Re: RE: [contentmanagers] Purpose of CM Pros

At 11:55 AM 9/22/2004 -0400, Seth Earley wrote:
>To reiterate Tony Byrne's comments,  I am not a coder and I have not audited
>the CM Professionals website to see what issues there may be under the
>covers, but nothing glaring stuck out in my mind.  (Hillary mentioned to me
>that after registration, some of the site's weaknesses become more evident -
>I'll register and take a deeper look...)

This is probably because you're using a mainstream browser and aren't using 
any assistive technologies, such as a screen reader.

>The purpose of the group, as I understand it, is to form a community of
>practice, communicate and educate.  If there are technical purists on the
>list who are judging obscure aspects of the technology and then opting out
>because it does not meet their expectations, then I am not sure that is best
>for a nascent community.  Technology people tend to factionalize over
>standards, tools and techniques.  That is not really what CM Professionals
>is about.  (In my mind, anyway - perhaps others have a different opinion).
>I think the lead article is more about the core issue:  Aligning business
>strategy and content strategy. Choose your poison in terms of technology,
>make the user experience of primary importance and get things done, don't
>try to make them perfect.

I agree that we don't need to dwell on the technical shortcomings of the CM 
Pros site. However, given the nature of the organization, I would have to 
agree that they need to lead by example. A new organization like this 
establishes credibility in several ways, one of which is the presentation 
of its website. I believe one of the goals of the organization, explicitly 
stated or not, is to promote professionalism in all aspects of content 
management, including technically. The concerns about the website weren't 
made by purists, aren't about "obscure aspects of the technology", and 
aren't attempts at perfectionism. They're legitimate concerns about 
adhering to the very standards that we expect from content management 
system vendors and attempting to achieve professionalism.

I applaud the organization and am happy that the technical concerns will be 
addressed.

>Arguments and discussion welcome. :-)

>Seth
>
>Seth Earley
>Earley & Associates, Inc
>781-444-0287
>781-820-8080 cell
>www.earley.com

Hmm. This site isn't 508 compliant, doesn't validate, and was created with 
FrontPage?!?  :)


Brian J. Hoffman
Lead Systems Analyst
Penn State University Libraries