Content Management Bible: Amazon.ca: Bob Boiko: Books

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“…I suppose in the end the reason why there are so few books is that Bob Boiko said most of it in the Content Management Bible…”(Information World Review, June 2003)

Book Description

This is the complete, end-to-end solution for the complicated task of content management and provides everything readers need to know to build and manage robust content management systems for eBusiness.

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Computers were built to process data. Read the first page

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8 Reviews

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4.8 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The most complete and authoritative reference book about CMS, Oct 19 2003

By

Manny Hernandez "@askmanny" (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Content Management Bible (Paperback)

As a Project Manager with a mandate to come up with a Content Management System for my organization, over the course of the past three months I've found the CMS Bible by Boiko simply essential, as most of the other 'bible' tech books I've read have been. He provides a very robust framework that you can follow in your project, if you have the time to read through its almost 1000 pages.

First, he delves into a very thorough discussion about the more 'phylosophical' topics of content (what it is, what is data, what is metadata, etc.) and content management at large. If you haven't gotten your feet wet with a CMS project before, the first 10 chapters (175 pages) will get you soaked with the type of dilemmas you are bound to face when you work on a CMS.

Then, he provides what could be considered a "recipe" to put together a CMS successfully (though no two CMS projects are ever alike, but a lot of them have similar characteristics). There are a number of chapters and sections specifically devoted to the steps required to ensure a successful outsourcing of the project, but the framework he provides is not limited to it: you can perfectly apply it to an in-house implementation. Also, he tends to paint the largest possible picture (with all staff possible, etc.) but you can very easily scale it down to the size and shape of your organization.

In general, his framework goes back once and again to the concept of the "Wheel of Content Management" where he connects the spikes that allow the 'wheel' to move: goals and requirements, audiences, publications, authors, acquisition sources, workflow and staff and access structures, all revolving around the central content component classes with metadata as the outside of the wheel, serving as a container for it all.

He doesn't wrap up the book without devoting enough space to XML and its close cousin, the DTD. He even provides a small VB app to convert Word content to XML, and that's still "only" on page 788. If you haven't noticed by now, this book is MASSIVE, and if there's any issue with it, that would be it: the fact that you will need to devote a long time to processing it. But all in all, the book with its companion web site is an invaluable tool for all Project Managers who have in their hands the responsibility of giving birth to a CMS for their organizations.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Well-written and easy to read, Sep 27 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Content Management Bible (Paperback)

As a favor to another professor, Bob Boiko once taught a couple of sessions of a class I took at the University of Washington's iSchool. I was very impressed by his laid-back manner and his skill at making difficult concepts easy to understand.

I picked up a copy of CMB a couple of weeks ago and I'm currently a little more than halfway through it. Frankly, it may be the best computer book I've ever read. It's long, but the pages fly by. Everything is easy to understand. As a programmer who once built a small content management system, I thought I understood the basic concepts well. But Boiko's book has given me a whole new perspective on the subject. My company's next CMS will be significantly better thanks to him.

I heartily recommend this text to anyone interested in buying or building a content management system. It is one of the few books of the "Bible" series that truly lives up to its name.

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Exhaustive and repetitive, Aug 22 2002

By

Ole N�rskov (Copenhagen Denmark) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Content Management Bible (Paperback)

While this book certainly offers valuable information it's repetitive to the point of being laughable.
A diligent editor with a pair of scissors could have improved the book vastly.
The constant cross referring is also pretty annoying - with a good index who needs it.
The illustrations are not just cheesy as stated by another reviewer - they are plain silly.
I'm easily bored - thus I hate books that spend page and page again on telling me what I will learn reading the coming pages - get to the point for crying out loud.
It seems that the book is written solely for web project managers in very, very, very large companies. In fact I doubt that any company would be able to afford a process so painstakingly slow as proposed in the book when choosing or developing a cms. If anyone would be foolish enough to do it they would find out that when they finally after 3 years of hard labour implement the system it's been surpassed a thousand times by new products.
Why then give generous 3 stars? Because the book did make me think. While I often disagree with Boiko at least I was forced to rethink a lot of concepts.
There's plenty of room for improvement for the second edition.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A simply outstanding reference work
As a "tecchie" in our IT department, I often have a difficult time articulating *why* we need a (or any) Content Management Systems *at all*. Read more

Published on May 13 2003 by cyberchuck2000

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be given six stars
Content management is a major task in my job - we integrate 2 ERP systems, web servers, 2 document management systems.... and there are plenty of places we could improve. Read more

Published on Feb 24 2002