At the risk of stating the obvious, it could be said that a content management system is quite simply – a system that manages content.
However, it is precisely the obviousness of what a CMS is and does, that has created a degree of confusion amongst ‘would be’ purchases of such a system. Wrapped up in a
seemingly harmless statement is enough ambiguity to enable all kinds of products to masquerade as content management solutions.
To fully understand what it is a CMS does, we have to first define:
Content is in essence, any type or ‘unit’ of digital information. It can be text, images, graphics, video, sound, documents, records etc – or in other words – anything that is likely to be managed in an electronic format.
Content Management is effectively the management of the content described above, by combining rules, process and/or workflows in such a way that its electronic storage is deemed to be ‘managed’ rather than ‘un-managed’.
The system itself is definable as a tool or combination or tools that facilitate the efficient and effective production of the desired ‘output’ using the managed content.