Decisions on Name and Mission</a>

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Decisions on Name and Mission (April 5, 2004)

Scott Abel and Bob Doyle

Scott Abel and I have been teasing out the good ideas in your submissions, and think we see a growing consensus. However, we have yet to hear from several of you (Boiko, Gilbane, Fritzsche, Robertson, Rockley, Hackos, Busch, McQueen, and Kennedy).

We edited the exchanges from your discussions of mission and name into an easily readable file at: http://www.cmsreview.com/Resources/Community/Responses2.html

We think we see the mission clearly enough to settle on a name. CMProfessionals is currently in the lead. A tagline could include concepts from the other candidate names, CMPractice and CMCommunity

"CMProfessionals - a Content Management Community of Practice."

We would like to purchase a domain name and set up the community mailing list, which will simplify managing our emails - filter on [CMProfessionals].

Perhaps we can ballot everyone over the weekend?

A rough edit of what you have proposed so far might produce a brief mission and description of our membership like this...
_______________

CMProfessionals is made up of content management professionals and business stakeholders. We hope to raise awareness of content management as an essential discipline that builds value, both financial and human, for companies and organizations. Content management is getting the right content to the right person at the right time at the right cost.

As a group of CM practitioners, we seek to create a not-for-profit membership organization that would enable sharing of information, practices, and strategies. We envision a variety of member services, including online discussion forums, knowledge wikis, professional discounts, and "summit"-type gatherings devoid of marketing hype. We hope to work closely with graduate schools who are training the next generation of information professionals.

We imagine that we will attract a diverse group of members. We invite project managers, authors, editors, developers, graphic/UI/experience designers, information architects, analysts, systems architects, researchers, educators, marcom professionals, network administrators, industry experts, students, consultants, IT directors, web managers, system implementers, technology trainers, system administrators, senior management, and anyone else who cares enough about content to invest a small sum in helping to make us all better at managing it.

We will work closely with other organizations that share many of our goals, such as AIfIA, AIIM, ASIST, STC, and others. We will coordinate our thinking about recommended standards for best practices with standards organizations like ANSI, DIN, and ISO.
_______________

James Robertson has encouraged taking our deliberations public as soon as possible.

He also suggested we put our thinking into a page on CMS Wiki that we can all write. See www.cmswiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=CmProfessionals

And we continue to collect various organizational requirements and action items at www.cmsreview.com/Resources/Community.

Your criticisms and further suggestions most welcome.

Ann Rockley

Here is my "stab" at the mission statement.

Content Management Professionals provides leadership in the advancement of the field of content management; the practice of managing content through its entire life cycle from concept through creation, management, and delivery. Our objectives include:

� Foster the adoption and sustained use of standards of excellence for content management
� Provide access to research and information in the industry
� Provide learning opportunities and foster education
� Build bridges between disciplines to ensure a wholistic solution to organizations' content management needs

Ann Rockley

I like the idea of owning the requirements for certification, but not necessarily the process of providing certification. I suggest that we look at the area of education/certification from many angles. We should explore certification as an organization to determine what it would take to create, deliver, and manage a certificate program. But I also think we should look to the colleges and universities to pair with them in offering programs. Years ago it wasn't possible to get a degree in human computer interaction or usability, now it is. I believe that we should seek to have this eventually accepted as part of a degree curriculum. Obviously that would be long term, but not unrealistic. Colleges and universities are set up to deliver courses and award certificates and degrees.

In addition, many information science schools are already headed down the path of offering courses in this area. I participated in the design and review of an Information Management certificate that recently got accepted at my local university information science program. I think it would be extremely valuable for us to influence the education of the future. Other organizations like banking associations, accountant organizations, etc. have worked with colleges and universities to develop certificate programs that are approved by these associations. Organizations like the Drug Information Association (DIA) and American Medical Writers Association offer certificate workshops/courses at their annual conference.

