CM Profiles

• Scott Abel
• Rana Allam
• Rahel Bailie
• Bob Boiko
• Janus Boye
• Tony Byrne
• Yair Debinsky
• Paola Di Maio
• Bob Doyle
• Michael Doyle
• Dan Dube
• Seth Earley
• Kay Ethier
• Bret Freeman
• Nilou Glosson
• JoAnn Hackos
• Rob Hanna
• Erik Hartman
• Heather Hedden
• Jane McConnell
• Gerry McGovern
• Ruth Nickolich
• Samantha O’Hare
• Eileen O'Rourke
• Lee Powney
• James Robertson
• Kevin Shoesmith
• Shino Toshikazu
• Bill Trippe
• Laura Walker
• Lisa Welchman
• Mira Wooten
• Tomoko Yamato

Interview with Scott Abel, TheContentWrangler.com

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I became interested in content management after becoming frustrated with the error-prone and inefficient processes most businesses use to create content. In my previous role as a technical communication consultant, I worked with big, successful organizations, that took great pains to streamline and automate the manufacturing of the products they created. They were able to do amazing things like harness the power of robotics to automatically assemble consumer products, make prescription drugs, and manufacture automobiles. And yet, these same companies, were unable to do the most simple things -- like find the information they needed, when they needed it, describe the products they create using consistent language, or reuse content in one document in another. They wasted significant time and huge amounts of money reinventing the wheel, never quite realizing that the same processes and ideas they used on the plant floor could be employed to streamline and improve the way they create, manage and deliver content. I did. And I discovered the world of content management and shortly thereafer morphed myself into a content management strategy consultant.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I am a Founding Member of CM Pros. We formed the group because there was a need for an organization that acknowledges "content management is essential to organizations of every type."
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   I am all of those things. I create content for clients -- white papers, technical manuals, website content, and training materials -- but increasingly I play a more strategic role, providing direction and advice designed to help my clients streamline their content creation processes and better understand the content management technology landscape. I manage content on the CM Pros website and on my own blog, TheContentWrangler.com, where I also serve as publisher. The advent of web-based content management tools and blogging software have made it possible -- even preferable -- to create, edit, maintain and deliver content with nothing but a web-browser. And, these tools have made it possible for anyone with something to say to become a pubisher. It's an exciting time to be a content professional.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I am a journalist by education. I spent a great part of my adult life working in dance clubs as a disc jockey and bartender. My music career intersected with my writing career in the 90s when I discovered technical communication. Ironically, the same priniciples technical writers use to create single-sourced publications have long been employed by popular dance music producer/djs whose job it is to craft new music products (remixes) from a single source of individual musical tracks. My experience as a dj and remix producer -- mastering the skills of beatmatching and harmonic mixing -- made the jump to content reuse and multi-channel publishing quite natural.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   I am the president of TheContentWrangler.com, an online destination and monthly subscription-only newsletter that features interviews, case studies, useful resources, articles, jobs, white papers, and valuable tips and techniques of interest to content professionals. It's a virtual organization that allows me the freedom to work from home, the airport, or the nearest Starbucks.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   My biggest personal challenge is to break free of inefficient outdated ways of working. I'm working diligently to both find the right tool for the job at hand and to disconnect from the desktop. I, like many folks, were taught to make use of the tools we had on our desktops, even if they were not designed to perform the functions we used them for. For example, email is a terribly inefficient collaboration tool. It also is inappropriate for managing a project milestones and "to do" lists or for organizing meetings. And yet many of us continue to try to make email work for these tasks (and others) and continue to waste yet more time. Switching from email to a web-based task and time management tool like BaseCamp has allowed me to reclaim several hours each day that I used to waste chasing down email. Similarly, I have adopted web-based tools to help me manage client billing, schedule meetings, publish my corporate newsletter, and manage and maintain my website.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   CM Pros can help me by continuing to push for the development and adoption of good practices and common sense approaches to managing content. I am particularly interested in seeing CM Pros offer educational programs designed to help others understand concept of "content as a business asset, worthy of being managed". This is still not widely understood.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   CM Pros can help me become a better content professional by offering in-person and virtual educational oportunities that will teach me new skills and help me become a more efficient manager of both my clients and my own content.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   Yes, I am working on the Structured Blogging initiative and am very interested in the development of structured information standards like the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) and the possibilities that XML syndication may afford us in the Web 2.0 world we are building today. I am a frequent speaker at technology industry conferences and an active member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC).
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    I am an accomplished dance club dj and music remixer. My favorite activity is mixing music seemlessly for hours at a time -- aka as continuous mixing -- and have done so for audiences as large as 5,000 with the help of two trusty Technics turntables and a mixing board. Making a perfect mix -- and watching the crowd react -- is one of the best feelings in the world.

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Interview with Rana Allam, Content Manager, LinkDotNet

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   Originally I was a journalist, then I was head-hunted to work as a Senior Editor in LinkDotNet, one the largest ISP companies in the Middle East that has a business line of online products (11 websites of various natures). In six months' time, I was promoted to be the Content Manager for LinkDotNet's websites.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I joined CM Pros in January 2005. The reason I joined is that this industry (content management) is very new in Egypt and knowledge resources are minimal. I needed guidance and information, so I turned to the professionals.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   I am the content manager. As mentioned before, I manage 11 sites with their content creators and publishers.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I am a university graduate. I studied English Literature and worked as a journalist for most of my life. I have also worked as a proofreader for some time, and as a Human Resources manager.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   It is primarily an Internet solutions and service provider company, one of the largest in the region, with various other business lines (www.link.net). For example, LinkDotNet has a development arm (Linkdev), as well as online products (Link Online) owning and operating portals such as MSN Arabia and many others.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   The biggest challenge is handling technical aspects of the job, having to understand and learn the technical world behind content and using it for progress and development.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   CM Pros can offer solutions, resources and guidelines for the job. The community can also help in marketing content managers.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I am willing to help with anything related to CM Pros website (content, design or usability).
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   I am currently head of the Portals Development Committee (in the same company). This committee's role is to come up with research, best practices and case studies, as well as standards and development recommendations to make the best out of our sites. It is worth mentioning that we run different types of websites, from horizontal portals (MSN Arabia, Masrawy) to vertical B2B sites like BSolutions, B2C sites like Arab Finance, e-commerce sites like Otlob), entertainment sites like Yallabina and Mazika. This diversity called for the formation of a committee consisting of representatives from every website to align strategies and keep focus on our business targets using collective knowledge.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    Professionally, all my work was Interesting to me. I started off as a reporter, a local news reporter running around the country trying to get news from the ground. I was a young girl back then, that was a blast of challenges. Since then, every job in every place presented even bigger challenges, feeding my thirst for more.
    Personally, I am known to be the risk taker who went diving many times although my swimming skills can get me killed in two minutes. The first time I went camping, I did it alone. My life's dream travel destinations are Kenya, Cuba and India. I have achieved going to Kenya so far and it was everything I thought it would be. For relaxation, I make candles!

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Interview with Rahel Bailie, President, Intentional Design

