Introduction to XML & Component Content Management
Pressures are increasing to create more content faster, in more languages, and deliver that content to more channels, simultaneously doing so faster and cheaper than before. Yet most organizations allow content to be siloed, so content is created, recreated and recreated resulting in higher costs, lower productivity, increased inconsistency and lack of consistent branding. Part of the issue associated with effectively managing the creation, management and delivery of content is organizational structures, but there is also the problem that organizations manage documents and web pages, not the content itself (e.g., product description, feature, abstract).
Web Content Management systems which tend to manage HTML pages, which correspond to the published web pages. Traditional Content Management systems typically managed content as files (documents). In other words, most content management systems manage documents or pages not chunks (components) of information. Component Content Management (CCM) systems manage content at a granular (component) level of content rather than at the page or document level. Each component represents a single topic, concept, or asset (such as an image or table). Components are assembled into multiple content assemblies (content types) and can be viewed as components or as traditional pages or documents. Each component has its own lifecycle (owner, version, approval, use) and can be tracked individually or as part of an assembly. CCM is typically used for multichannel customer-facing content (marketing, usage, learning, support). CCM can be a separate system or be a functionality of another content management type (such as ECM). Component Content Management systems let you create and manage intelligent documents.
The primary reasons that organizations adopt content management include:
- Reuse
All organizations reuse content to some sort of level, the average is 25% but can be significantly higher. With CCM, you can store reusable content in components and reuse them whenever you need. The CCM helps you to manage that reuse, with search tools to help you find reusable components, authoring tools that reference the reusable content, and management tools that help to show where content is reused.
- Translation Management
Translating and localizing content is expensive and time consuming. In the past, companies have sent whole documents or large sections of documents to translators. They have then relied on translation memory to find content that has been previously translated and identify where content is changed/new. It is faster and cheaper to send smaller pieces of content through the translation process. When a component has been translated, it can be also be reused when necessary. You do not have to retranslate content that has not changed or even compare it to translation memory until it is changed.
- Collaborative Authoring
Having multiple contributors has typically meant that you pass a file from person to person so each can add their content. Or, each adds their content to separate files, which is then passed to someone who has to stitch them all together, fix differences in structure and formatting and publish the content. With CCM, the technology makes the process of assembling and formatting the content easier. The tools, when based on XML, can also make it easier to control structure when it is created, rather than having to rely on the editing/assembly process to fix differences.
Some of the differentiating factors for CCM include:
- managing components not documents
- tracking components with independent versioning and workflow
- identifying where content has been reused
- supporting components, conditionally processed content, and granular content like variables
- creating multiple "assemblies" of content with components
- multichannel publishing
Understanding your requirements for structured content and content reuse are critical to building your requirements and analyzing which technologies best match your needs.
For more information about requirements and tools, consult The XML and Component Content Management Report.