Should the Public Sector pay for Content Management Systems?

About 3-4 years ago I used to think that the requirements of a Local Authority or Public Sector Agencies around content management system (CMS) were pretty complex and could only really be supported by purchasing one of the many high end products out there in the market.

I must stress at this point that i am referring to Content Management or Web Content Management – This is not a post about Enterprise Content Management (ECM) which is at a higher level and includes a wider range of functions and features including:

•    Document management for check-in/check-out, version control, security and library services for business documents.
•    Document imaging for capturing, transforming, storing and managing scanned images of paper documents.
•    Records management for long-term archiving, automation of retention and compliance policies, and ensuring legal, regulatory and industry compliance.
•    Workflow for supporting business processes, document review and approval, routing content, assigning work tasks and states, and creating audit trails.
•    Web content management for controlling the content of a Website by using  specific management tools based on a core repository. It includes content creation functions, templating, workflow and change management, and content deployment to web servers.
•    Document-centric collaboration for document sharing and supporting project teams and discussion threads.

I do believe that the public sector and local authorities need to take ECM seriously and must consider how they provide the functions above, but i find it very difficult in a public sector role to justify the likely expenditure around a single ECM system, for which there are some big players. My view and i stress this is my view is that in the current climate the public sector needs to consider how it delivers the “value” these tools promise by taking advantage of the open source platforms which exist out there. If we had a public sector developer community around some of these technologies then we would in effect create a sustainable approach. If your organisation has already invested in the large providers of this functionality (IBM, Open Text, SAP and Microsoft) then i wish you luck in realising the benefits of that investment.

But i would suggest that you could actually achieve this architecture through open source products and a Web Oriented Architectural (WOA) approach. You will still need to consider the integration aspects but open source products are far more likely to integrate (openness is key) then the big supplier products (no motivation to integrate).

Since I have moved into ICT and started to look at the Architectural view of the infrastructure a lot more, it is now becoming clear to me that if any local authority or public sector agency thinks there CMS requirements can not be met by one of the open source products such as WordPress, Joomla or Drupal doesn’t really understand how there Web Architecture can be utilised to deliver greater cost savings and value and increasing agility and flexibility.

This post is not going to be music to any vendor/supplier of web content management as i really don’t think the public sector can justify the expenditure on these products in the current climate – Unless there current technical architecture actually works against implementing a cost effective and open source product. If this is you – go and speak to your ICT colleagues about why you can’t at least consider these tools?

I’ve been doing a piece of work recently about reviewing the architecture around our Corporate Website and it is a very complex area – I have started to focus on what the requirements are for a CMS and what an effective Architecture would look like. This has led me to seriously think about the open source options around the CMS area, this doesn’t mean that we are proactively making decisions in the council at the moment as we need to get our wider web architecture right first – however my current view is that tools like WordPress and Joomla specifically could be key parts of our future web architecture.

The advantage of these products is that we are increasingly seeing people use these types of products outside of work or as a way to bypass the existing corporate platform because there is a lower skill level to entry and development. This approach coupled with the excellent developer communities that exist provide dynamic platforms for employees to publish content far quicker, more effectively and with less corporate ICT intervention. This for me is a critical aspect and is a major plus for these products. Like most local authority web development teams, they are often bombarded with requests for work from large scale application integration to minor template tweaks – with the ever growing pressure on resources we must start to devolve the responsibility into the business and to those people who are comfortable and capable to develop these tools. This would therefore allow the core team to focus on the larger scale products and deliver more value.

So this leads to me think, if these tools can provide value and meet all of our needs around CMS then why would or even how could any public sector body justify a large expenditure in this area in the current financial climate.

A Survey on WordPress in the Public Sector

Updated 6th May: Included link to submitted WordPress sites so far:

I am conducting some research into the use of WordPress as a CMS /Website Platform for Public Sector Organisations. I am keen to understand the scale of implementation and the variety for which it has been used.

In Devon for example our Schools Web Development team, have started using WordPress as a the default platform for any new school website. Also the corporate web team here have started using WordPress to provide a platform for some partnership / project sites

I might consider looking to extend this survey to include voluntary sector in the future, but at the moment i am keen to understand where in the public sector WordPress has been used.

I have put together a very simple Google Form to collect the URL’s of Public Sector sites powered by WordPress. I would have embedded it here directly but you can’t with a WordPress.com site.

Select here to submit some WordPress powered sites:

Thank you in advance for any contribution you make )

You can view the WordPress sites which have been submitted so far here

Business Capability Modelling and Total Place

One of the current areas of work i am looking at is thinking about Business Capability Modelling for the council. It is very early days and is seen as part of the development of our Enterprise Business Architecture effort.

However the first question I asked myself was can we in the public sector really do Business Capability Modelling and if we could what value would it actually offer the wider organisation and more importantly the residents of Devon.

So i started to think about what we mean by capability in this context and what difference would it make on the ground.  I then started to think about the wider context that this makes you think about. So in a local context, to meet outcomes we can’t deliver all our the citizen outcomes on our own and therefore we would need to consider the capabilities of our Partners and key stakeholders in the County. This lead me straight to “Total Place”.

Total Place is a new initiative that looks at how a ‘whole area’ approach to public services can lead to better services at less cost. It seeks to identify and avoid overlap and duplication between organisations – delivering a step change in both service improvement and efficiency at the local level
You can find our more about Total Place here

Gartner analyst Mark McDonald posted on the Gartner blog: Capability is more powerful than Process and gives a nice explanation of capability thinking which i feel provides an example of how we in the public sector could think about and apply Business Capability Modelling to support “Total Place”.

iTunes illustrates capability thinking.  First off, iTunes is build from a collection or resources: the Internet, digital rights management software, the store, the delivery vehicle (iPod) and a set of relationships with artists and record companies.  Sure there is a process in there, but the process of how you sell digital media is not the focus, the outcome is the focus that lead to assembling a range of resources – most of which Apple did not own or exclusively control.

