This talk is a brutally honest confession of a CMS expert and information architect about the state of Web CMS market today and how the rise of content and mobile devices is changing what we should expect from our Web CMS. The presentation will review the most important features of CMSs that are important for content strategists and what should content strategists demand from the CMS guys.

1. Perttu Tolvanen
Web & CMS Expert, Partner
North Patrol Oy, 20131
What content strategists need to demand from the CMS guys
State of the CMS industry and guidelines to content strategists / September 2013 / CS Forum Helsinki

2. Agenda
1. The new game for CMS products – why? what happened?
2. Different approaches for building web presence
– Approach 1: One CMS to rule them all (”the elephant CMS approach”)
– Approach 2: Same user experience, but many different platforms (”minimalistic CMS approach”)
3. Guidelines for content strategists navigating between
these two worlds
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3. We used to build everything on top of CMSs...
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CMS
Website
eCommerce
Website
Extranet
Intranet
Web-
site
Web-
site

4. And I guess it still makes sense… sometimes…
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CMS
Website
eCommerce
Website
Extranet
Intranet
Web-
site
Web-
site

5. But some things have changed…
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6. Two things that have changed the game
for CMSs
1. The role of Web CMS is not that given anymore. The
heart of many web presences is something else than
article content – it might be eCommerce, booking
functionalities, product catalog, comparison
functionality for university courses or something else.
Secondly, some social media services are becoming
main storage places for certain content (think YouTube).
2. Mobile devices require that the content adapts to
different formats and even channels. And the more
strategic the content is, the less we can control the user
experience when managing the content.
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Eg.
eCommerce
or booking
CMS
CMS
Website
Screens
Product
catalog
Partner
site
Mobile
app

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8. “Web channel management” in 2013
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Campaign sites
Organisation’s
website (including
possible sales channel or
customer service tools or
departmental websites)
Blogs
Discussion
forums
Partnership sites

9. Partner
site
Areas where CMSs are still badly
needed…
1. Publishing content, mostly news and articles – in
different kinds of streams with different kinds of meta-
information attached to it
2. Content streams that must be pushed to external
services (eg. social media)
3. External content feeds must be pulled into
CMS, enriched and published (because sometimes the
”master place” for the content is not the CMS)
4. Bonus: Previews & testing: Wide selection of different
devices has created an increased need to test how the
content looks on different devices -> we need illusions
of previews to feel safe
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Eg.
eCommerce
or booking
CMS
Product
catalog
Mobile
app
Product
database

10. CMS
The world of CMSs has divided
1. ”The elephant CMS approach”
– Build everything on top of your CMS
– including eCommerce and the
booking applications
2. ”Minimalistic CMS approach”
– CMS only manages your article
content – you don’t build all your
web presence on top of the CMS
Main
website
CMS
Product
catalog
Mobile
app

11. 1. “The elephant CMS approach”
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Campaign sites
One CMS
Blogs
Discussion
forums
Partnership sites

12. 2. “Minimalistic CMS approach”
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Campaign sites
CMS
Blogs
Discussion
forums
Partnership sites
Main site
(eCommerce or
booking, or..)
Business
area A
Group
site

13. CMS
The world of CMSs has divided
1. ”The elephant CMS approach”
– Build everything on top of your CMS
– including eCommerce and the
booking applications
– Easier to understand and manage
– Slower and more expensive to build
– Small changes easier and cheaper
2. ”Minimalistic CMS approach”
– CMS only manages your article
content – you don’t build all your
web presence on top of the CMS
– Harder to manage (but cheaper)
– Faster and cheaper to build
– Small changes harder
Main
website
CMS
Product
catalog
Mobile
app

14. Market overview
1. ”The elephant CMS approach”
– Build everything on top of your CMS
– also the eCommerce and the
booking applications
– Mostly commercial CMS products
that have a strong interest in seing
their CMS as the main hub
– Often eCommerce or ”bookings”
2. ”Minimalistic CMS approach”
– CMS only manages your article
content – you don’t build all your
web presence on top of the CMS
– Mostly open source CMS products
that are built more for developers
than content producers
Note: There aren’t yet many CMSs that truly decouple the content
management and presentation. Therefore the ”minimalistic CMS
approach” should not be seen as the same thing as decoupling (which
can really happen in both approaches).

15. Guidelines for content strategists
1. ”The elephant CMS approach”
– Create collections of small content
blocks. Group them, tag
them, connect them to
functionalities.
– Personalize the experience, do
automatic content
suggestions, manage the web
presence actively!
2. ”Minimalistic CMS approach”
– Concentrate to having your content
items in order – don’t worry about
how the styles work – forget preview!
– Create a CMS that is natural to your
business – talk your business language
– don’t talk about content types!

16. Guidelines for content strategists
1. ”The elephant CMS approach”
– Create collections of small content
blocks. Group them, tag
them, connect them to products and
user groups.
– Personalize the experience, do
automatic content
suggestions, manage the web
presence actively!
2. ”Minimalistic CMS approach”
– Concentrate to having your content
items in order – don’t worry about
how the styles work – forget preview!
– Create a CMS that is natural to your
business – talk your business language
– don’t talk about content types!

17. Elephant or minimalistic?
• 1 point: You have a very commercial web presence that needs to change
together with business – and your business is changing fairly often these days!
• 1 point: You have hundreds of different products or other similar items which you can cross-
promote and build ”suggestion profiles”. And you want more sales!
• 1 point: Users log in to your site (eCommerce, booking, community, etc.) and you want to
offer them personalized suggestions (products, content, etc.).
• 1 point: You have a dedicated web team that has three (3) or more web producers / analysts /
SEO specialists who use the CMS for their daily work.
• 1 point: Your web team members are looking at your analytics and other key metrics daily -
and thinking about your ”next move”.
• 1 point: Your budget for technical implementation and CMS licensees in your web renewal
project is over 200 000 euros.
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Count your
points!

18. Elephant or minimalistic?
• If you scored five or more points from the
previous areas you should seriously consider the
elephant approach. Book a demo from Sitecore
right now! ;)
• If you scored three or four points you might go
either way. It depends where you think the future
is taking you.
• If you scored only one or two points you should
go for the minimalistic CMS approach. Forget
personalization, content targeting and all that
fancy stuff. Focus to your content.
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5/6
3/4
1/2

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Summary (for content strategists)
1. The world of CMSs is divided
– Pushing for the ”elephant CMS approach” is natural development direction for CMS vendors, but it isin’t equally natural direction for
customers. Don’t get fooled by the sales pitches! Only if you are doing eCommerce or other ”booking system” should you focus only
to ”elephant offerings”.
– It can be even argued that maybe CMSs should be simpler platforms that just enable 3rd party apps and push content to custom front-
ends (through APIs).
2. Powerful tools require skilled editors and dedicated web teams that are paid to
monitor and optimize the web channel.
– If you have a scattered content force don’t even dream about the elephant approach!
– Instead go for the minimalistic approach and focus to your content!
3. Both worlds can be a heaven for content strategist – they are just very different
worlds!
4. And in any case: model your core content well and create a common tagging
system that also covers social media services.

20. Contact information
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Perttu Tolvanen
Web & CMS Expert, Partner
North Patrol Oy
+358 50 368 5199
perttu.tolvanen@northpatrol.com
www.northpatrol.com

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