Useful technology — Tool selection

You’ll have many choices of publishing systems when deciding how to get your website and/or intranet up and running. A publishing system provides the process where content gets added, formatting happens and the page is displayed for the viewer.

First you’ll face two “make or buy” decisions.

There are online subscription services where you can set up an intranet in less than a day. Integrated applications are included, standardized templates are designed and databases are available. You fill in the information. The services are often not very customizable and can be quite expensive over the long term. You avoid the need to buy software and pay license fees and your IT department doesn’t have to maintain it.

If you want more control over the product you can buy commercial software off the shelf and customize it. Software can range from that typically used for small businesses and hobbyists to robust ‘industrial-grade’ content management systems.

Commercial content management programs are relatively expensive and usually require on-going license fees. You will most likely still customize the product. Commercial software vendors provide system upgrades as needed. Make sure you’re not buying a version of the software that will, in a short time, no longer be supported.

Finally, you can decide to develop your own product. Open source software for content management is available and good quality. It can be less expensive initially, has no annual fees, and you can choose to add only the functionality you need when you need it.

There are a multitude of software programs and content management systems. Choosing the right one for your organization should be based on considerations such as:

• the problems you are trying to solve
• your timeframe
• budget available
• IT staff expertise
• whether you want all the functionality to start with or want to phase in development

If you need a little help pulling this all together, contact us. This is our specialty. We look forward to hearing from you.