Last week, as I read Laurence Hart's post, "Preaching to the Content Management Choir" (you have to click through for the embedded video alone) on his fine Word of Pie blog, it got me thinking. Hart opened by suggesting his blog was worthless. I'm here to tell you it absolutely isn't, but such introspection also made me look at my role as a journalist covering the enterprise content management space versus what Hart does in his role as a consultant at Washington Consulting, Inc. 

As a consultant, Hart works with clients trying to help them solve actual content management issues. He has implemented systems. He understands how needs map to actual functions and when they require substantial tweaking to work as advertised. In other words, he's down in the trenches doing the hard work.

I, on the other hand, am a journalist. I cover the ECM space closely, but I've never implemented a system. The closest I came was working on a team once documenting the content management document production process--an interesting exercise to be sure, and one that showed me how hard it can be to get a CMS from concept to delivery--this particular project never made it to the end, undone by politics and a change in external IT management.

I hone my craft a different way than Hart or even most analysts. Tony Byrne and the Real Story Group analysts, for instance, go into companies and they watch, listen and ask lots of hard questions. They write in-depth industry reports and they work with real ECM customers and help them make the right choice when it comes to content management.

What I do is I listen, read, watch and over time I recognize trends. While I might get the benefit of vendor demos from time to time, I don't get overly involved in the actual running of these content management systems--with the notable exception of course that as a writer I have to work in them as a contributor. I use Typepad, Hubspot, WordPress and FierceMarkets uses a highly customized Drupal system.

That said, my role is more of an informed observer. Within this publication, with the limited amount of content I provide each week, I try to give you as broad an overview as I can of the content management industry (and related areas including search, e-Discovery, eBook readers and Enterprise 2.0 among others). I try to use this Editor's Corner as a place to test and develop new ideas as I think about this space I cover over time. I use the links to share interesting writing with you from around the web.

I also go to conferences and listen to industry experts and try to learn as much as I can about this industry. I try to fill in the gaps by inviting those industry experts to share posts in our Industry Voices feature (as Joe Shepley from Doculabs has done this week) and with our One on One series with industry luminaries. 

Perhaps, in a perfect world, we might have a blend of my journalist sensibilities with Hart's street-level knowledge, but ultimately, as Edie Brickell once wrote, "I know what I know, if you know what I mean." It may not be as in-depth as what you might find from the practitioners in the field, but I hope it gives you a different perspective than you might get from someone with more expertise than I can give you as a journalist. It's what I try to bring to the conversation each week. - Ron