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   The quest for ways of producing and publishing content more efficiently--more mind work, less rote work--drove my interest to look for technologies to support this effort. In 1989, I began working for a multinational where we produced documentation in nine languages, and the content production method was costing the corporation a huge amount of money that could have been redirected to value-adds rather than the vast amount of repetitive and manual content manipulation. After a couple of years, I put forward a proposal to move to modular documentation, but thought there must be a better way to single-source content. So when I saw my first demonstration of a content management, I had a Blink moment--my eyes were opened and I was hooked on the concept.
   By 1999, I was working In another multinational where the technical documentation group was the only group tracking most of their work manually, with a high level of redundant manipulation and rote tasks. The Director of the local client department introduced UML with its related documentation process, and I tried to automate as much as I could for the documentation department, which continued to use manual processes for much of the manipulation of its content and records. Eventually, the director and I designed the interface to a system that would automate and publish information, and his team built it. Once I left wage-slavery for the life of an itinerant consultant, it was a logical move to combine the type of work I love with being a content management evangelist.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   Networking is what makes the world go round, and given that Vancouver, BC has no local educational programs where I can further my knowledge of content management, I rely on informal opportunities: my peers, webinars, and the like. I heard about CM Pros a few months after the association was formed, and immediately signed up.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   On some contracts, I may create content, but mostly I restructure existing documentation to chunk the content so it is better suited for re-use in a content management system. More often, I analyze content to be able to categorize it or break it down into its conceptual pieces. It's an important step to prepare content for delivery, particular on Web content management projects, where you want the system to present the appropriate type of content at the right time.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   Because I entered the workforce at quite a young age, I already have over 30 years of work experience, almost all in business-to-business environments. I've seen the inner workings of the art world, the justice system, customs brokerages, freight forwarding services, clothing manufacturing, and retail before deciding that the two things I loved to work with were words and technology. I went back to school, graduated with Distinction from an English program in Creative Writing, and haven't looked back. I love to learn, so I must admit I'm a professional development addict. I'm always taking courses and attending presentations, and finding ways to integrate what I've learned from other disciplines into the work that I do.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   I started Intentional Design in 2002, and have grown the business to what it is today: a network of skilled consultants and contractors who share a vision of delivering high-quality services to clients. The company focuses on three related competency areas--content management, content development, and user experience (usability/information architecture). One of my contractors taught me not to try to "outgeek the geeks" so we don’t typically get involved in the technical side other than to work with the developers to ensure that the implementation stays faithful to the identified requirements.
   Recently, I've put together a joint venture consultancy called Strategy A that brings together the five "legs" needed to provide a rounded set of services, particularly on larger projects: content management, project management, human performance management, content development, and communications.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   The biggest challenge I've faced is convincing companies to follow a sound methodology when implementing a content management system. Too often, there has been a cursory tallying of requirements by IT followed by the purchase of the wrong kind of content management system. I've spoken to practitioners who have been trying to publish heavy-duty technical documentation with Web content management systems or even document management systems, and after tearing out their hair trying to make it work for them, they've given up. By the time they talk to me, the IT departments have shifted the blame to the practitioners for not using the system, and the practitioners think that content management is nothing more than a gimmick. Getting people receptive enough to understand the benefits that content management can bring is pretty tough. They just want to get on with their work and not try any more experiments.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   First, CM Pros has introduced me to a wonderful range of practitioners, vendors, and consultants, both locally and internationally, that I feel I can call on with questions I may have. Second, when I am able to contribute to the collective knowledge, it makes me realize how much I've learned over the past several years about the topic (and how much more there is to learn!). Third, I'm a big believer in the power of community, and this is a professional community that creates a common vision, common vocabulary, and helps me find my place in the professional world.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   Giving back to the community is part of who I am, so I participate on the listservs whenever I have something to contribute, and I do a lot of cross-pollination of ideas between local associations. I am one of the founders of the first CM Pros chapters, Canada West, where we're trying to strengthen the local CM community. I've also taken on the role of Marketing Director at the international level for the 2006-2007 term, and hope I can build on the excellent work done by Scott Abel, who filled the role last year.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   Combining the knowledge of varied disciplines is a way of rounding out the knowledge I apply to my projects. Some of the associations I connect with:
   • Society for Technical Communication -- I've belonged to the world's largest association for technical communicators for about 15 years now, and was just made an Associate Fellow. They have a Single Sourcing special interest group that sometimes discusses content management.
   • Information Architecture Institute -- This association has valuable resources for anyone involved in website architecture.
   • Usability Professionals' Association -- Usability is so much a part of everything we do (or should be) that this association's work is self-explanatory.
   • VanUE -- User experience professionals in the Vancouver, BC area meet to share their knowledge and experiences.
   • Wired Woman -- This Canadian association encourages women to learn about technology and provides networking, education, and mentorship opportunities for women in technology.
   • International Institute of Business Analysis -- This association develops and maintains standards for the practice of business analysis, a critical piece of content management consulting.
   • High-Tech Communicators' Exchange -- This is a dynamic group that often presents great case studies.
   • Knowledge Management Community of Practice -- The presentations I've attended have expanded my understanding of knowledge transfer.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    I'm a long-time Scrabble fiend, and am not satisfied unless my score is above 300 points. I also play a mean djembe, having studied with a Nigerian drum master for several years.

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Interview with Bob Boiko, Metatorial

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I was working at (not for) Microsoft in the late 80's when Windows 3.0 came out. I helped create one of the first online user's guides in WinHelp 3.0. It hit me like a ton of bricks that information would never be the same. I followed my nose through Lan information systems, into CD-ROMS and onto the Web. My nose is getting itchy, so I'm thinking the Web is not the last act of this show.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   CM Pro's was actually hatched on a phone call for my now defunct CMS Evaluation Lab (the only thing left of that effort is a Yahoo! Group that I can’t manage to delete). A bunch of us old folks were lamenting that our so called discipline lacked any sort of coherence. When Bob Doyle stepped in with the energy to put our idle words into action, CM Pros began.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   Well, I've done just about all of those things. What I like to do most at the moment is to climb up a level and help people figure out why they might need to manage content in the first place.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I have undergraduate degrees in Physics and Oceanography and a Masters in Human Communication (I considered that masters, the yin to my science yang). I've run three companies. The first and third small and successful; the second was big and a flop. I taught and made curriculum at the University of Washington iSchool for 4 years. I developed a three course CM set there as well as taught management and information systems. Right now, I am running my third business (Metatorial Services, Inc.) and getting myself more educated on language and the brain.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   All sorts really, I cut my teeth at Microsoft were I did or presided over literally hundreds of information projects. My big company went on to work for all sorts of high tech and Fortune types. I've managed to maneuver my little company more towards non-profit and NGO orgs, so now they add a great balance to the corporate and government clients.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   Without a doubt my biggest challenge is to get people to do what they know they should do: manage less information, manage only important information, and plan before you buy.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   By making my profession a profession. I do information. And as you all well know that makes me a strange bird on the organizational flock. CM Pros can make is so that all of us can do information without a daily dose of blank stares.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I could definitely do more than I have to make that happen. However, that will always be true I suppose. I love to tell people who need to know that there is a community out there for them. For the right kind of person it's exactly what they have been missing.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   I've sat on boards and that sort of stuff, but when you subtract out CM related activities (consulting, speaking, running the business, and writing), academic activities (teaching and learning) and family activities (keeping up with my wife and two teenage boys), there is just about enough time to squeeze in a random ski day or tennis hour in my life.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    Well, let's see. Did you know that I spent 3 months in the Bearing Sea working on a Russian Fishing boat in the late 80's? In fact that is where I met my wife (not a Russian), and why I now live in Seattle. I'll tell you all about it at a face-to-face some day.
    Learn more about Bob Boiko.

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Interview with Janus Boye, CM consultant in Denmark and founder of Content Management Forum

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   My first role as CM Pro was as sales engineer for Open Market (now FatWire) from 1999-2002. After years on the vendor (sell) side of the table, I then formed a consulting company in 2003, where I've been busy ever since, now focusing exclusively on the other side of the table (the buy-side).
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   In the past I have learned so much from others' experiences, and this is something I really believe in, so signing up was a very natural thing for me to do. I signed up only a few days after CM Pros was formally launched.
3. What is your current title and role?
   I am now a consultant. I'm very happy in my current role, because it enables me to be in touch with the many different disciplines involved in CM.
4. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   Too many projects are failing, and this is really my biggest challenge as a consultant. To help my customers' projects to be among the few that do not fail.
5. What other professional activities are you involved in?
   In 2004 I founded a Danish organization called Content Management Forum, which brings together users (not vendors and consultants).
6. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   Sharing professional experiences and lessons learned.
7. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I think it would make sense to align (the Danish) CM Forum and CM Pros. I have already set a F2F meeting at the CM Forum annual event in November. I have also mentioned CM Pros in several of my articles (both in English and Danish).

   I hope to meet many other CM Pros in Denmark in November! Tony Byrne, Erik Hartman, Martin White, and James Robertson have already signed up. Hopefully many more will join!

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Interview with Tony Byrne, Founder, CMS Watch

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   In a previous career I was a editor and publisher, so when I gravitated to application development, content management caught my interest. As a developer at a systems integrator in the 1990s I had the misfortune to implement early versions of several commercial and open-source web content management packages.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I was part of a small team of people who helped persuade several dozen other people to help launch the organization. We just thought it was needed.
3. What is your current title and role?
   I am a technology analyst. I try to understand how the software is actually employed in real-life settings, and which tools work best for which scenarios.
4. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   Personally, it's organizing the content on CMSWatch.com in a way that is more easily consumable. We're working on that... Professionally, I just hope to be able to help organizations sort out the wide variety of technology options they have.
5. What other professional activities are you involved in?
   I'm active in AIIM, which is a very important trade association for our industry. I try to participate in various conferences and publications.
6. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   It has been great to meet practitioners, either personally or even "virtually," or best of all, both! (BTW, I'd really welcome hearing from project mgrs and developers about their experience with specific tools.) In any case, my wish has always been that practitioners take over the CM Pros agenda. I think that is slowly happening.
7. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I try to advocate for CM Pros in various communities where it may not be well known (e.g., in the U.S. public sector, in the portal and search worlds, etc.), and promote CM Pros events. I'd like to participate in best-practice development.

