Picture-perfect content

Feature

posted 5 Oct 2004 in Volume 1 Issue 4

When it realised using a time-consuming and difficult method for publishing content to its intranet and website was pointless, the Tate group of art galleries decided to implement a system that would make the process more streamlined. Simon Grant, head of information systems at Tate, tell’s ei magazine how the new system transformed the group’s ability to use content quickly and efficiently.

Tate is one of Europe’s leading art galleries and includes Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St. Ives. It houses an impressive collection of over 65,000 works of art, ranging from the 16th century to present day modern and contemporary art, and has a dedicated group of over two million users who access the electronic branches of the organisation through Tate Online.

But providing electronic access to the multitude of great works of art and associated information is not a simple matter. Nor was the production of two publications, Tate Magazine and Tate Review. Just ask Simon Grant, head of information systems for Tate. Grant says the main drivers for implementing a content-management system (CMS) for the Tate intranet and website were centred specifically on the publication process.

“The publications come out quarterly and were, in the case of the Tate Review, replacing leaflets that were handed out to members and a wider online community,” says Grant. “It was a huge audience.”

With that issue in mind and after careful consideration, in November 2003 Tate identified a number of drivers that pointed to the need for a CMS implementation. The primary and secondary aims included:

Primary targets

To support publication of Tate Magazine and Tate Review;
To make these publications available on the internet and intranet for internal use and reference;
To, in the future, make the resources generated through the two publications available in other contexts or channels, such as PDAs.

Secondary targets

To improve the staff intranet to assist communication of employees based at different geographical locations;
To manage the online presence more effectively, thereby attracting visitors and expanding awareness of the Tate brand globally.

Tate’s content history

Prior to implementing the CMS, Tate did not have any method in place for managing content, with the bulk of information relating to the collections coming from two managed databases. When publishing information to the intranet or website, that material was pulled from the databases and published as required. The method worked, but was time consuming and a logistical nightmare. “Although the bulk of the information on both sites came from in-house databases, the rest was all static HTML, which as you can imagine on a site the size of the Tate, was a total pain to keep up to date all the time,” says Grant.

Doing so put an undue amount of stress for the Tate’s dedicated web team and intranet manager. “Their creative skills were, and sometimes are still not, being used in the most appropriate ways when they’re doing content editing, proofing and updating individual pages,” notes Grant, highlighting some of the difficulties the organisation has had in getting employees to adapt to the cultural change that often accompanies a CMS implementation.

Producing the material for the old leaflet form of the Tate Review was complicated because of the 1,500 events happening per year on Tate sites, mostly in London. These events are all run by different departments, each of whom wanted to write their own unique versions. Grant says it was difficult for the people who actually produced the leaflets because while proofing the copy they would have to discuss it with the author to ensure there were no misinterpretations. “They were in a terrible position because they had to go and negotiate with every author about the veracity, tone, voice, and get sign-off for every piece,” he says. “It was a content editor’s nightmare, so there was a very powerful argument for putting in place a process control, automated publication and workflow control as well.”

Choosing a CMS

Like many organisations that decide to implement a CMS, Tate went through an intensive selection process. The solution provider it eventually chose offered a system that most closely matched the following criteria Tate had set out:

Predictable licensing model for multi-channel delivery

Tate wanted to separate content production from delivery while being able to have cost-effective scaling in multi-channel delivery environments. The CMS allows Tate to extend content delivery to the aforementioned additional channels, such as PDAs.

Support for multi-lingual websites

The system enables Tate to simplify and streamline the localisation process, which allows the organisation to offer more website content in different languages in the future.

Ease of use

Previously, all content updates required coding from the website production team. With the new CMS, editors at Tate would be able to easily create and re-use content, as well as have greater control and freedom over editorial content, setting editorial deadlines for the Tate Guide and Review and managing copy production across the organisation through new workflow capabilities.

Efficient content reuse

The system uses a browser-based interface that allows editors at Tate to create publications from any type of content, including documents, images, text and XML content. The result is format-independent outputs, such as QuarkXpress, XML and ASCII, which allows Tate to publish to multiple channels, including online and print.

Challenges

Migrating content

After the decision to implement a CMS was made, the first step was for the Tate team to migrate its content to the new system. For Grant, the best way to achieve this was to start with a blank page. “We didn’t move loads of existing content over,” he says. “We trained authors to take on the new challenge and input information directly into the system.”

Of the ten business databases Tate employs, two central ones deal with the collection of information, including images, and act as collating devices for input from a wide variety of registrars and curators. To ensure accuracy, galleries pre-collate their collections in the first instance.

The other databases encompass and hold business information and do not include specific collection details. Grant notes that all of these databases had to be migrated but because they were already managed data resources, all that was needed were linkages between them and the CMS.

