Some definitions

System
a group of related parts that move or work together
Content Management System
Software that enables an organization to seamlessly create, edit, review and publish electronic text.
Tool
Something used in performing an operation or necessary in the practice of a vocation or profession.
Content Management Tool
[No definition found]

They’re content management systems because they require people—Content Strategists, Writers, Editors, Community Managers—to move or work together with and around the software. No people, no system. No system, you’ve just got a tool.

So please stop coming to me telling me that a redesign of the content in your CMS will solve all your problems, if you’re not going to bring the people into the system to keep it running.

You might as well tell me that the hammer I set on the counter will rebuild the kitchen on its own.

Author: Anne Gibson

anne gibson is a Senior Staff Product Designer and General Troublemaker working on design systems from outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She's an editor and writer at The Interconnected. She is also published at A List Apart and The Pastry Box, and publishes short fiction when she's not persuading the terriers to stop wrecking things. (The terriers are winning.)