I think we need to figure out what an education plan would be like then figure out multiple ways of making it possible for people to get this education and accreditation.

I agree with Lisa that we shouldn't leave this to others to decide for us.

James Robertson

Hi all,

I will put my vote in for CM Professionals, or such variation on such.

QUESTION 1:

Is the focus of this group inwards, or outwards?

An inwards focused organisation is a true community of practice, where
the goal is to share information between professionals working in the
same field. This may involve face-to-face discussions, online discussions,
building a resource base, or providing mentoring/coaching opportunities.

An outwards-facing organisation is all about evangelism, with the targets
being novice entries into the field, or business stakeholders. Activies
would include publishing reports, running events, etc.

I would strongly vote for the first (inwards focused). Having just caught
up on *all* of the e-mails this morning, it's obvious how many different
approaches there are to CM. This is a great thing, but it highlights that
we aren't yet ready to present a single "message" to the broader public.

Instead, we are still in the innovation and learning phase, where we need
to focus on sharing knowledge between those working in the field. I think
a group such as CM Professionals can be of great assistance with this, but
to my next question:

QUESTION 2:

How big does this group need to be at the outset?

Is there a reason to rush into non-profit status, huge public visibility,
etc? Do we need to start collecting and spending money for any reason?
Instead, perhaps we should concentrate on starting a "seed" of something
great, and then letting it evolve into something bigger and better?

I've now been involved in setting up two communities of practice
(NSW Knowledge Management Forum & Intranet Peers in Government), so I've
had some experience with this process.

Another stray thought: I would like to see this group take ownership of just
one of the many sites that Bob (Doyle) has setup. I vote for the wiki. We should
then take it upon ourselves to build the first truly comprehensive vendor-neutral
resource on CM.

My final question:

QUESTION 3:

We have listed a (too diverse?) list of possible members. What do we
think is the reason why each of these groups would think "I should
join CM Professionals"?

The more diverse a group, the less of a common purpose and practice.
It is a critical success factor for communities of practice that there
is this commonality, so by making the membership too wide, the group
can quickly slide into confusion.

Anyway, I'm certainly up for participation in whatever is decided.

Cheers, James

James Robertson

Hi Ann,

Certification sounds great, but I think we are a *long* way from being able to establish such a thing.

The first step is to determine best practice. The next step is then to formalise this. Only then can certification be established.

We are still very much trying to work out best practice, and while each of us on this list as a "piece of the puzzle", none of us is yet able to assemble all the pieces into a single solution (a "theory of everything").

Give us time, and we'll get there, but as the discussions have highlighted, it's a complex many-faceted problem that will need the collective input of us all.

Lisa Welchman

Hi James,

I won't make an endless thread out of this, but I must beg to differ about the *long* way from being able to establish best practices which would lead to certification standards. Yes, the process that you outline would have to take place--and that would take time; but, I think that the thought behind the methodology is there in the community. Some one or organization justhas to go the tedious exercise of vetting and formalization. As I said, not fun work but I think work that needs to be done.

In many ways it makes me wonder what exactly our organization would do that was outward facing (I know this is the opposite of your preference--but hang with me here a minute) if we didn't have a clearly defined CM methodology and some semblance of standards and best practices.

So, I guess I'm agreeing and disagreeing with you. If we are an inward facing organization not actively seeking to broaden membership, we can pretty much do what we want. If we are an outward facing professional organization that wishes to define CM as a practice then we have a responsibility to define best practices and standards early on in order to define our profession, gain credibility and have real effect on the way CM is practiced in the larger business community.

James Robertson

Hi Lisa,

I'm certainly not disagreeing with anything that you have to say on this.

I guess I would argue that at present there are very limited resources available for people re: CM (a few books, a couple of reports, a handful of websites). Most of the public work has been done, by necessity, by consultants (such as myself) who are happy to help the community as (pragmatically) part of their marketing.

