a thousand furnished rooms

As I mentioned in this email discussion, content "management" isn't tied, per se, to technology. My colleague Jenn Accettola makes this point really well in saying that a content management "system" begins with the systematic processes that allow organizations to manage content effectively. The technology, then, can be viewed as a way to accelerate or enhance these processes.

I have worked in and with organizations who have all kinds of editorial and review processes that they conceive and plan independently of a particular technology. They then look at automated and nonautomated processes for accomplishing the task, and choose the better one—based on cost, effectiveness, and timeliness. In this way, they are making business decisions first, and technology decisions second. It is instructive to those of us who think "computer first" that the organization's overall goal is better content at the right price, not better content through automation.