Speed and assimilation

Due to tight guidelines, the project was completed as carefully as possible but with some haste. The implementation began in January 2004 and was operating by February the same year — amazing for the amount of material the Tate holds. Because of that narrow window, there was very little user consultation about how the new CMS would work with the intranet. In fact, says Grant, getting users to buy into the idea was a fairly authoritarian process. Once the users understood the project was going ahead, getting them to adjust to the new managed intranet and the information it held was a demanding task. As mentioned earlier, Grant still sees reluctance on the part of some staff to use the new system diligently. He believes users at Tate experienced a shock of sorts when they were required to move from one system to another in such a short span of time. To combat that shock, the organisation had training systems in place for their employees. “We really had to sell it to them,” explains Grant. “We had to do so in a way that would help them understand why it would help them. The training courses made that clear.”

For the 40 to 50 people who were more intimately involved in the design and implementation, Tate produced a package that outlined the system in greater detail. It was this group that had the steepest learning curve and received professional-level training from the project’s solution provider.

Grant says that there was very little stakeholder consultation in what amounted to a “fairly authoritarian” redevelopment of the Tate intranet or website. “The intranet users were acquiescent, I suppose; but you’d expect them to be more critical anyway,” he says.

Since the new system has been operative, the intranet has undergone periodic audits on usability and content to monitor how the project is progressing. The same methods are used to determine the success of the new CMS on the website. Grant says there are routine consultations with regular staff users of the site. Not surprisingly, for something that serves as a visual gateway to a diverse collection of art, the organisation also maintains a dialogue with the public who give feedback on the website.

ROI objectives

The obvious benefit for an organisation that produces massive amounts of text and visual material for anything published is apparent. “The CMS really helps us get into asset-management in a serious way,” explains Grant. “If we’ve got a picture of a Damien Hirst sculpture, we don’t want to be going out and commissioning new photography for it.”

The new system has also directly helped Grant at a professional level, relieving much of the stress that’s a byproduct of having to know where everything is, what it is and how to make it available at all times for reuse in different contexts to be delivered through different channels.

But Grant was also looking for a bottom-line benefit of expense and aims to achieve a cost recovery in a year to 18 months of the initial investment. He hopes the objectives are marked by achievements in two central areas: customer service and cultural change for staff.

“On the customer-service side we’re looking for the benefit provided by the currency of the information and the speed of the update, which hopefully will result in more people becoming aware of the range of opportunities they have to come and see paid events and exhibitions,” he says. “The idea is that we can get to them more quickly with more updated information.”

Grant sounds just as excited by the slow cultural change the new CMS has engendered with staff, who are beginning to see and understand the value of thinking through a process and reducing it to simple steps. “It really has yielded a benefit all around,” says Grant. “People are more in control of their own work.”

The new CMS has also pushed the progress of change management at the strategic level within Tate. Grant says the new system has forced managers to meet more regularly to discuss developments. Those discussions filter down to the planning department, who help pave the way for structural change in key areas of the organisation. Still, Grant acknowledges that the cultural change that is taking place has been slow and ongoing. “We’re using some of the systems as catalysts for organisational change, but that takes a lot of time. Until you’ve got joined-up thinking in managing the processes through which people use information, you can’t actually achieve that with any degree of certainty.”

Grant says the organisation doesn’t have any immediate plans for boosting ROI as a whole, but notes that Tate will be able to supplement and increase the provision of contextualised information to people through the use of the CMS over the intranet. But he’s also keen on what some might regard as the more mundane benefits of the intranet. “One shouldn’t disregard the tools it provides for the simple stuff, such as doing your trustees minutes and keeping the business documentation workflow going.”

Measuring performance

“We found metrics to be a bit heavy-handed for out type or organisation,” says Grant. Instead, the team involved with the project created a series of indicators to tell whether they have achieved objectives and the planned ROI in its various forms. Rather informally, the organisation reviews targets every three months. So far, says Grant, everything appears to be meeting their expectations.

Unexpected benefits

Grant says he’s pleasantly surprised to see the organisation become much more aware of the power of the information it holds. “Overall, people have woken up saying ‘My God, it could be easier and there’s also a whole load of stuff which I had no idea we had.’”

Grant is also pleased and surprised with the work-in-progress cultural shift that has taken hold at Tate. The CMS has helped accelerate that movement by putting material on people’s desks. “They’re suddenly realising at last what it’s for, rather than just having the latest PowerPoint slides shunted around,” he says.

Grant also expects to see other benefits in the not-too-distant future, such as using and reusing materials through channels other than the web.

Conclusion

For those wondering how to implement a CMS, Grant suggests starting modestly because it’s possible to spend as much money as your organisation has. Setting modest but achievable targets to begin with is a good idea, as it provides the opportunity to review how the system is functioning within a short period of time. Then the organisation should ask itself whether it makes sense organisationally, culturally and most importantly, financially. Grant has already seen the benefits. “However well you manage your information manually, it still doesn’t beat having a workflow tool that can actually enable you to sit back and control it all from a central position.”