RE: RE: cms list mission

<quote>Almost all the list traffic consists of someone in IT asking for a
product 
recommendation, and multiple people chiming in about the wonderful 
features of their product. The remaining posts involve how to use a 
new technology. (This is an oversimplification, but not by much.)

None of this bears more than a passing resemblance to what it means 
to manage content -- to develop a standard way that people write, 
review, approve, publish, archive and delete content. </quote>

Well, if it's any consolation, product features do not bear a passing
resemblance to interesting technical conversation either. But if a
usage-centered design process is being implemented in a cms project, I
should think that the process and socio-political aspects of content
management aspect certainly (should) have bearing on the technical
implementation of things.  In the end, content management systems are a
technical solution and business rules, social assumptions, and political
expectations are enforced in the application design - and sometimes the cms
fails because they are not enforced (or even articulated). 

Perhaps my belief that applications should follow a usage-centered design
process is flawed. But that's at the core of my concern about so many lists
- somewhere, all of the players need to intersect.  That doesn't preclude
the need or desire for more focused discussion on each area. 

In any case, that's just my .02. 

-chris