To get standards together would involve pooling our knowledge (which I would be very comfortable with), but would also involve a *lot* of time and resources. From my experience, this would be difficult to achieve through a newly-established membership organisation.

So, I guess I'm saying: let's walk first, with hopes of then running in the near future...

John O'Donovan

Hi all - I think it is still important to establish the principle of Content Management experts or professionals, and separate / abstract this from the position of being associated specifically with a vendor.

I think it's possible to do this, with or without certification - but certification is an aspirational goal to bear in mind.

The presence of such a "profession" or area of endeavour as a distinct thing, will in itself lead to greater information about the sort of problems Content Management creates and a more coherent demand for such information.

Howard McQueen

Hello All,

I woke up this morning (perhaps too early?) thinking that there might be an outward-facing revenue model our community might explore. It would be nice to have a kitty, to support funding activities that this all volunteer group would not be able to undertake.

Our strengths:
1. Many of us author articles, books, etc.
2. Many of us are in the educational / seminar business and have created educational materials
3. A few of us have strong ties to the vendor communities
4. A handful of the group are (consultant-independent) practitioners, representing large government agencies and/or companies that have CM initiatives underway

Given the first two strengths, the initial thought is a subscription-based eNewsletter (monthly / bi-monthly) which would be fed by the many talented individuals on this list, and others, as the group expands. This group, or a subset thereof, would make an effective editorial review board. The outreach of the combined individual members should be enough to keep a work-in-process pipeline of articles forthcoming.

Business activities
There are the marketing, promotion and fulfillment responsibilities for subscription-based newsletters which would need to be addressed. I wonder of we could identify sources where these could be outsourced? Thinking down the road, if the Editorial Review Board approved vendor ads, a separate advertising section could generate additional funds.

Twelve months from launch, perhaps we have 250 (low) / 500 (high) subscriptions @ ($95 (low) / $195 (high)), generating gross revenue of:

Low $ 23,750
High $ 97,500

Nothing like having money to pay others for things you don't want to do yourself!

Whatever net revenue generated could be used as seed money to establish a virtual office, a part-time Executive Director (or whatever). We would then have a capability to pursue Standards Development, education and certification, webinars, annual meetings and other membership-based activities and services. At some point in time, annual dues would kick-in to create an important annuity stream to sustain not-for-profit activities.

A hybrid approach
A hybrid approach to this would be to make strategic alliances with key players that would have a vested interest in the success of the community. It would be important to rigorously select the partners and have clear guidelines as to the scope of services and methods to measure their service delivery.

I'll end the thought here. Did I get up too early?

Howard

Lou Rosenfeld

James Robertson wrote:

>> So, I guess I'm saying: let's walk first, with hopes of then running in the near future...

Hope you all don't mind me (an IA "observer") piping in here. Our experience with getting AIfIA up and running included a discussion on whether we should pursue developing a certification program. Our opinions were divided, as they seem to be here, but once we had to perform the actual work of setting up an organization and all of its related infrastructure, higher-end pursuits like certification fell into the "would be nice, but not just yet" category.

I agree with James completely; you first need an entity in place to develop, own, and promote a certification program before you actually take on such a project. Certification is one of many great ideas that you've all assembled; perhaps it's time to start prioritizing and developing a project plan?

Mary Lee Kennedy

Hi everyone,

I'm looking forward to participating in the Community. Having completed reading all of the emails and gone through the web information provided by Bob I have the following comments:

1. Mission statement - Given that the second sentence in the mission statement mentions outwardly focused activities ("We hope to raise awareness of...") it looks like that is the primary purpose of the community. I think it should be flipped - with the inward focused wording first i.e. As a group of CM practioners, we seek to create a not-for-profit membership organization that would enable sharing information, practices and strategies. Then the second paragraph focused on any awareness creation.