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Interview with Yair Debinsky, Knowledge Management Director, Byon-IT Solutions

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   While working in the management of a government organization nine years ago, I was given a task of checking "this business of preserving knowledge and publishing it…" I built a steering committee and we started to study the issue, when we realized that there is a new discipline called Knowledge Management (KM) which deals with the same problems that generated our need. We have launched a very intensive KM initiative, in which the main activity was the design, development and implementation of a unique network-centric light Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system, which has been in production since the end of 2000, and is constantly growing. In September I was appointed as the Chief Knowledge Officer of Rafael, a large company in the defense industry in Israel, where I launched one of the largest and most successful KM initiatives in Israel, including a number of CM solutions, some home grown (including a patent-pending network centric light ECM), and some based on a commercial CMS ("The knowledge server" of Scepia, an Israeli software company). The concept behind all the systems is the concept of Network-Centric Content Management. Recently I established a KM consultancy within Byon-IT Solutions, and we started to work for various customers. Some of the projects include designing and implementing CM solutions.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I joined CM Pros after last year's KMWorld, where I met the CM Pros organizers. I wanted to find a group of people to share my thoughts with, to be of help to peers that face the same problems I faced in the past, and to get to know people that deal with the same issues I am dealing with.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   I am a Knowledge Management consultant.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I have M.S. in Computer Sciences and B.S. in Mathematics, but I am mainly a very experienced manager and Chief Knowledge Officer.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   I work for a small consultancy, Byon-IT Solutions, as a partner and the KM director. We carry out different types of KM projects, for different types of customers.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   The biggest challenge is internal politics, and possible confrontation with the IT department, especially when we succeed to create a CM solution which becomes part of a core process. Once you do that (and I did) you tread on a foreign territory - the IT land -- and It Is considered as a justified cause for World War 3.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   CM pros Is the first place I turn to if I have a professional question which I have no answer to.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I am very willing to give my advice to anyone who might need it, and at times I am very active in the discussion groups. In the future I might volunteer to take a role.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   I am active in all the scope of KM, including Community of Practices, lesson learning processes, know-how management, etc…
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    I am a masters' swimmer, I volunteered in various orgnizations, but first and foremost I am a husband (to Sarah) and a father (to Omer, Lital, and Matan) - the four most wonderful people in the world.

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Interview with Paola Di Maio, Content-Wire Research

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I was working in England as a freelancer for the publishing industry during the late nineties. I had just finished a Masters degree in information systems, and had learned all about knowledge engineering and management, object orientation, expert systems and rule based systems.
   I was asked by a company to manage an online publishing project, but soon realized that the way they expected editors to publish their content on the site was primitive, time consuming and inefficient. There was a lot of html talk at the time, and that was about it.
   I dreamed of a system that would let me publish online content straight from the browser. I fantasized about how such a tool could take thoughts straight from the mind into a written form, to actually lead all real life processes from there. I found out that such systems existed, but that they were being designed. I knew that I wanted one built exactly to my specification, and I have been working at designing an 'ideal' CMS since. Ideal means that it does everything that is required at the budget available. I am still working at it.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   In 2001 I started content-wire.com the first website dedicated to content management news. I had exchanged a lot of emails with the only newsgroup at the time, the Filsa list. There I exchanged with Frank Gilbane, Bob Boiko, and Bob Doyle, who gave me a call once, to chat a little and invited me to join him and a few others to form CM Pros. I am a founding member.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   Definitely some combination. I think I am a 'user' and as a user I carry out different functions, I have to face different user tasks every day, depending on what is the job at hand.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   Worked in Milan in the travel industry (Tourism Association) and then music publishing and intellectual property administration at Warner Music in my twenties. There I learned how to write a contract and file a lawsuit, which came in very handy later in life, although I never completed my university studies. I then worked as a freelance journalist both in Milan and London. After moving to England, and while doing part time jobs in the publishing industry, I completed a BA Hons in London, I felt that although I was in my late twenties I could only benefit from an international degree that required me to write regular papers in 3 different european languages (actually try to complete the degree this time). It was a useful exercise, although some of the lecturers were really boring. During those years I spent a semster working at attending the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), and then another semester in Germany. I loved both countries in equal measure, for different reasons. I started working as a 'science and technology' freelance correspondent for Sole 24 Ore, a main newspaper with 'European' ambitions. That's when I realized I needed a better grasp of technology and finally managed to find a conversion degree from business to Information Technology. I struggled a lot that year. But I think I found my true vocation. Knowledge systems. Yes. Everybody needs one. After that I realized that I wanted to work for global audiences, and started publishing only for english speaking clients.
   I have worked as an analyst, consultant, and lecturer since. I travel a lot and work on several research projects in my spare time.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   I am self employed, and work for different organizations. The ideal organization for me is open, adaptive, intelligent, distributed, flexible, creative, innovative, does good, operates all processes virtually but it has worldwide quarters with comfortable hot desks where I can work from just by booking myself in - I am still looking for an organization like that.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   Finding a CMS that suits my requirement at the budget that I have available, and that can evolve as my requirements evolve.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   By helping me connect with reliable and outstanding very honest professionals who can help me implement and manage my projects. At the moment I am looking for a Drupal wizard who can work very fast.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   By sharing creativity, knowledge and experience.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   A few. Mainly in the non-profit online collaboration space, at various levels. See Weblogs, Online Information and Collaboration Thailand for example of my work.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    Wow. In the content management category, I don't think people know that I design 'first' content management features that are very advanced and highly innovative. By integrating process, publishing and systems design expertise, I am a pioner and a leader in this type of applications and I influence a lot of what is done and said in this space.

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Interview with Bob Doyle, skyBuilders.com

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I have been doing content management since I was a writer and editor for my college newspaper in the 1950's, the Brown Daily Herald. In 1984 I created the first desktop publishing program, MacPublisher, the year before PageMaker, so I am very interested in computer-assisted content management and web publishing.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I did not exactly join CM Pros - I created it. It came out of an Open Source Content Management (OSCOM) conference I helped organize at Harvard in 2003. Frank Gilbane attended and I asked Frank about a wider community to embrace both proprietary and open source content management systems. Frank suggested I talk to other professionals and I hosted a lunch at the IA Summit in Austin, TX, in February 2004. Bob Boiko, Tony Byrne, Ann Rockley, Peter Morville, Lou Rosenfeld, and several others attended. Boiko asked if I would take the lead in forming a new association and I did, with some conditions like hiring staff to handle many of the tasks I did initially (and still do much of the time).
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   Certainly all of those plus a developer of community information management software, which includes a CMS along with member management, ecommerce, blogging, events management, online presentation tools for webinars, mailing list management, and many other tools CM Pros might use someday.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I got my Ph.D Astrophysics from Harvard, 1968 and ran the Collaborative Observing Program for NASA SkyLab working with 250 observatories around the world to synchronize their observations with the astronauts.
   I have started companies, earned a few patents, and licensed technology to large companies. I founded Super8Sound In 1973, to bring professional cinematography techniques to the comsumer film format, invented several electronic games, including Merlin from Parker Brothers in 1978, developed the first desktop publishing program, MacPublisher, in 1984, and was for several years the Digital Video Editor of NewMedia magazine in the 1990's. I now am a contributing editor of EContent Magazine and Editor-in-chief of CMS Review.
   
   I also manage several CMS-related websites:
   • CMS-Forum.org
   • CMSWiki.com
   • CMS-News.org
   • CMSCalendar.com
   • TaxoTips
   • Memography
   • Memetic Web
   • Open Internet Lexicon
   
   I created and moderate most of the major mailing lists for the CMS Community - CMS, CMS-PR, contentmanagers, and cmpros (a members-only list).
   
