Management is the pursuit of the best way. Content is an increasingly important resource and activity within organizations. It is time it was professionally managed.
In the past fifteen years we have had a revolution in organizational behavior. We have had email, the Web, and an explosion in print reports and PowerPoint presentations. We’ve had instant messaging and phone texting; and the latest part of the revolution is blogging.
Never before have so many read and written so much. Never before has so much management involved so much reading and writing. Never before has decision-making been so influenced by reading and writing. Never before has so much commerce resulted from reading and writing. This is a genuine revolution.
A little over one hundred years ago, people like Frank and Liilian Gilbreth and Frederick Taylor laid the foundations for Scientific Management, which would in fact establish the foundations for modern management. The basic premise of these pioneers was simple: There is a best way.
If you carefully analyze how a particular task is carried out you can find a best way of doing it (or at least a better way). If you take a scientific approach and break work down in a methodical and rigorous manner, you can make work more efficient.
I sit here typing this with two fingers. I watch these fingers type, then glance at the screen to see the result. Of course, every few seconds I have to pause to correct the mistakes I’ve made. This is my ‘natural’ way of typing, and I know many others who have the same basic approach.
I know there is a much better way to type. However, I am set in my ways. I don’t want to change because change brings discomfort. I also know that before I will get better, I will go through a period where things will be worse. I don’t want to pay that price.
You would assume that in a world full of computers, all our children would be taught typing as a basic skill. That’s certainly not the case in Ireland. Why not? Good typing skills are a first step towards Scientific Content Management.
If more and more of the output of an organization is content, then it makes sense for the organization to become better at content management. If more and more of the activity of managers involves content, then it makes sense for managers to become better at content management.
The ideas of Gilbreth and Taylor revolutionized how organizations were managed. We are at the beginning of a new revolution in management: Scientific Content Management.
Within the next fifteen years, organizations will become far more rigorous in how they manage email, webpages, presentations and reports. It will be discovered that there is a science to content; a best way to write a heading or summary, for example.
There is a huge opportunity ahead for those who have content management skills. For those who treat content as a science, tremendous value will be created. We need scientific content management processes; we need simple yet robust methods for the organization of content.
The Web is the ultimate laboratory for Scientific Content Management. Never before have we had such an effective environment where the impacts of content can be measured. Testing, testing, testing is the path to Scientific Content Management.
For your web content management solution, contact Gerry McGovern http://www.gerrymcgovern.com
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