Invasion of the CMS snatchers

By Lynda Rathbone

Back in the 1940s and 50s, the year 2000 and beyond was considered to be the distant future. People spent a lot of time dreaming up ‘what if…’ scenarios, like “what if there was life in outer space?” and “what if we could fly to work?” While I know I still want to fly to work someday, the New Year is almost upon us and I’ve been doing a bit of predicting myself. The issues I’ve been thinking about are also ‘what if’ scenarios but, sadly, they are not about aliens or hovercrafts. They are about content-management systems (CMSs), and I believe the future is closer than we think.

I heard a speech recently where the speaker presented a ‘what if’ scenario of his own, on the subject of content and website management. What if his organisation transformed their entire intranet into a wiki? What if anyone could update information or edit a page – no matter how important or sensitive the information? Content would be democratised and it would be open to all, from the mailroom guy to the CEO. What would happen?

According to www.wiki.org, “‘Open editing’ has some profound and subtle effects on wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit a page in a website is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the web and promotes content composition by non-technical users.”

An interesting thought for sure. If I owned a CMS software company, I would be worried – very worried. Following the trend of the past few years, many organisations are using wikis on their websites. But rarely has it been discussed – or used – as a total replacement. On intranets, wikis are becoming a popular collaboration tool in certain groups, as anyone can edit or update pages or content – expanding the navigational structure on-the-fly, so you can tie into the larger site but keep your section as a wiki. Smaller organisations are now using wikis as a cost-effective way to have an internal site for basics like the company directory, locations, list of partners or suppliers and so on. Companies I’ve seen doing the latter effectively include web agencies and software houses.

Quite a few internet sites are now solely reliant upon people wanting to share their knowledge about a certain area, like www.wikitravel.org, where you can post your own travel guide about anywhere in the world and edit/add it to other pages, either anonymously or by registered ID so you can get a bit of notoriety.

But back to the CMS question. Would opening your internet site up (if you’re a large corporation) spell certain death for you? What about opening up your intranet so your employees can edit and update the information? What about making your partner-extranet sites ‘editable’?

Large companies spend thousands, even millions, making their content easier to manage and updatable by non-technical users by implementing a CMS. This is, in part, what wikis do. They even maintain the information architecture and links to pages on-the-fly.

So what if, in the year 2020, there were no more CMSs? What if, even in large companies, internet sites were open to editing? What would they look like? Could their employees fly to work?

Well, while we’re still a few years off from flying to work, I do think the end of CMSs as we know them isn’t too far away.

The issue is not, and never has been, technology. In my mind, the secret to a good intranet, internet or extranet is content and content optimisation. Ensuring you’re doing the basics, like keeping it up-to-date and categorised so users can navigate easily, and classifying it so your search engine works well.

Talking to a few people in large organisations about the ‘turning your site into a wiki’ idea, and thinking back to the days when I worked at Cable & Wireless and News International, initially provoked responses of anarchy or complacency. Some said they have a hard enough time getting people to update the site when it’s their job to. Some said it would become a target for abuse. Really?

As the youth of today become the corporate citizens of tomorrow, things will change. They are growing up with wikis now. And blogs and podcasting. They are the do-it-yourself generation on the web and will soon expect to be able to edit things themselves. Demand it, even.

The speaker I saw on this topic made a good point. Most employees can now walk right up to the CEO’s door and state their own thoughts or opinions. But do they? No. They don’t even e-mail them.

Maybe opening your site up would actually solve a lot of the typical CMS problems you have now. And maybe peer pressure is the answer. Or, maybe you simply don’t need most of the content that requires maintenance? Maybe a collaborative-authoring approach would be more effective? Or, you could just wait a few years until the college students of today become junior employees and start running your websites. We’ll probably be on to something else by then, though.

While I can’t predict the future, I can say for sure that wikis are, and will continue, to change the CMS landscape as we know it. The ‘what if’ scenarios for wikis will continue and I would love to hear from you if you’re doing something innovative with them now. Just e-mail me at: lynda@foursquaremedia.net. I’ll be spending my Christmas holiday turning my site into a wiki.