   I am a member of:
   • Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM-SIGCHI)
   • Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH) and Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval (SIGIR)
   • Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM)
   • American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T)
   • Information Architecture Institute (IAI)
   • Interaction Design Association (IxDA)
   • Knowledge Management Professionals Association (KM Pro)
   • Society for Technical Communication (STC)
   • Usability Professionals Association (UPA)
   
   I am editor of a project to define a markup language for CMS called CMSML, working jointly with OSCOM and the University of Washington iSchool CMS Evaluation Lab, which is now a CM Pros initiative. I have joined the C19 Terminology committee of AIIM.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   skyBuilders.com is me and my son Derek, our cheif programmer, Jesse Burjhardt, a network/IT technician, and occasional consulting from my older son Rob, who helped me write MacPublisher. We run a reasonably large ISP in my house/lab (150 websites, mostly for non-profits around Boston).
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   The biggest problem is that web content managers do not want to learn anything new. They want entering content to be as easy as writing in Microsoft Word. Yet they want the result to be a sophisticated web page. So they need XHTML and CSS. Some think they need only XML.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   We are approaching 1000 members. I hope we will develop a critical mass large enough to include many volunteers who will take over the ownership of content on the CM Pros website. I have trained many members to be content owners, but the turnover has been high. Volunteers burn out. Some day I hope there will be enough to support one another so I am not the principal tech support. That would be a great benefit to me. And the long-term viability of CM Pros will be a great thing for my career.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   Anything that is needed - and wanted by the membership. I love to make things happen technically that have not been possible (or not very easy) before.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   Yes, I am a member of CPsquare, a community of practice (CoP) for communities of practices. CM Pros is a study for me of what goes right and wrong with communities of practice. I am on the Operations Committeee of Interaction Design Association and I am also providing tools and content for the Information Architecture Institute. All three of these CoPs have fascinating management problems - both content management and people management, the latter being the tougher nut to crack.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    . I was invited to Tokyo recently to speak on the content management industry. Peter Morville was invited to talk about information architecture. It gave me the chance to work on learning Japanese, my eleventh language. I am hoping the CM Pros site will do a good job of globalization/localization, with me initially entering all the needed language strings.
    I had the privilege of assisting with the very first podcast - an interview by National Public Radio host Christopher Lydon of Dave Winer, who developed RSS and added the media envelope to RSS to carry audio and video. I recount the story on EContent. You can learn more about podcasting -- how it works, what you need, tips and techniques -- at BlogAudio.corg.

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Interview with Michael Doyle, Founder, PUBSNET

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I've been in the technical communications business since the early 1980s as a technical writer, teacher (both university and corporate), consultant, manager, and business owner. I've created and managed the development and delivery of different types of technical content: technical publications, course materials (both stand-up and e-Learning), marketing collateral, and Web content.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I joined in the Fall of 2005 to network with others who create and manage content. It sounded like a great networking opportunity and source of current information and technology trends.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   All of the above. I've created content (wrote and published books through Wiley publishing), product manuals, and courses. I've also managed content developers and their projects deliverables.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I have over 20 years experience in technical communications as a manager, writer, and teacher: 10 years at Fortune 100 computer company, and 13 years at PUBSNET, a technical communications company I founded in 1993. For over 15 years I was the senior instructor in the Technical Communications Certificate Program at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell.
   Since 1995 I’ve focused much of my energy on training and writing about Web authoring tools and e-Learning. I’ve taught courses and presented many sessions at national conferences. I am a Macromedia certified Dreamweaver MX developer and instructor. Over the past couple of years, I published two books through Wiley Publishing on Macromedia Dreamweaver: Dreamweaver MX e-Learning Toolkit and Maximum Dreamweaver. I have an M.S. in Applied Management.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   I work for PUBSNET, a company I've founded in 1993, that provides training, staffing, and project deliverable solutions mainly to high-tech organizations.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   Keeping current with the trends and technologies so I know how to advise PUBSNET customers.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   Networking, networking, networking. As with any complex area, there are always other professionals that can give you tips, advice, and insight, and I know there are many others in the field that have traveled paths I want to travel.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I attended the Fall 2005 CM Pros Summit and participated in a working group. I'd be happy to help wherever I can.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   Yes, in particular the Society for Technical Communication and the American Society for Training and Development.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    Professionally, I think the most interesting aspect of my career is that I started and built a company from scratch. Hobby-wise, I'm very interested in communications and printing history.

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Interview with Dan Dube, Managing Director, US Operations, DocZone.com

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   The year was 1986, and I was a freshly hired technical writer at Digital Equipment Corp. At the time, two exciting new trends were emerging...the advent of PostScript as a printer definition language, and a new structured markup standard called SGML. I was one of the more technical members of the staff, so I was tasked with researching these standards and the tools that support them. Eventually, this led to tools for managing content during the editorial and production cycle, and I became enamored with Xyvision's then-groundbreaking SGML content management system and went to work for them. I've been in it as an integrator and/or vendor ever since.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I'm primarily here to learn from other professionals with different experiences with content management, as well as to provide them with information about DocZone.com, a new company that I co-own.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   I currently manage the US operations for DocZone.com, which is a relatively new entrant into the XML content management space. In this capacity, I wear many hats, but I have been concentrating most of my efforts on marketing and sales so far.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I graduated from Bentley College (Waltham, MA) in 1986 with a dual degree in Computer Information Systems and Business Management. Since then I have worked for Digital Equipment Corp (7 years), Xyvision (5 years), Innodata Isogen (two separate times, for a total of 6 years), and I co-owned an XML systems integration company called Lighthouse Solutions for 3 years. Since the beginning of this year, I am one of the principals of DocZone.com.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   DocZone.com is an innovative new entrant in the XML content management arena. We offer a hosted solution that provides XML/DITA authoring, content management, workflow, server-based translation memory, and single-source publishing to multiple output formats...all available through a browser with no capital investment...just a monthly concurrent user license fee. We are staffed with seasoned veterans...everyone in the company has a minimum of 10 years of experience working with XML and SGML-based applications across multiple industries. It's a very exciting place to be.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   I would prefer to rephrase the question to: what do we see as the biggest content management challenges facing the industry. In our experience, there have been many companies that have seen the potential benefits to be gained by moving to an XML-based environment for content reuse, ability to single-source publish to multiple outputs, and to reduce translation costs. However, there have been two major barriers that have prevented the majority of these companies from investing in these solutions:
   1. The amount of money required to fully deploy a production environment. By the time you add up license costs for authoring tools, CMS applications, publishing tools, maintenance on all three products, analysis and integration services (often including significant customization), and training, the investment is often in the USD$1-2MM range for a typical 10-20 user technical writing department. This usually requires approval from the very highest levels of the organization and can take a year or more to obtain.
   2. The amount of time to implement a production-ready environment. Even when the approval process is successful, it often takes 12-18 months to fully implement a live production environment with trained users working with “real” content. This is due to long periods of analysis (and the usually delayed review/approval cycle), installation and staging at the customer site, customization, testing, and data conversion.
   We started DocZone.com with a goal to eliminate these two issues: by making XML content management affordable through a hosted platform, and by creating an implementation methodology designed to get our clients into production in 30 days.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   We welcome the opportunity to network with CM Pros members, both to get their feedback and constructive criticism on our product offering, as well as to educate them about the differences that we bring to the market.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   In addition to financial contribution, we intend to have our senior staff members contribute information and lessons learned based on their extensive experience in implementing XML-based environments. We have a specialized set of knowledge around multilingual content management and automated localization tools which may be of particular interest to the CM Pros community.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   I'm afraid that most of my time these days revolves around spreading the word about DocZone.com and raising my two children as a single dad. (and I wouldn't have it any other way.)
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    In the 80s and early 90s, I used to supplement my income by playing guitar and singing with a touring cover band. Including the spiky mullet haircut!

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Interview with Seth Earley, Earley & Associates, Inc.

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I have over 20 years experience in the technology. Around 1993 or 1994 I heard about this miraculous new technology called Lotus Notes. I started doing some work in that area - at first training business users, then teaching application development (which was pretty simple in the early days… ) Whenever we built Notes applications, we had to think about metadata, taxonomies and workflow so I have been working with these concepts since that time.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I am a big believer in Communities of Practice so I thought this would be a good organization. Some of my colleagues were involved so I thought it made sense to be a part of it.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   I help organizations develop content strategies but have created and organized content for my own company and for clients.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   My undergraduate is in Chemistry of all things. I went to graduate school for business administration.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   My company, Earley & Associates, Inc., has 6 people plus various contract resources. We work with organizations in the areas of content management strategy, knowledge management strategy and taxonomy development. We also act as senior advisors on content projects, acting as a sounding board for management and helping to gain alignment between various constituencies in large organizations.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   Governance processes in global organizations. We are working with a number of global organizations that are struggling with organizational design - roles and responsibilities around authority, accountability, ownership, funding, metrics, training, and new capability development and rollout. In large decentralized multi-unit operations, having the right balance of "federal control" versus "states rights" is a tough balance. Creating the correct linkages between the business owner and those responsible for web properties is sometimes very difficult. It is the challenge of "why should I care"? Often times this is more difficult than it should be.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   Just being able to connect with the larger community of expertise and find resources when needed is the major benefit of CM Pros for our organization.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I would be willing to speak at and/or moderate educational conference calls. These can be done fairly inexpensively.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   No, I have no life…
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    I perform stand up comedy. Or at least I have in the past - not much time to hang out and waste my time in bars these days trying to get stage time… which is why many of you who attend my workshops have to endure the same jokes. I also can't use some of my better material in a professional setting. Additionally, I have a black belt in Shotokan karate - so no heckling!