2. Community activities - If there is agreement on the priorities (inward and then outward) then the benefits and activities can be reviewed in terms of these priorities. I do agree that starting out with 2-3 really successful activities and a community structure that is productive and truly beneficial to the community members is more likely to lead to growth than starting out with a huge list and trying to achieve them all.

3. Basic principles - as a non-for-profit organization we probably should be really clear on the basic principles of how this will work and how priorities will be established/funded. I understand we're going to discuss this once we agree on the concept.

Mary Lee

Gerry McGovern

Hello all,

I agree with James from the inward-focus perspective. We shouldn't evangelize outwards until we have achieved some common understanding between us as an organization. That will take a lot of discussion.

I don't think we should rush anything. A well moderated discussion group would be a major achievement. Perhaps we could draw up a list of areas for discussion, and someone could volunteer to moderate each area. The objective would be that after a period of discussion we would arrive at some sort of agreed position. These agreed positions would act as a solid foundation for the development of some sort of CM standards/certification.

An example of an area of discussion might be CM organization structure. Increasingly, I am being asked by clients about how they should structure the CM team, who it should report to, etc. The idea would be to thoroughly discuss this, and then come up with a proposed org structure.

We could, if we wanted, then publish a paper on it. I know a lot of managers who would be very interested in reading such a paper.

It would be nice to hear what exactly everyone on this list wants from the new organization. I would have the following primary objectives for getting involved:

1) To share and learn from other professionals. What's working, what isn't? What are the trends? What sort of standards are emerging?

2) To raise awareness of the real value of CM and thus make it easier for me to get high rates from clients.

3) To have another credential to impress potential clients with.

Martin White

Colleagues

I would also agree totally with Gerry and James that we should concentrate on the inward community first. There is quite enough to do here before going too public.

Could I also highlight an issue with certification. Different countries have different approaches to certification and CPD. What might make sense in a US context might not travel well. Although I know enough of US tax laws to see the benefits of 501c status, it also indelibly stamps the organisation as American. (With apologies from the UK!) The majority of the clients I work with are international, and have very considerable localisation issues which are nothing to do with language and a great deal to do with management culture.

The inward focus, and keeping the group relatively small, also aid knowledge exchange. At the core of knowledge exchange and collaboration is the establishment of trust. I know, or know of, all the current members of this list, and would have no hesitation in sharing my knowledge with them on the basis that this would be reciprocated when appropriate. Once this group starts to be a trade or professional association (such as Aifia) then difference KM dynamics come into play. As a Board Advisor to Aifia I am happy to support their approach, but that does not mean that CM Professional should go down the same route.

To me the key benefit of participating in the community, as a one-man band, is to reduce risk. The risk to my client's business of not using best practice because I was not aware of what was best practice, and then the risk to me that I do not have a client to use as a reference site and/or I fail to make the profit I need because of the need to do remedial work.

Martin White

JoAnn Hackos

I've been reading all the messages (in between getting real work done :)).

Just a few thoughts:

The focus on building a community of professionals in content management seems to me the first agenda for the organization. And, a large enough task to begin. There are many issues, including a common body of knowledge, a glossary of terms, ethical business practices, that need to be considered.

I'm especially interested in ethics, because it's been my experience that some members of the CM community do not always behave ethically toward one another. It should be clear when we're sharing information and when we're being competitive.

Since we do not yet, to my understanding, have a common body of knowledge nor a glossary of agreed upon terms and definitions, certification is very far in the future. My experience with certification in other organizations suggests that it is only valuable when recognized by the people who buy our services. If they don't know what certification means, it will make no difference in practice to be certified or not.

JoAnn

Erik Hartman

Dear CM Professionals,

First I voted for CM Community, but now I like CM Professionals. (It wasn't on the first list, was it?) CM Professionals has also an 'outward' sound. Could be convenient if we want to 'reach out' in due time.

In reply to James' 3 questions.

