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The management of content has been a challenge since people invented new ways of sharing information through books, documents, web, social media and other content containers. More people create more content, and thanks to the web more people have more access to more content. Just think of the many emails we receive daily and the millions of websites, social media networks and weblogs where we share content worldwide.
Phases in the Content Management Lifecycle
Content management (CM) is the process of planning, developing, managing, deploying, preserving and evaluating all content within an enterprise. Content management helps control the explosive increase of content by using it effectively. As any human being has a lifecycle, so has content: from the beginning (creation) to the end (retirement). Also, the process of content management has its lifecycle. This CM Lifecycle consists of six phases: plan, develop, control, deploy, preserve and evaluate.
It All Starts with the Business Process
The business process is the inner circle of the CM Lifecycle to emphasize that it's the reference for any phase in the content management process. Content management has to meet one or more business goals. Each phase in the CM Lifecycle has to be aligned with these goals. So continuously ask yourself the question if what you’re doing in the CM project still meets the business goals. If not, have the courage to change the project or even end it.
It's not a coincidence that I put the business process in the center of the content management lifecycle. Everything in this lifecycle — from planning to evaluating content — has a direct link with the business process. If what you do in your content management lifecycle has no alignment with a business process, stop doing it!
In the planning phase, the current situation and the requirements are analyzed and quantified. In this phase, the content management strategy is aligned with the business objectives.
In my opinion everything in your content organization — the content management, the content governance, the content tooling, you name it — should be based on a content strategy. Why? Well, because your content strategy is a translation of your business goals and business processes. They are literally the “raison d'être” of your organization.
These are the things you can do in the Plan phase of the Content Management Lifecycle:
- Analyze — examine the business goal(s), business processes and requirements, and analyze the content and the content lifecycle.
- Quantify — define measurable indicators to decide in the evaluation phase if the content management strategy is successful.
- Align — match the content management strategy with your business goals and objectives.
- Design — develop your information architecture (content model, metadata, standards, workflow, interaction design, etc.) and install a governance policy.
Content can be created, edited, captured, collected or acquired in other ways. Metadata is added to give the content meaningful context.
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