Replacement CMS“Getting it right and getting the buy-in”

Richard BriertonThe University of SheffieldJuly 14th 2010

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• E-mail: r.brierton@sheffield.ac.uk• Twitter: youlooklovely *• If you want to talk about me behind my

back #iwmw10 #p8

*I never say anything interesting

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Where we are coming from...

• Polopoly CMS since 2003• 600 editors; 100,000 pages; 14,000 new

pages per year• No longer running a supported product• Regular users are fine with it• Casual users are less-fine with it

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“I use CMS almost daily and it is incredibly slow and awkward to use.”

“CMS is a catastrophe:the interface is clunky,slow, unattractive”

“CMS. Please. It's shit. It's unbelievablybreathtakingly shit.”

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Opportunity for change

“Just because you've always done it that way doesn't mean it's not incredibly stupid.”

Despair.com – “Tradition”http://despair.com/tradition.html

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Communication

“To be able to walk hundreds of miles a man must believe that something good awaits him at the end.

He needs the prospect of a promised land.”

War and Peace – Leo TolstoyPage: 1217

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If CMS is the answer, what is the question?

Disobedient.

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7 Commandments

• Keep the 90% in mind all the time• One voice - we are not a coalition• Training is cheap• Content is expensive

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...

• Editors will often best-guess when unsure• Avoid unnecessary flexibility• Most editors don’t care

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The practical bit

• Develop new CMS• Develop migration process

• Mix of generated HTML, parsing content XML from old system, CouchDB, Polopoly import tools

• Roll-out departments one-by-one

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• E-mail: r.brierton@sheffield.ac.uk• Twitter: youlooklovely• #iwmw10 #p8