Q1: I totally agree with James that we should have an inward focus first. But without forgetting there are organisations like AIIM etc. who do things already. We should join them instead of forming yet another group. Let's not invent the wheel again. That's the main problem of most of the IT: we're all so convinced that we are unique so we join in way too many groups, organisations etc. Thus people out there have no clue about Information Architecture, Communications, CM etc. They don't know us because we're not well (that is: over) organised.

Q2: Of course we should use the Wiki or one of the other sites Bob D. has given us! And with CMS Watch, Gilbane Report, CMS Review, StepTwo etc. Etc. we really do not need yet another CM-site. Please let's help each other out with contributing to the already existing initiatives, CMS Review could be the one. Perhaps we could create some logo and/or just one web page with our mission statement and member list we could all refer to. Let's start small and then check out what's happening (what works and what doesn't)

Q3: My personal opinion about the CM Professional 'community' is that I would like to discuss issues, ask question (even the stupid ones) without the pressure of being 'the consultant'. Just an environment among peers. I've met only a few of you and I really liked it. I don't want to chase for management's pockets, I don't believe in it. Only true knowledge (or better: the quest for true knowledge) should be our drive. Any commercial goal will confuse our community.

About the mission statement etc.:

Before we have a mission statement we should do some (SWOT) analisys about us, CM and the 'market'. This will help us to define our 'main problem', our 'vision'. Only with this perception of the CM-world we can define a mission that really tells us what we must to do in this CM-world. Our discussions so far already gave us some insight. So it's great Bob D. And Scott summarized them on cmsreview.

Let's keep the discussion alive!

James Robertson

Mary Lee Kennedy wrote:

> 3. Basic principles - as a non-for-profit organization we probably should be really clear on the basic principles of how this will work and how priorities will be established/funded. I understand we're going to discuss this once we agree on the concept.

Do we need any money at this stage, particularly if we end up being initially inwards-focused?

I think the asset we need the most is *our time*, which is of course the scarcest commodity...

James Robertson

Martin White wrote:

> To me the key benefit of participating in the community, as a one-man band, is to reduce risk. The risk to my client's business of not using best practice because I was not aware of what was best practice, and then the risk to me that I do not have a client to use as a reference site and/or I fail to make the profit I need because of the need to do remedial work.

I think this nails the key benefit. Certainly it would help my (slightly larger) organisation in exactly the same was as it would Martin.

We just can't afford to all be working in isolation, with so much still to be learned and shared...

John O'Donovan

Hi James, I'd go with starting with something smaller to keep it focussed - but know what the aspirational goals are. Inward focus first feels like the right approach, though I think the very nature of the discussions will be valuable if disseminated and put into an outward facing format. Whatever this is...

Just as a thought, a lot of people here would seem to be outwards focussed in their jobs / roles, evangelising CM in some way. This is probably why the list of people is long and covers both those who might be interested in joining and those who would be interested in listening.

Can we get to a simpler definition of who might want to be involved? This would help focus things. Perhaps it's those who have been involved in the strategic deployment of CM. Perhaps it's something else.

Another way to think about this, is who might we want to join to ensure constructive, objective opinions? Are there groups we want to discourage?

Who has knowledge we would like to share in?

What's been peoples experience on lists and in other discussions?

I'd agree that we don't need any fundraising quite yet. We are not ready to be a Cutter Consortium (www.cutter.com), or equivalent quite yet...

[...though actually, Cutter is an interesting model for a community of experts...]

Bob Doyle

Hi All,

Thanks for so many thoughtful inputs.

We edited your decisions and priorities into a single file: (this file).

We now have a clear consensus for CM Professionals as our name, and have purchased cmprofessionals.org, as originally suggested by Jane McConnell.

