Jeff Cram and the crew at CMS Myth [1] are always good for a reality check when it comes to content management issues. Any site that has a tag line like "There is a treacherous gap between the expectation of a CMS and reality of the final implementation," is well worth reading. This week, Jeff tackles the growing trend of CMS vendors selling to marketers.
He wonders, quite rightly, if the CMS vendors are simply talking the marketing talk or actually building the CMS for the mostly non-technical marketing personnel--those who will be updating web content, building online campaigns and measuring the results to figure out what works and what doesn't. Cram notes that content management vendors have traditionally sold to IT, a technical sell, rather than the marketing department, a non-technical sell (for the most part).
Regardless of whether you're in the marketing department, or evaluating Web 2.0 and collaboration components of whatever you're doing, you should heed Jeff's advice and always make sure you're not falling for the hype machine. You need to truly evaluate vendors based on how well they meet your needs, not how well they say they do. It's easy to fall for a list of functions and some glossy brochures, but the proof of the pudding, as the old saying goes, is in the tasting.
For more info:
See the post [2], "Are CMS Vendors Selling to Marketers or Building for Marketers?"
Related Articles:
Report links smaller vendors to lower buying risk
Major ECM vendors send content sharing standard to OASIS today [3]
Links:
[1] http://www.cmsmyth.com/
[2] http://www.cmsmyth.com/blogs/cms_myth/archive/2008/11/04/are-cms-vendors-selling-to-marketers-or-building-for-marketers.aspx
[3] http://www.fiercecontentmanagement.com/story/cms-watch-report-suggest-smaller-vendors-linked-lower-buying-risk/2008-10-07