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Interview with Kay Ethier, Bright Path Solutions

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I have taken various twists and turns in my career. I started down the technical communication path, providing FrameMaker and FrameMaker+SGML solutions to organizations attempting to produce multiple outputs for multiple audiences. This early single source content management approach evolved to providing XML solutions and consulting services to clients looking for structured authoring as a way to get a handle on the content they produce. Of course, producing structured content has its own challenges, and soon my clients began requesting assistance with tool selection, content strategy, DTD development. I found myself well positioned to become a content management consultant with a focus on publishing and content delivery solutions.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I joined CM Pros because there are so few professional organizations that really provide enough focus on issues authors are really facing. Single sourcing, re-use, re-purposing, and content management can't be a "SIG" or a side interest and really pull in the knowledge and distribute it properly. CM Pros was the only organization dedicated to focusing on issues writers and CM professionals face daily.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   I am a consultant with a "solution provider", as well as a content creator and publisher. Part of my role is to work with clients to assess their situations and provide recommendations, allowing them to set a course for the future. Internally, I write and manipulate our own content and publish documents; some using internal structures, some using DITA, and others without structure.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I have a BS from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh PA, 1996. Of course, like so many CM Pros members, I am continuing my education via technology classes and conferences and educating myself via books, webinars, internet, interviews, and life in general.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   Bright Path Solutions is a publishing solutions provider. We provide training and consulting services, primarily. Our solutions are weighted to provide what each organization needs…whether they just need a little help now and then and want to develop internal knowledge resources, or if they want us to act as their publishing team until they are able to obtain sufficient internal talent. We prefer to teach our clients to improve the way the create, manage, and deliver technical content, so they aren't dependent on us."
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   Getting organizations to spend money for process improvements. Period. They know they need them; they don't want to fund them. Showing someone they can do better is easy. Getting them to recognize the return on investment (ROI) is hard; especially when the ROI is departmental, rather than across the entire enterprise.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   CM pros can help its members by developing some resources that will help us make the case for content management. CM Pros can also help members understand the true costs associated with the adoption of content management tools, perhaps by opening up some dialogue with software vendors.
   Providing case studies from member organizations would be a big plus, as would the development of guidelines for implementing CM solutions. Any data on return on inverstment that member companies will share would be good to have on the CM Pros public-facing website so "bean counters" and unit managers can access it. If they read it on the web…they may then feel they are not putting their butts on the line -- or their company's financial stability -- to make what be perceived as a risky move to CM.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I am happy to help onsite at events and to help organize events and get the word out about them. I'd also like to present at a CM Pros conference. And, of course, I plan to add the CM Pros logo to our website announcing to the world that we are members of CM Pros and let others know it is an organization worth joining.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   I have been a long-time member of STC, but have little faith in their ability to continue serving the needs of those of us moving to content management.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    I have three kids, ranging in age from 21 to 5. My two youngest childeren and I study Tang Soo Do, a Korean martial art, as well as the Korean language (written and spoken). In 2005, I published my first language book, Learning Korean: Martial Arts Terminology, the first product from my new company, Above and Beyond Language Learning, Inc.. With the help of with two subject matter experts from the martial arts community, we used Adobe FrameMaker to single source the entire project, augmented with SVG (scaleable vector graphics) technology.

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Interview with Brett Freeman, Vasont Systems

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I came into Content Management via several related but unrelated jobs. While In the US Navy, I wrote regulations and training courses for several commands and held positions as Training Standardizations Supervisor as well as Facility Watch Supervisor. After I left the Navy I helped write ISO 9000 manuals for another organization and ultimately found my way to Vasont.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I joined the organization to network with my peers. I think many of us have great ideas separately, and when we begin to put our heads together, we can really make a difference in the way the world does business.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   I work for Vasont Systems, a content management vendor. I have worn many hats during my time here including sales, pre-sales, project lead, training, marketing, shoe-shine boy etc… I also run a blog called CMS Rockstar which focuses on all aspects of the industry.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I spent 13 years in the US Navy as an Air Traffic Controller. While in the Navy, I worked with various technologies. After leaving the Navy, I joined an information services company where again, I wore a lot of hats. I eventually landed in a sales role in the magazine publishing services division. I headed the New York office for a couple of years and then moved to a direct marketing firm. From there I began discussions with Vasont and here I am. I have been at Vasont since April 2000.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   Vasont Systems is a provider of content management software and data services backed by more than 55 years of experience in the information management and publishing industry.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   From my point of view, the biggest challenge is helping people understand what content management is and how they can benefit. I think the lines of our industry are not only blurred with definition, but even more Importantly, there Is a gap between the problems that can be solved with software applications and the problems that can be solved with XML. My focus then, is education. Speaking for the industry as a whole, if we would spend more time creating educated buyers, we wouldn't see so many organizations struggling with the wrong solutions.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   CM Pros has already provided me with many new colleagues and friends. The collective knowledge of the CM Pros members is invaluable to me as one who lives and works in the CMS industry.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I have just started working with Rahel Bailie on the marketing efforts for the organization and I hope that my ideas and effort will continue to promote the reputation of CM Pros.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   Umm… Do frequent flyer programs count as "Professional activities"? Actually, I keep pretty busy between Vasont, CMSRockstar, my family and my other business, I have very little time left to devote to much else.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    My wife Lisa and I own a small jewelry company called Lisbre. We design and create all of the jewlery and have a kiosk in the local mall and are working on a boutique in the art district in downtown York, PA. I also run triathlons when I have time to devote to regular training.

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Interview with Nilou Glosson, Precise Term Software

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   Three years ago my husband, John and I, thought that there had to be a better way. I had done plenty of technical and policy writing for a governmental agency. John was a localization senior manager at multinational firm. We quit our day jobs and decided to give our peers something that was sorely missing in this space. So we cleared up our kitchen table and got to work. We came at this from different sides. I am a writer and he is a hopeless geek. If anyone knows of a 12 step program for geeks, let us know. My passion was to create something to give authors a tool, a portable tool that would actually help them escape the maze of redundant, avoidable, mind-numbing, wasteful work. In my humble opinion, for an author, there are three cardinal forms of torture.
   Torture number one: Re-typing: Why in the world do I have to re-type, 3-methylcholanthrea or tetrabromobishphenol over and over again? Why can't it be re-used easily, automatically while saving keystrokes and assuring correct spelling? I charged my husband to come up with something that would auto-suggest after a few letters. I also wanted the authors to be able to choose a category, whether it was chemicals or finance they were writing about.
   Torture number two: Imprisoned Style Guides - In addition to some plain English suggestions the system could make, I wanted a system that would put at my fingertips in real-time (not in some dusty book or database somewhere) the company's style guide. If the company was now calling its super-drug, wonder-drug, I wanted as soon as I typed the old name, for a style guide to pop up and tell me that we are now using wonder-drug. I wanted everyone to be able to access this.
   Torture number 3: Stuck under heavy hardware. I wanted something light that installed in minutes and would work with any application. I wanted this web-based and accessible from any Peets coffee shop.
   John's addition to my requirements was to patent a new language which allows the user to categorize each word by part of speech, meaning and language. This allows for re-use of precise multilingual terminology. No other translation management system is doing this. This language (which on the outside looks just like English) disambiguates sense and can still be used in any file format.
   Shameless plug: The company is called Precise Term Software.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   We joined last year because the members are passionate about these issues. Even our needy family dog runs and hides when he hears the word, 're-use', but CM members listen. It is a dream come true!
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   We have done all of the above in the past.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I have a masters degree in Environmental Public Policy and used to work In a grey cubicle re-writing stuff all day long and when I had to run my writing by another supervisor, there would be different set of style guides to abide by. This was enough to send me to the break room to look for leftover cake. John is an astro-physicist by training (this was not just a pick up line 13 years ago). When he was last in a grey cubicle, it was as a senior manager of a localization group.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   We founded Precise Term software. It is an auto-complete and terminology management system.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   Unfortunately it is not often the users but someone higher up who makes the decision of what big bulky system to purchase. It is also not the best product but the best situated one, with the glitziest marketing and sales team that wins. If there is no buy-in from the authors and if it is not immediately helpful to them, the authors will go around the new expensive toy. The mucky-mucks upstairs wonder what happened. The cycle repeats.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   The exchange of ideas and networking is invaluable. I have met so many talented and dedicated consultants and writers. We hope to partner up with those who specialize more in selling of software. So if there are any rainmakers out there, call us. We are open to suggestions of all kinds.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I tell everyone about the organization and about members who have given us feedback and help without asking for anything in return. I am honestly impressed and touched. As I get to know the organization more, I would be happy to help.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   STC and a few others but, honestly, we just write the checks and get the journals. Getting the business off the ground has been a job, hobby and volunteer work, rolled into one.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    John and I were in the Peace Corps in West Africa. For two years, I lived in a mud hut in a small village and helped raise fish for food and John lived in a relatively big city and taught physics to high school kids. Now, we have three kids under the age of 8 who demand to eat daily. We hope to avoid the grey cubicle scene and feed our kids at the same time. No reasonable offer refused.

