Taking A Content Inventory
By Janice Crotty Fraser
There's something interesting happening this year in our industry. Despite the downturn, major companies are investing in their Web sites.
Somewhere back in 1997, large companies decided that centralized Web development departments were too slow or too controlling to keep up with the rapid innovation that characterized the Web at that time. Soon thereafter, every department had a Web content group that operated more or less independently from others around the company, and had free reign to develop content that seemed right for its section.
Content groups proved both good and bad: On the plus side, lots of useful content was created quickly, sites grew and matured at an astounding pace, and the Web's value became widely understood within these companies. Unfortunately, the sites became sprawling structures with unconnected silos of content that provided little continuity. They failed to provide a cohesive experience for the site's visitors and were expensive to maintain.
The current economic downturn has made it more important to optimize than to innovate. Companies are recentralizing management of some Web functions, and creating a hybrid process for content creation. Departments across the company can still generate content, but the holistic user experience—architecture, design standards, and basic functionality—is managed centrally.
The push for centralization has two primary drivers: operational efficiency and user experience concerns. Content management systems (CMSs) improve efficiency by processing all content through a single storage and retrieval system.
