Strategic Content Management

@nickdunn, the idea of Google Docs API integration in Symphony sounds very interesting. Our team members are transferring a lot of our processes to Google Apps, so that would be a good fit for us.

@newnomad, thanks for reminding me of @czheng’s reference to A List Apart’s article on Strategic Content Management. Kristina Halvorsen’s talks at An Event Apart have articulated a challenge that we often run into in getting sites to launch: content is often an after thought. The traditional process usually means that shoehorning content into a design, which doesn’t fit actual content requirements and forces a redesign after the fact. Obtaining or creating content early, so as to be able to design around the content, opens the door to endless iterations.

I’ve wondered how well Symphony is able to perform as a means of facilitating the collection of content. Can a basic install of Symphony be used as a means of collecting data before there is a chance to model the data appropriately for developing designs, templates and utlimately a production-ready site? Or is it better to use other tools and use Symphony to integrate.

If it can be shown that Symphony can adapt to different processes and easily pull data into different forms, that would be a huge draw for people dealing with the pain of pulling content out of clients.