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Interview with JoAnn Hackos, President, Comtech Services

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I started Comtech in 1978, focusing on information management and design. In 1992, we began to be interested in content management. We were aware of the early development of what became Chrystal at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center and met with Documentum in its first year to describe the requirements of technical information development. Chrystal (now Astoria) was the most innovative way of handling small modules of information and assembling them into larger systems. We were involved in the early days of GML at IBM, which became SGML. I wrote the first instructions for creating style sheets for GML at IBM. In the mid-90s, I began to introduce single-source concepts, giving the first presentation at an STC conference on this topic. As an information designer and manager and a consulting to the industry for my entire 30-year career, I find that content management is just one more tool in our kit bag to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of information delivered to customers.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I was one of the founding members when Bob Boiko began to expand the original advisory group beyond the University of Washington. Since I also founded the single source SIG in STC, it was an appropriate extension of that work.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   I am a consultant to content creators, managers, and publishers. With others in my company, Comtech Services, Inc., we help diverse organizations understand how to add value to the information they deliver to their customers at the same time that they reduce internal costs and schedules by managing content more creatively and efficiently.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I have a PhD in English language and literature, following undergraduate work in Chemistry. I taught English literature, writing, and publishing for many years at the university level. In the mid 80s, I was the founder of the MS in Technical Communication at the University of Colorado. I began Comtech Services in 1978. In 1998, I started the Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM) as executive director. CIDM is the leading organization for managers of information development.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   Comtech Services, Inc. is my consultancy. We have a small, energetic, and extremely productive staff, operating three international conferences each year, delivering workshops on myriad topics, and working with companies to improve their information.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   The greatest challenge is encouraging people to make decisions that improve the value of their information. Too often, they want an easy way out, adding tools to the mix that provide little value. The selection of appropriate content management systems is badly done in most cases. The wrong people make the decisions, often without understanding the requirements of the people who will be using the technology. The politics of system acquisition interfere with sound strategy development.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   CM Pros is a useful community that helps me keep in touch with what others are interested in learning.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I have volunteered to work on projects, and I hope that more members will take part in the activities of the organization. I also offer an opportunity for CM Pros members to meet at the CMS Strategies annual conference and to attend at a special membership rate. In 2006, the conference will be held in San Francisco from April 3 through 5. CM Pros members are welcome to attend and to participate in a face-to-face get-together at the conference.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   I'm most seriously involved with the development of the CIDM, developing conferences, workshops, and services to members. I continue to be involved in STC activities, having served as international president in 1992. I've also helped to found the DITA Technical Committee at OASIS and serve on the committee. I'm the editor in chief of the new dita.xml.org community wiki website.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    I'm an avid birder, with a life list in North America of nearly 600 (a critical number for aficionados in this field). My husband, Bill, and I travel internationally on birding excursions. We're probably close to 1000 for international birds. It's lots of fun and gets us to beautiful places.

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Interview with Rob Hanna, Director of Professional Services, SiberLogic

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I began writing technical publications in 1990 after graduating college with an engineering technology diploma. In 1997, I moved into software docs for airborne computer systems with a Canadian military contractor. It involved several large databases tracing requirements and design of the systems along with 10s of 1000s of discrete topics and artifacts. Over the course of several years, I ported the content from a mainframe to a file-based HTML repository and their information products from print to CHM. Their software development lifecycle was very well defined and coupled software code with its related documentation throughout the process. This experience set the stage for me to pursue best practices for managing and delivering content in subsequent engagements as a technical writer. I was extremely fortunate to have had the exposure to a system that worked very well where I had had a hand in moving it closer to what we would confidently call a full content management solution. Other environments where I worked suffered from far less-defined processes with much less emphasis placed on the importance of technical documentation. I spent a great deal of effort trying to deconstruct their processes and rebuild them to improve on accuracy, usability, and effective deployment of their technical content. Now, I use my hands-on experience in technical writing and content management as Director of Professional Services at SiberLogic. As part of the SiberLogic team, I am responsible for working with our clients to understand their needs and help craft a content solution with SiberSafe, our XML -based content management system. I am involved in requirements gathering, training, and product development, and I also prepare and deliver conference presentations on content management and various aspects of SiberSafe.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I joined CM Pros in 2005 after meeting with other CM Pros members at the STC Conference in Seattle. I found the conversation to be stimulating and fresh and decided that I wanted to participate.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   I have played all three roles during the course of my career.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I have been a technical communication professional for more than 15 years. I graduated from Sault College in 1990 with an engineering technology diploma in Aviation and Flight Technology.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   I work for SiberLogic Inc in Toronto Canada. Our flagship product, SiberSafe, is a market leader in XML-based content management. For the past several years, SiberLogic has been gaining significant ground as a reputable solutions provider for technical communication groups. Many top-flight tech pub groups have joined our customer list in search of solutions to common problems with managing large volumes of technical content. Our scalable, open architecture gives our customers the flexibility they need to stay on top of evolving standards and increasingly complex deliverables.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   Controlled vocabulary: There is far too much confusion surrounding what we are doing in content management. Many vendors are misusing or inventing new terms to describe what they do. We need a lexicon of terms that the industry has bought into to help us communicate effectively with each other.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   CM Pros has the potential to be a leader in the realm of content management for technical communication, and create a strong tie between content creation, management, and delivery. As a CM professional, this association provides me with a sounding board to help me grow and potentially influence the direction the organization takes.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   Foster cooperation between CM Pros and the STC where possible. Participate in online forums and conferences.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   As a member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC), I have been very involved in spurring discussion around single-sourcing. I've made several presentations both locally and nationally on the subject. In 2002, I formed the Toronto STC Single-Sourcing SIG. In 2005, I became president of the Toronto STC Chapter.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    I am a husband and father of two young boys, William and James.

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Interview with Erik M. Hartman, Hartman Communicatie

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I have a communications/information architecture background, so I always - from my university graduation in 1992 - was involved in creating, managing, and publishing content. In 1998 I got interested in Web content management. In 1999/2000 I published an online overview of content management systems, and then things started "rolling."
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I'm one of the founders. We as a group thought we should have an organisation in which we could talk about content management, exchange experiences and insights and help to professionalise and "market" the content management profession.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   I'm a consultant and content manager/architect.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I have a university degree in communications, specialising in information management. From Day One I had my own company, though I worked for IBM in the beginning. After a year I was self-supporting and worked full time as a consultant and technical writer. Since 2000 I've been doing consultancy only.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   We're a four-person consulting agency, located in the Netherlands.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   Getting people to think about content on an information architecture level. This is hard work . . .
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   It can help by putting content management and information architecture "on the map." But most of all it's very inspiring for me to meet content management people from all over the world. And as a consultant, inspiration and sharing knowledge is very important.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   Well, I'm doing my best being both a Board member and a Management Committee member. I also do some "concrete stuff" for CM Pros like working on the CMSML (CMS markup language) and the CM Pros poster.

