There are a plethora of content management systems on the market; Enterprise Content Management, Document Management, Web Content Management, etc. But if you are creating reusable structured content, your focus is on managing components of content. While some of the other types of content management systems may meet your needs, a Component Content Management (CCM) system is ideally suited to your requirements.

CCM systems manage content at a granular (component) level of content, rather than at the page or document level. Each component represents a single topic, concept, or asset (such as an image or table). Components are assembled into multiple content assemblies (content types) and can be viewed as components or as traditional pages or documents. Each component has its own lifecycle (owner, version, approval, use) and can be tracked individually or as part of an assembly. CCM is typically used for multichannel customer-facing content (marketing, learning, support). CCM can be a separate system or be a functionality of another content management type (such as ECM).

This session will focus on:

• What is a Component Content Management System (CCM)
• The benefits of CCM
• The three types of CCM
• A survey of the industry

In 2006, Business Objects faced a major challenge. How to migrate over 50,000 pages of unstructured non-topic based documentation it had acquired through rapid growth and acquisitions. The answer was to use DITA to standardize content creation, management, translation and publishing processes company-wide. In this session, you will learn how they went from planning to publishing using an iterative approach, and how you can use this method to see the results of a content migration sooner in your project cycle.

There are many careful steps that must be taken when migrating content into a modular form suited to long term maintenance and reuse. In performing these steps, one of the considerations to be kept in mind is how the units of content, once modularized, will be re-assembled to form both legacy and new information products. This is something that those embarking on implementations of such standards as DITA and S1000D are well acquainted with, or will be.

As one of the key motivators for moving towards a modular content posture is the ability to deliver more precisely tailored information products, the expectations set for the quality and utility of delivered products are in fact being raised over those that applied to legacy offerings. And to make the scenario even more daunting, one of the criteria getting particular attention at present is timeliness – which typically amounts to the mandate to provide just-in-time content. So the assembly of the applicable content modules and their transmutation into a context-specific information product must be performed with blistering speed and flawless quality. The delivery of information products therefore introduces a set of demands that must be systematically addressed if this goal is to be achieved. With reference to a number of case studies, this presentation will review the demands that must be met if modularized content is to be assembled, resolved, compiled and rendered into the types of information products that people rightfully expect.

There are many ways to skin a content management project, and the skeletons of CM projects gone awry, or even abandoned before conception, line the ditches to prove it. Of all the critical factors on a content management project, why is all the talk about technology? Separate fact from fantasy, marketing from mayhem, and figure out where to focus your energies to make your content management process a success.

Managers and project leads contemplating content management implementations will explore critical success factors for successful content management projects. They will learn the right questions to ask and determine how to refocus the attention on the areas that will lay a strong project foundation. Participants will also be given a framework in which to think about project challenges that often arise, and examples that help provide context. Participants are encouraged to bring their questions to the session.