effect. All in all, Ingeniux is turning out to be a very good CMS match for Goucher College.

Scope: CMS vendors are notorious for promising a whole lot in the sales process. Sometimes in the product eval phase of the project it seemed like every CMS could do everything, and to some extent this is true. Mature CMS applications are more like content development frameworks than they are closed start-to-finish systems, and thus, with enough "implementation services" otherwise known as late-night hair-pulling coding sessions, a good CMS CAN DO ANYTHING. This is where things can get ugly. At Goucher, our implantation scope was much too big. We should have limited the initial scope to a few top-level pages on our site. In hindsight, I wish that Ingeniux would have offered me a little more guidance in this regard. They were eager to please their client, and thus, said "yes, we can do it" far too easily.

10 CMS Implementation Dos and Don'ts for When I do it Next Time:

1) Limit expectations and scope. Start small. Do it right. Sprawl later.

2) Conduct an extensive pilot project with the application, focusing on end user experience. Use a vendor hosted instance of the application for the pilot.

3) Make sure your IA can be supported by the CMS. I made far too many assumptions along these lines. My IA is filled with one-offs and anomalies. My CMS really wants very structured, rigid architecture.

4) Take the amount of time you think it will take to implement your site and MULTIPLY IT BY A FACTOR OF SIX. Everything takes much longer than you think it will when it comes to CMS implementations.

5) Test your hardware/environmental configuration. Ask your vendor to do load testing scenarios on your implementation. Check for memory usage issues, especially if running IIS.

6)Save money by conducting user training yourself. We've done all user training ourselves with training materials that we developed ourselves based on our experience with our implementation. This has worked out well.

7) Try to work face-to-face with your CMS vendor. My experience is that any hour I was face-to-face the vendor was at least 100% more productive than working remotely. I traveled to Seattle twice to work with Ingeniux on our implantation (this was cheaper than flying them here). These sessions were priceless.

8) Be available, especially if working with a small firm. My availability on weekends and evenings kept this project rolling and relatively close to schedule.

9) Be really, really, nice and patient. You need your vendor. Be firm but be patient, understand that they have lots of clients.

10) Get up to speed on the api and do as much build-out yourself as possible. This will keep things moving and will let the vendor focus on the more complex issues of your implementation.