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Interview with Heather Hedden, Hedden Information Management

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   Starting with a background in journalism and freelance writing, I joined Information Access Company (now Thomson Gale) as an abstractor/indexer of periodical articles. After three years of indexing I moved into the group that manages the controlled vocabulary, where I stayed for over seven years. Projects included the range of authority control, thesaurus development, controlled vocabulary integration and “mapping,” taxonomy development, and web user interface design.
   I have pursued some web design, and now I am very interested in promoting the use of human-created back-of-the-book style indexes on web sites. I have written and taught an online course in how to create A-Z indexes for web sites and intranets. Now I am offering a shortened version as a continuing education workshop through Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   Bob Doyle, one of the CM Pros founders, encouraged me to join in June 2005. I had met him at Boston CHI (chapter of the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction) meetings the previous year, and he told me then that my skills in indexing, controlled vocabularies and thesauri would be very valuable to content managers.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   My background is in content creation. While more involved in content management now, I would consider myself as a consultant to content managers, rather than a manager myself.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I have a B.A. in government from Cornell University and an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. I got started in journalism as a writer for the Middle East Times in Cairo. But the specific subject matter of content management is no longer so important to me, as I have been dealing with content in many subject areas. I consider myself primarily and indexer and taxonomist.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   My company, Hedden Information Management, offers contract services in indexing, thesaurus and taxonomy development, and training in HTML indexing.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   When dealing with published materials (as opposed to internal documentation), you cannot know for sure what information the end-user wants or how the user is most likely to look for it. You have to guess or try to simultaneously serve multiple user needs.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   CM Pros can help me become more knowledgeable of the issues in content management and serve as a means of networking.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I have been assisting CM Pros by maintaining its web site A-Z index. I can also help CM Pros make connections with other indexers, with whom I am well-networked.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   Yes. I am president for 2006 of the New England Chapter of the American Society of Indexers, and I also lead the Web Indexing SIG of the American Society of Indexers. I did most of the work in putting together the Web Indexing SIG web site.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    I work out of a home office, and my home is three houses up the street from where I grew up (and where my parents still live). My husband also works out of the home, as a freelance technical translator from German, French, Russian, and Polish into English.

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Interview with Jane McConnell, NetStrategyJMC

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   It’s a long disconnected story. I came to Paris from California for a 1 year break after finishing college and before doing graduate studies, ran out of money (sort of down and out in Paris!), started working in training, decided to stay in Europe, then created a communication agency, discovered the web by accident thanks to a wonderful geek who gave me a demo years ago. He showed me the famous University of Cambridge coffee pot from his office in France. I flipped out over the web, got the bug, wrote a book on Internet strategy in French entitled L'avantage internet pour l'entreprise (the first non techie book on the subject to be published in France) which opened a lot of doors. In the meantime, a net-oriented wireless services Finnish company integrated my company into theirs, I was a paper millionaire for a few months, but left the company as soon as I could. (Never was able to cash in the paper!). I set up my own free-lance business, and got deeper and deeper into intranets, and therefore content. I told you my story was disconnected!
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I am a co-founder and joined because I thought the people were interesting. I was especially pleased by the wide range of profiles -- more variety than in many professional associations.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   None of the above. I do intranet strategy for large, complex (and often global) companies and organizations.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   BA in literature and linguistics. Self-taught for the rest.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   I’m an independent consultant, a free-lancer. My clients are the "giants" -- the really huge organisations -- who, for the last few years, have been pleased to work with a senior, experienced consultant who is WYSIWYG: the person in front of you is the one who will be doing the job.
   I wondered when I set up my free-lance business if the big companies would be nervous working with a single person. In the last 6 years, I only lost one job because I was a free-lancer. In that case the IT department got nervous about it. But I got all the follow up work when the agency they decided to hire finished their report, and they turned to me and said “So, what should be do now?.” I like questions like that!
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   I have no single challenge. Every case is different. As a strategy consultant I see an incredible range of attitudes to content management ranging from strategic to ignorant.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   CM Pros helps me stay up to date on what’s happening in the CM world, although the discussions are often too technical to be relevant to my work. Still, the mix of different profiles is valuable for me. I love reading the discussions, and always learn a lot.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I speak about it whenever appropriate, in professional contexts. I’ve also encouraged young professionals in France who speak English to join.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   Yes, I’m a member of the Information Architecture Institute, ClubNet (in Paris) and run my own informal circle of Net managers Executive Breakfasts in Paris (in French) described on my web site in the French section under “evenements”
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    My dream was always to be a jazz musician and I actually played in a bar in California one entire weekend when I was in college, but bar life did not suit me!
    My secret night job is doing SEO (search engine optimisation) work for my husband’s web site, ProvenceBeyond, the biggest English language web site about Provence on the internet. We started it in 1995 and reached an average of 1.5 million pages read per month in 2005. It certainly changes from my work as an intranet consultant. The emails we get are mind-boggling sometimes. I’d love to write a book about them.

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Interview with Gerry McGovern, Gerry McGovern Partnership

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I have a background in journalism and marketing. I came across the Web in 1994, and I thought it was going to change the world. From then on, I made my living from web-related activities, with a particular emphasis on web content.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I joined at the beginning. It was important to have content management seen as a profession; to see it maturing.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   I am a content management consultant, speaker and author. My next book is called Killer Web Content and will be published in September 2006.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I have a degree in management.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   I have a content management consultancy that focuses on the management of the content, not the management of the technology.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   The biggest challenge is content management. Most organizations don't manage content. They store it, they administer it, but they don't professionally manage it. Most people involved in the IT industry focus on the technology, not the information.
   It's time to get serious about actually managing content, not managing the implementation of content management software. The average manager simply doesn't have the skills to manage the amount of content they are dealing with on a daily basis. Content within organizations has exploded due to information technology. However, the skills that allow people to create quality content, to organize and classify it well, to analyze which content is effective, and which is not--these skills are currently lacking.
   It's time to start managing content professionally, and to do that we need professional content managers.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   I have learned a lot just reading online discussions about how other people handle content management projects. I hope many of the members will be able to give me advice on my upcoming projects.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I publish a free weekly email newsletter on content management and would be willing to speak at an upcoming webinar.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   No.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    I have had plays and short stories published.

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Interview with Ruth Nickolich, President, Precisely Write

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   As a technical communications company, our clients have begun asking us to do content management work. We are not content management experts yet, with the help of our CM Pros peers, we're on the right track.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   In 2004 I joined CM Pros, right after I learned about the formation of the organization. It just seemed like the smart thing to do. After all, if you want to be a content management professional, why not surround yourself with content management professionals.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   We are content creators, graphic designers, editors, and project managers. We author, design, and edit many user manuals, quick reference guides, sell sheets, business plans, and maintenance manuals. We also manage most of the documentation projects that we do for our clients.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in English and Journalism from the Indiana University School of Education. I have completed several graduate level graphic design courses. I am a former middle school teacher and college instructor.
   I worked at a software company for a couple of years at the beginning of my technical documentation career. There I created all the user manuals from cover-to-cover, including the design, content, and the artwork.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   I work for (and own) a small documentation company. We describe ourselves as Information Delivery Specialists since during the past couple of years we find ourselves doing more than just authoring content.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   Getting clients to let us help them with content management. Old habits die hard. We have one particular client who contracts us to write content again and again--very similar content for different products. When our writers work onsite there, they constantly hear comments (from the client) about difficulty in locating their files and about, "Now how did we say this on the web site?" It’s ridiculous, when you stop and think about it.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   I have learned a lot just reading online discussions about how other people handle content management projects. I hope many of the members will be able to give me advice on my upcoming projects.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I tell other people about the organization. Maybe when I feel more confident in the profession, I can volunteer my time somehow within the organization.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   Yes. I am a senior member of Society for Technical Communication in which I have served locally as Newsletter Editor, Membership Chair, Treasurer, and Program Chair. I am also a member of Women Business Enterprise National Council and attend conferences, and a member of Women & Hi Tech.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    I started my company, Precisely Write, Inc. on December 6, 1996 in my home. I worked there until December 2004 when I moved into our current office. I made this move when, it seems, some small companies actually went the other direction--from office to home. The reason for the move was that I needed some separation of my personal life and work. I also needed help and needed space for other people to work with me. So far it has worked out very well. I'm no longer always at work.