Process advocates and devotees will say that I am mincing my words, but look at the relative value of the physical supply chain the music industry invested so much in and the business value flowing through the alternative capability.  There is an advantage in thinking broader and beyond processes.

The good news is that process thinking is an integral part of thinking about capabilities.  It is just that capability thinking opens the door to new combinations required to create outcomes, rather than to support process steps.

The interesting connection for me is that in the above scenario we could see ourselves as “Apple” as we require the capability of other stakeholders to drive forward a strategic set of outcomes that come from our Community Strategy. We have the Community Leadership Role, the question is are we really prepared to use it in this way to deliver the right outcomes for people.

What we need to understand better first is what capabilities we have and those of our Partners and stakeholders. We also need to truly understand what outcomes we are trying to deliver and the value they create.

As i said at the start, this is early days and my thinking still needs to develop.

Likeminds 2010 – was it really for me?

In my previous post i shared my first thoughts and observations from attending the Likeminds 2010 conference. It was a great day and my thoughts have now started to settle down. If you wish to read other peoples views on the event, check out the likeminds site.

The question i am asking myself now is  – was the event for me?

I work in local government and i know that we can learn from other sectors and other professionals, but i’m starting to think that for a whole day event, i didn’t really come away with anything new  – that is not to say that the quality of presentations weren’t great because they were. I was very impressed with Jon Akwue, Joanne Jacobs and Chris Brogan who was one of the first 10 people i started to follow on twitter – Joanne’s Gartner style hype cycle for Augmented Reality was very interesting.

However it seems to me that we (public sector folk) are actually very advanced in our collective thinking on the potential of social software and social media. I include social software because i believe that we will gain huge advantages implementing this technology internally first before we embark externally on the road to radical transformation. This point was supported by an excellent presentation by Olivier Blanchard on “Operationalising Social Communications” – Ok so the title is a bit too “Communications” friendly for most public sector folk, but to be honest i don’t care what we call it, as long as we actually ALL understand what we are really talking about.

If you are in the public sector and you have heard Dave Briggs talk, or spoken to the following people in and around the public sector : Dominic Campbell, Jeremy Gould, Paul Clarke, Tim Davies, Mary McKenna, Steve Dale, Catherine Howe and Julie Harris to name but a few. All of these people i have heard talk about practical examples of change using social web technologies over the past 2 years. From the IDeA’s Knowledge Hub, eSafeguarding Projects, Youth Participation and Engagement, Learning Organisations, Reboot Britain, Digital Mentors and Virtual Civic Spaces. All of these in my opinion are great examples of the power and potential of social media.

Surely this is about FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE not just in businesses, public sector organisations but in society as a whole.

I appreciate that for many people Likeminds was a place where they learned about new stuff and new approaches, but for me, i have already been on that journey, but it was good to listen to great speakers.

I love likeminds and i love being part of it, but perhaps this time it was just a little to broad for me and not deep enough.

I suspect that the other likeminds offerings would meet my needs but being based in local government, funds are limited if not non existent to enable participation in some of the others.

I think that the main reason for me to feel this way was that it feels like the event was aimed at a more commercial group of people, it was no coincidence that a large number of people attending were agencies and people offering services in this space.

My thoughts continue.

Barriers to Digital Engagement

Whilst on holiday in Melbourne, i managed to spend 45 minutes or so with Despina Babbage from DIIRD (Depart for Innovation, Industry and Regional Development). We had an interesting conversation about digital engagement, social media, web 2.0 and Melbourne as a place to live. Afterwards my thoughts turned to the same question that has been bugging me for some time now.

Can we really do Digital Engagement, or will it only ever be tokenistic?

I see a kind of resistance in the area of digital engagement that doesn’t seem to be there with general communications and i believe that is because the communication professionals who are now embracing such tools are not be followed in the same way as the professionals who deal with public opinion and policy creation.

The issues as i see them are:

Can we really provide a platform for electronic engagement which ensures that real people can contribute, participate and debate real issues in online spaces that are formally recognised as engagement spaces by either government or local councils?

And

How can we facilitate, nurture and foster such spaces whilst avoiding council ownership and maintaining the fluid and social nature of online spaces?

I am not arguing that people are not capable of engaging in such spaces, or even want to engage in such spaces with us, in fact there are a good number of examples in my own council (youth participation, libraries etc) where social networking sites have broadened the reach and and scope of participation. BUT when you talk about what engagement really is and what democracy is all about, we need to ensure we truly understand how representative democracy and participative democracy can unite to provide a REAL agenda of digital engagement.

Also how do people intend on evaluating such engagement activity and manage the process of receiving multi channel responses, within current skills sets. Has anyone or any council embarked on a training and development programme around this activity?

I fear that digital engagement is less about technology and more about skills, trust, faith, competencies and need i say it but REAL LEADERSHIP.

What i do see is that the way to reach people is not directly broadcasting from the top of an organisation but to use the existing connections that real people may have with services and develop new channels into those avenues to maximise and to leverage the opportunities of social media tools for digital engagement.

Digital Engagement for me at least is about connecting people with services through new technologies and enabling them to contribute to service improvements and decisions – this can happen now and must be encouraged at every opportunity and where practical.

This must be supported with an agenda of business change which addresses the culture and skills required to move it to a more mainstream environment.

For the wider and more strategic issues of engagement, i’ll wait for the director of digital engagement to provide some steer.