The mission statement is still in flux, but as all agreed we have reordered the priorities to an inward focus at first (a narrow community of practice), then outward-facing evangelism to a broad community of interest. See http://www.cmsreview.com/Resources/Community/Mission.html

Many of you described the initial inward focus as developing information, tools, a knowledge base, a glossary of technical terms, best practices, etc. Once we arrive at consensus in a small homogeneous group, we can reach out to share these tools, help to create educational programs utilizing them, establish criteria for educational certificates, if not certification, etc.

_______________________

Several of you called for specific actions, and we are ready to take these next steps - with your help. In keeping with sentiments like "walk first, then run," and "start with 2-3 really successful activities and a community structure," and "a well-moderated discussion group would be a major achievement," we propose these steps:

Take ownership of the CMS Wiki as our knowledge base. To do this, you may all register as members of the wiki and you will be given edit privileges. (http://www.cmswiki.com)
Start creating the tools you say we all need. Several of you mentioned a glossary. We have a prototype at http://www.cmswiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=CmsGlossary. You can help by doing the following:
1. Look over the initial list of terms (drawn from all the major CMS books and magazines, and from Bob Boiko's CMS Evaluation Thesaurus).
2. Write brief definitions for 3 to 5 of those terms you know well.
3. Suggest a few terms that you find are missing.
4. Like other information feeds from CMS Review, the ultimate goal for the Glossary will be a feed which we all can put into a corner of our websites. Please test this feed for the first twenty or so terms: http://www.cmsreview.com/Glossary/GlossFeed.html.
5. Since we can feed it anywhere, you may actually try it right here:
6. Information on other feeds is at http://www.cmsreview.com/CMSFeeds.html.
Identify Best Practices. We should start to assemble the general areas of best practice advice. Will you all suggest a few possibilities? Where these are already described well in books, articles, or reports, will you point us to them?

[cmpros]

Bob Boiko

Wow, Great work guys!!

Like Ann and Mary Lee, I've been constantly on the road (and starting 2 new graduate classes). In fact I am writing this from Australia, where in a few minutes I will put a face to the familiar name of James Robertson.

I'm really happy to see such fast and energetic action. Being now a bit behind you all, I'll try to get into the flow without any turbulence: Thanks goes especially for Bob Doyle for pushing this (maybe he can be Bobd and I can be Bobb).

Comments
*******************************************

- CM Professionals
BOBB>>I like it, especially with the added "a Content Management Community of Practice."

- an inward focus at first (a narrow community of practice), then outward-facing evangelism to a broad community of interest. See http://www.cmsreview.com/Resources/Community/Mission.html
BOBB>>Yep, a good way to start I would think.

- Certificates, if not certification, etc.
BOBB>>See http://extension.washington.edu/ext/certificates/ctm/ctm_gen.asp for the one we are offering at UW

- Look over the initial list of terms (drawn from all the major CMS books and magazines, and from Bob Boiko's CMS Evaluation Thesaurus).
BOBB>> If someone wanted to donate a little elbow grease, I could probably supply the raw material for a lot of glossary entries.

- Identify Best Practices. We should start to assemble the general areas of best practice advice. Will you all suggest a few possibilities? Where these are already described well in books, articles, or reports, will you point us to them?
BOBB>>Would anyone go for Collection, Management and Publishing as the top level categories?

How many would approve completely open financial reports on the web?
BOBB>> I would

Scott will need to be compensated, and so the need for cash flow will become real relatively soon.
BOBB>> Good point. How do we do this?

-you have all achieved much of what Bob Boiko and I envisaged several weeks ago in Texas.
BOBB>> Agreed

- inviting one or two new people to join our discussions
BOBB>> I'd go for that, though all my best choices are already here

- Are you willing to go public with our plans so far (i.e., the edited transcripts on the web)?
BOBB>> I am

- I hope to get the new mailing list online by tomorrow. If we name it cmpros@lists.cmprofessionals.org, we can make the prefix look like [cmpros] for your use filtering messages. Sound OK?
BOBB>> Does to me

BOBB>>Thanks again Bobd for keeping the thread and doing all this leg work!!