RE: Short list starting point.

Hi Brian

I can see that you've already gotten quite some answers - and some very
competent ones indeed, especially from Tony Byrne and Bob Doyle, but... here
is a somewhat different angle on the subject:

First of all I completely agree that it is not necessarily easy to make a
"short list" of CMSs to choose from - since - what makes the list short????

The answer is criteria - something to filter the large mass of products
called CMSs into shorter lists that can be used for the actual selection of
a proper CMS to meet your needs.

CMSWatch, which I really enjoy to read articles etc. from, has what I
consider a "high end" focus - the enterprise ready systems and concepts -
which is one very relevant criterium to use for the filtering process.
However, this approach of creating a short list only really apply to you, if
you actually have the needs for a high end solution. These products, such as
Interwoven, Documentum etc. certainly have great strengths, but for many
customers they are not the right choice, since they are typicically aimed at
very large and complex organisations and needs.

Therefore, what is important are YOUR criteria - what are your actual needs
on subjects such as technology choice, workflow, support, implementation
time, integration needs etc. - all kinds of criteria that can help you pick
the CMS that is right for your organization.

Somehow I miss focus on the "good process" (not especially in this thread,
but in general) - that the most important thing is to actually find out what
the needs are - and not try to select systems from the beginning. IMHO you
need to go through that process, in order to select anything. After you have
made your own list of criteria, you are much better off and can really take
advantage of the various selection tools out there such as Erik Hartman's
brilliant site, the German www.contentmanager.de, CMSML and many others -
these are really valuable sites of high quality, but you need to bring your
criteria to make them "work" as intended.

And then - after having narrowed the list to maybe 3 or 5 products, you
should certainly do as Tony Byrne suggests - talk to peers, organisations
like your own, check out your "local" resources for advice and so on. Don't
forget to be aware of issues such as good implementation partners, local
support (not necessaily commercial) and the ability to exchange information
and experiences with others, since... CMSs are very much like most other
software - the greatest cost is not necessarily in aquiring the software and
the most value is not necessarily in the features. 

What is important is that you get a well-functioning solution that meets
your needs - and for this you need to do some (maybe a lot) work up front -
but it WILL pay off ;-)

I wish you good luck with your project - remember that you are really the
only one who can make YOUR list short.

Best Regards
Kim Bækgaard





-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Brian J. Hoffman
Sent: 25. maj 2004 16:15
To: [email protected]
Subject: [CMS] Short list starting point.

All,

We are getting ready to create our short list of products for a Web CMS and
are looking for a reasonable starting point. At one end of the spectrum, if
we go to the Open Directory Project (http://www.dmoz.org) and look at the
Content Management category, we get just shy of 800 listings. We can
probably eliminate a great deal of those on some initial criteria, but who
has the time to go through all of them? At the other end, CMSWatch
(http://www.cmswatch.com) has a nice, concise list of 40 products. But if
your needs easily fit you into one or two of the product categories, then
you only have five to ten or so.

Is there a list somewhere in between these two that we could use as a
starting point with perhaps double or so the number of products that
CMSWatch has?

Thanks!


Brian J. Hoffman

Database Administrator/Webmaster
Penn State University Libraries
814-863-3214

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