How to define Content Management
content-management
Solution
The domain is vast and is not easy to cover it with a short answer. According to Gartner (which IMHO gives very good definitions, see links):
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is an “umbrella term” and represents a vision and framework for integrating a broad range of content management technologies and content formats.
Moreover, Gartner defines ECM suites as encompassing the following core components:
- Document Management for check-in/check-out, version control, security and library services for business documents.
- Document Imaging for capturing, transforming and managing paper documents.
- Records Management for long-term archiving, automation of retention and compliance policies, and ensuring legal, regulatory and industry compliance.
- Workflow for supporting business processes, routing content, assigning work tasks and states, and creating audit trails.
- Web Content Management for automating the Webmaster function and managing dynamic content and user interaction.
- Document-Centric Collaboration for document sharing and supporting project teams.
Articles:
- The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Content Management Suites, Q4 2007
- Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management, 2007
Problem
First some background. I recently went for an interview and some of the questions asked to me was about Enterprise Content Management. Obviously, I did not have any experience and did not get the offer. But, it increased my curiosity and tried Internet to get some info on the topic. Wikipedia made me more confused with even more buzzwords. Most of the stuff on the web is marketing related and relevant to specific products like Sharepoint or Drupal etc. I need some help in understanding more about the topic or the domain in simpler terms. What is the requirement to use it? What kind of companies use it? What are the problem areas it tries to address? Any popular use cases? Any places where it looks like a good fit but it is not actually? Lastly, any good book or articles on the topic without being specific to any product?