A Rant Against “CMS”

A Rant Against “CMS” Word of Pie.

This is a rant. I rarely write rants, but here is one. It is based on one of my largest pet peeves in the technology industry. It is about a commonly accepted term and not about the people who use it.

It is about “CMS”. This is a term that for many is synonymous with Web Content Management. This just gives me the screaming heebie jeebies. Let me illustrate.

An Example of the Problem

I was at a meeting in DC called theWeb Content Mavens recently. The topics of discussion should be obvious. I made a comment to a group there that there is content that isn’t web content. This person, an experienced “CMS” implementer did not believe that any such “content” existed. I used the easy examples of Word and Excel files. She immediately jumped to the conclusion that if it wasn’t web content, it was documents. I then fired some examples at her:

• Medical X-Rays
• Raw news footage
• Voicemails
• Scanned images
• Faxes
• Emails
• XML

Her eyes lit up as if I had just revealed a whole new world of content to her. I didn’t. I revealed the world of content, not a new one. She hadn’t been living in the world of content. She had been in the world of web content.

There is more to Content Management than managing Web Content!!!

Being able to publish or host a website does not make something a CMS!!!

Continues @ http://wordofpie.com/