Recent Posts View All

Blog - Dive into GMS and CMS

Dive into GMS and CMS

posted 2006-11-14 21:58:12
by Kevin Moss

I find myself in Aventura - Rivera Maya, Mexico participating in the Interwoven Partner University 2006 conference. Interwoven is one of Idiom Technologies Content Management Systems (CMS) partners.

Before I talk about the conference, I wanted to share one of my experiences outside of the event. Since I arrived early, I decided to explore a little and take advantage of the great scuba diving in the area. The diving here is certainly quite wonderful but as is the case with many dive locations, there is some reef degradation and as a National Geographic Diver I took serious note of the reef system’s condition. Did you know that in 25 years 50% of the World’s reef systems will be gone unless something is done to avert the situation! So what can we do about this? Communicating effectively to the tourists and consumers of seafood, and this needs to be on a world-wide basis, is a start. We need to educate people in their native languages to help them understand that as individuals we can all help by being respectful of the environment; whether it is avoiding the temptation to touch a reef while diving, or passing on that endangered fish for dinner.

You might ask what does this have to do with globalization? It is a perfect example of the impact that localization of information can have when managed correctly. Just take a look at the Project Aware global website as an example organization that delivers information to the global community. In this case we are saving the world but in your case it might be communicating your products and services to an international audience.

Achieving this will positively impact the bottom line of your business and help it excel in the regions you market products and services. So how do you get there? Content management coupled with Globalization Management Systems (GMS) will give you control over your information, how and when you deliver it, and into which regions and languages you need to serve. And of course, Idiom Technologies has been in the business of helping companies globalize their information since 1998.At this point, let’s talk about the conference and some interesting facts about content management and where globalization plays a role. 

Interwoven has evolved as a dominant player in enterprise content management and has achieved this through innovative product development plus acquisitions and mergers. They have a full suite of integrated products that encompass development and management of digital assets through multi-channel content deployment and management of runtime environments. After speaking with several product managers and directors at Interwoven, it is clear that they see globalization management systems as a key enabling technology for their current and future customers. It is evident that Interwoven, as with other CMS vendors, rely heavily on the technology, best practices, and industry knowledge of Idiom Technologies to provide superior multi-lingual solutions to their customers. Yes, I am touting what we do here at Idiom but the walk-away is that companies such as Idiom Technologies play a critical role in helping organizations achieve true globalization of their information. It is true that some CMS vendors claim localization and translation capabilities but they accomplish this using a multi-template approach where the information is based on manual translations without the use of Translation Memory (TM) and Computer Aided Translation (CAT) tools. A poor and error prone approach that invites disaster as information becomes out of sync, corporate messaging loses consistency, and zero support for a true localization process.

So the next question that may come to your mind is why don’t CMS vendors either develop or acquire GMS technology? Well it is my opinion that this will never happen, or at least be successful if it does occur. There are two main reasons why this is the case. First, CMS vendors lack the overall industry knowledge and highly specialized technology required to enable globalization. Second, by nature, GMS is a horizontal technology that not only supports content but also application strings, software configuration management, special or proprietary file formats, and also other CMS and Document Management Systems. These are all outside of the domain of the typical CMS company- they certainly don’t want to support their competitors products!

It is interesting that the pain around poor content management is similar to that of localization challenges. Interwoven identified lack of coordination between resources, redundant processes, poor collaboration, and ineffective utilization as major pain points experienced by their customers prior to the implementation of a CMS. The synergy between CMS and GMS is amazing and GMS technology should be considered mission-critical for all organizations that have multi-lingual requirements.

I'll end my post where I started by sharing a quote from one of the authors I grew up with, Douglas Adams. Can you guess what it is? Of course, “So long and thanks for all the fish.” Let’s work together to make sure we have fish to be thankful for now and in the future.

Share:

Back to the Blog

Back to Top