Recently I’ve noticed that not only within the pages of this blog, but in CMS blog-space in general there are a handful of commonly used acronyms that are bandied about with the assumption that all readers automatically understand what they mean, not only literally but also what technologies and processes they actually represent.

Another twist to this is is that even within the content management community, there isn’t always agreement. Here is my humble attempt at bringing some clarity to the subject.  My thanks go to Wikipedia and Peter Halgopan of Information Week for help with definitions.

CM or CMS – Content Management  or Content Management System.  This a computer application used to create, edit, manage, and publish content in a consistently organized fashion.  CMSs are frequently used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing industry-specific documentation such as news articles, operators’ manuals, technical manuals, sales guides, and marketing brochures. The content managed may include computer files, image media, audio files, video files, electronic documents, and Web content.

CCMS – Component Content Management System.  Content Management applications which break down authored content into granular components (‘topics’).  Core components of such content, can then be reused in many content products.  Research shows that as much as half of product support content is redundant and could be reused. For a large organization, reuse can yield significant savings, efficiencies, and quality improvements over time.  A core component can be something as small as a legal copyright statement, the first steps in a process that are shared by many processes, or an key branding message like a product name or tagline. Reuse allows the core component to be edited and maintained from a single source, and then be easily assembled into thousands of documents where it is needed.

WCM or WCMS – Web Content Management or Web Content Management System.  Content management system software, usually implemented as a Web application, for creating and managing HTML content. It is used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of Web material (HTML documents and their associated images). A WCMS facilitates content creation, content control, editing, and many essential Web maintenance functions. Usually the software provides authoring (and other) tools designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languages to create and manage content with relative ease.. Blogging tools such as WordPress, Blogger and Movable Type are examples of WCM tools.

DM or DMS – Document Management or Document Management System. A computer system (or set of computer programs) used to track and store electronic documents and/or images of paper documents. Some DM systems also have tools to help support workflow. The term has some overlap with the concepts of Content Management Systems and is often viewed as a component of Enterprise Content Management Systems (ECM) and related to Digital Asset Management, Document imaging, Workflow systems and Records Management systems. Contract Management and Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) can be viewed as either components or implementations of ECM. DM systems are particularly good for organizations with a high volume of documentation that needs to be easily searchable, as well as organizations that have to comply with regulatory restrictions.

DAM – Digital Asset Management covers content and files of every type, including images, video and audio files, MS Office files, in fact just about anything that can be digitized. DAM usually refers to a hardware/software system that helps to store and manage these digitized files. The term “Digital Asset Management” also refers to the protocol for downloading, renaming, backing up, rating, grouping, archiving, optimizing, maintaining, thinning, and exporting files.  Occasionally the term “Visual Asset Management” (VAM) is used, especially in the FMCG space.

MAM – The term “Media Asset Management” is sometimes used as a sub-category of “Digital Asset Management”, mainly for audio or video content.

ECM – Enterprise Content Management tends to be a bit of a all-encompassing concept but generally refers to systems that include content management and digital asset management components. ECM systems are usually fairly expensive and hardware intensive, and often require a significant level of IT experience to set up and run. The “official” definitions as set by AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) is “Enterprise Content Management is the technologies used to Capture, Manage, Store, Preserve, and Deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an organization’s unstructured information, wherever that information exists.”

The major differences between CMS and ECM? The CMS definition specifically mentions software; it’s a software system (or systems) for a the specific use of managing and publishing content, whereas the ECM definition refers to both tools and strategies.

I’m sure we are just scratching the surface here, so I’d be grateful if anyone can give deeper meaning to any of the above, or indeed add to the list.

Posted by Dunken Francis,  Web Consultant, Author-it Software Corporation

By the time you read this blog post the US Presidential election should have been decided.  Whichever side of the political fence you sit on, Obama or McCain, one thing is clear; the first order of business for the new President will focus on restoring confidence in financial markets.

The President’s ability to really influence the crisis will be an interesting sidebar as it plays out.  Rupert Murdoch claims there is little they can do to help but much they can do to make the situation worse.  He fears the effects of protectionist policies on globalization but I think we also need to consider the costs of an ‘avalanche of regulation’ aimed at righting the wrongs of the current crisis.

It is clear the market has failed and where markets fail, governments have a responsibility to step in and regulate. The upside is, we don’t repeat the mistakes of yesterday. On the down, with regulation comes compliance and cost. Cost, when corporations are already struggling with a heavy compliance burden and the effects of a down economy.

Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) is a growing market segment sized by GRC Analysts, Corporate Integrity at $52.1 Billion in 2008. There is a thriving technology sector delivering solutions for GRC.

I have been having a series of discussions with analysts and players exploring the connection between Component Content Management (CCM) and GRC. There is a huge opportunity to include CCM solutions such as Author-it, in the GRC mix to fill the gap in current GRC solutions where the rubber meets the road… Policy and Procedure documentation and training materials.  It is via this documentation that a corporation educates its employees on how to be compliant and holds them accountable.

Compliance in this parlance is about people, processes and systems, all of which must be documented. And if they are to be documented, you better have a process for managing the content that goes into this documentation.  CCM concepts such as reuse, single sourcing, multi-output publishing and localization all play a role in providing an efficient, auditable and ultimately compliant result.

We are into phase two of a three phase project with a major US financial institution as we speak.  This project is all about compliance, efficiency and cost savings.  Author-it is enabling them to create policy and procedure content from business units all around the US, store this content in a central repository, update it in a controlled fashion/workflow and then deliver it via a dynamic web output to tens of thousands of employees. The solution allows for multiple variants of policies and procedures based on criteria such as geography and business unit.  These variants are resolved at publishing allowing for a dynamic, employee specific document.

It is a fabulous example of how CCM can successfully breach the GAP between GRC and the compliance coalface, your employees.
Cheers
Steve

Posted by Steve Davis, President, Author-it Software Corporation