You have the software, you have the infrastructure, you have the business process… now where’s the content?

The knowledge chain
Content management depends on a technical knowledge chain rather like the food chain you see in the animal kingdom. The first link in the chain are your drones, doing the bulk of the content harvesting and compiling in your CMS. You then get the eager beavers in your editorial team who control the flow of the content by slowing its course and discarding anything that doesn’t serve the common purpose. There’s also a need for a great deal of donkey work: general tasks like administering users and braying at the drones and beavers who try to buck the system. Finally, you have the code monkeys, the tech geeks who seem to spend their entire time fooling about and gawping, but who still consider themselves primates because they can use a mouse with an opposable thumb.

The problem with this technical knowledge chain is that in many organisations, each layer is of an equal size. This means that there aren’t enough people contributing content and but too many people performing administrative functions, while the technology layer spends time fixing things rather than making enhancements. If you could delegate the simpler daily tasks further down the chain, reserving the few meaty tasks for the more technically skilled species higher up, you could ensure that only the fittest content survives to be published on your website. These CMS animals need to devolve.

The case for devolution
Devolution isn’t just a theory: it’s founded on solid evidence. Many organisations have thought in the past that by spending half a dozen days creating a CMS training programme they can then rest and everything will take care of itself. But the reality of your CMS world is a little different. Over time, the technical team will have adopted a position as alpha male. They dominate the environment to suit them, which means that it may be over-engineered and difficult to change. The authors and editors will have had comparatively little impact on the CMS world around them: they tend to be more dependent on the resources that their environment affords them.

Environmental impact
But if your CMS ecosystem is going to succeed, it needs these authors to break their symbiotic relationship with their super-users so that they can cross-pollinate content and allow the world to flourish. To achieve this, your CMS environment must evolve to meet its inhabitants’ requirements.

The end result is a skills pyramid, where you invest the least effort in the people who contribute the most, because the resources are there for them to prosper. When your contributors are comfortable with the system, this makes it easier for the editorial team to assess content quality. They don’t need to focus on administrative tasks, but can refer these to a dedicated team of first-line support as required. And the technologists aren’t bugged by the mundane concerns of lesser species, but can get on with doing more important things instead.

Intelligent Design
Devolution is supported by intelligent design. Your CMS environment should be technically simple with transparent publishing models and familiar editorial interfaces. If you can focus on adapting the environment to help your users rather than training your users to fit with your software, then the technically meek but editorially able shall inherit the earth.