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Interview with Samantha O’Hare, Online Communications Manager, MSD Australia

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I have been working as a website manager in the pharmaceutical industry for a number of years now. About 18 months ago we started to explore how a website content management system might present a better way of managing our sites. We spent a lot of time researching and selecting a system that met our needs, and as a result became very interested in content management in general.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I joined CM Pros in August 2005. I was an early member of the Australian Community, which has been solidly building its membership base, and has some exciting plans for 2006.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   Hmmm… probably the latter two, however I have had some need to do the first as well. To date, I've found that managing websites requires you to be a jack of all trades (at times), so it's hard to definitively assign myself to just one of these categories.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   My career has involved primarily communications and e-business related roles, which has presented a good foundation for my current role. I have a lot of hands-on experience with various applications used in this field, and am currently completing my tertiary qualifications in Internet Studies.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   A pharmaceutical company, which is very supportive of building both the channel and its staff members' expertise in the area of online communications and content management.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   Single source of data across the organisation would be a large challenge (ie. content that is delivered across multiple channels and not just the online channel). Along with sustaining 'interest' in ongoing content ownership from the appropriate areas.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   To network and share learnings with other content management practitioners in the implementation and ongoing use of a website content management. Also to stay in touch with the changing technologies that may highlight issues in the online arena or provide opportunities for improvement in the way we do things.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I like to think of myself as a CM Pros advocate. And I am certainly hoping to see the information that is currently shared at a 'chapter' level corralled and made use of in a wider context so that the experiences of any particular region can ultimately be of value to the entire CM Pros membership base.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   No, I'm not involved in any other associations outside of this industry.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    In my spare time, I indulge in my love of theatre and performing with a local theatre company (NTT Productions). I also am their webmaster, and therefore feel obliged to raise their profile at every opportunity!

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Interview with Eileen O'Rourke, Marketing Director, Astoria Software

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I started my career as a copywriter and integrated marketing professional at an ad agency with lots of different clients...and then made my way to Silicon Valley to work with enterprise software technology vendors. I spent time with Enterprise Resource Planning Software, then E-commerce transaction software, and finally content management solutions… which I'm currently working in. I can definitely sense this is an exciting time both for content publishers and technology tool providers as delivery appliances evolve, and content proliferates everywhere and gets personalized.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I wanted to get an education on what are the needs, concerns and pains of content professionals, and to meet more real life practitioners. Plus, there's so much going on in the space from all angles, I wanted to stay informed.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   I am a content creator, manager, and publisher. As director of marketing communications, I write positioning/messaging for our company, translate that into sales tools, collaterals, web copy etc., and publish it via my various channels and formats - to the newswires in the case of p.r., web copy on the website, in blogs, and in good old fashioned printed literature or advertisements, on occasion.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I studied mass media/communications emphasizing journalism which led to my advertising agency career, then received an MBA in marketing leading to my roles in developing global marketing campaigns, plus online and print direct marketing programs, and analyst/media relations programs together for software companies.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   Astoria Software is an XML content management applications company. Its software family includes an XML content repository and complementary applications for the dynamic publishing of product content such as technical documentation, customer support, maintenance information, and training docs. This content is created once, then re-used everywhere, and easily reformatted/assembled for any delivery channel -print or electronic.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   My biggest challenge is managing and archiving my content by topics so I can retrieve it later. I do too much, too quickly, and don't take the time to do proper archiving… I'd also like to take the time to learn to write descriptive tags that I can search on.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   Again, I appreciate the education/knowledge transfer on how CM Practioners are working, for the market intelligence on what's going on from a needs standpoint and how technology is or isn't helping in the real-world and also for the connections to practioners, and industry professionals.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   I attended a CM Pros Summit in the fall and thought the agenda and speakers were great.. especially the "day in the life' of a website developer. I'd like to attend another like this where they focus on how to understand and publish content to all the new media channels - blogs, syndicate networks, etc.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   I'm involved with TAPROOT Volunteers, an organization whose members provide volunteer marketing communications strategy and services to non-profits nationally.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    I once won a springboard diving championship - many years ago! I have a weird photographic memory for details and facts - but that Is only turned on 50% of the time. Maybe it's related to that hit I took on the diving board.

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Interview with Lee Powney, Head of Marketing, Mekon Ltd.

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   I have recently taken on the role of Head of Marketing for Mekon, currently the UKs leading XML publishing integration specialists. Previously I have worked as a marketing information systems and planning consultant.
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   I joined recently, to stay in touch with the latest developments in content management and improve my knowledge of content management technology.
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   I create content as a marketer, review and approve it as a manager and delegate publishing to web and print.
4. What is your educational and career background?
   I hold 1st Class (Hons) BA from Bournemouth University in Advertising and Marketing Communications and am currently completing Masters Degree in Marketing from Kingston Business School. I am a previous winner of the London’s 2005 Bright Ideas Award for Entrepreneurship.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   Mekon are the UKs leading independent XML publishing integration specialists. Mekon have 11 years experience in single source publishing and work with standards such as DITA and S1000D. Mekon have deployed some of the largest XML publishing solutions to date in the UK and are currently undergoing massive growth and internal investment to meet demand for their solutions.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   Showing business executives how the challenges of changing authoring processes from sequential methods to topic based authoring are outweighed by the inherent ROI generated from reusing content at a granular level.
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   CM Pros can help me develop a contact network of subject matter experts who can support me in my career and visa versa.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   As the UKs leading XML publishing integrators, Mekon can help promote CM Pros at events, to clients and to partner organizations.
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   I am currently writing for the Academy of Marketing conference 2006 as well as presenting marketing theory to budding young UK entrepreneurs.
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    I am currently writing a book which seeks to show how the peoples of the European Union (EU) must gather under a collective identity in order for it to function as an effective political organism. I attempt to show how the common bond which could serve as the foundation for this "identity" between European peoples lays within our ancient history, namely ROME.
    Oh and I like Sky Diving and am a dab hand with a cricket bat.

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Interview with James Robertson, Managing Director, Step Two Designs

1. How did you become a content management professional?
   Originally trained as a programmer, I've developed everything from a field application for nurses (written on the Apple Newton) to a system that automatically converted a whole body of legislation to SGML and then through to HTML. My entry into the content management industry really came when I was engaged to develop what we would now call a custom content management system (CMS). This featured structured authoring, content stored in a database, exported as SGML, and then single-source published to Windows Help, Word and HTML. Working with a team of specialist technical writers exposed me to the value of good content, and then to usability and information architecture. Once I'd gone onto do some heavy intranet work (deploying an entirely new intranet to a 150 seat call centre), there was no escape from the content management industry!
2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
   Well, I was actually one of the original founding members! So I was a member before we actually had members...
3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
   It depends. By day, I play a vendor-neutral consulting role, helping organisations select a new content management system. In my spare time, however, I write extensively on content management and intranet topics. So I guess that makes me a "content creator", or perhaps a "publisher".
4. What is your educational and career background?
   Reformed geek. Having a formal computer science background is helpful, although nowadays the real challenges that keep me thinking are around organisational and cultural change.
5. What kind of organization do you work for?
   I'm the managing director of Step Two Designs. We provide consulting and mentoring services in the areas of intranets, content management, usability and information architecture. We write a lot (including a number of best-practice reports), and run workshops throughout Australia and internationally.
6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
   The tender process is broken. An over-focus on functional requirements means that most organisations struggle to select the right content management system. The challenge is therefore to revisit how complex products such as content management systems are selected, and to find a better way. (Hint: "narrative requirements" are the answer.)
7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
   The value for me is networking with other content management professionals, sharing ideas and approaches.
8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
   Well, I can keep writing and publishing articles. That's probably enough at the moment to keep me busy...
9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
   Yes. I'm a member of the Information Architecture Institute, Usability Professionals Association and the Institute for Information Management. I love being a member of professional organisations, and helping out where I can. I was also the founder of the Intranet Peers in Government group).
10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
    For 20 years, I have practiced Aikido, a Japanese defensive martial art. Thanks to Erik Hartman, this is known by everyone who attended the cmf2005 conference in Denmark (Erik cheekily incorporated this into his keynote presentation, thanks Erik!).

    Interview with Kevin Shoesmith, Venn Communications System

    1. How did you become a content management professional?
       I rode the wave of technical communications here. The industry seems to be at a defining juncture, and content management has emerged as an element with significant implications. So I was pulled to it.
    2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
       I joined CM Pros about 2 months ago. My colleague, Rahel Bailie, strongly urged me to get involved with the group.
    3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
       I'm a content creator, primarily, but I do implement micro-CMS's for my clients to manage their web content too. Content management is heavily reliant on one of my core competencies, information architecture. CM is a natural extension of IA.
    4. What is your educational and career background?
       Master of Letters degree in Irish Literature (Edinburgh) > Journalism > TechComm.
    5. What kind of organization do you work for?
       I'm an independent. My company – and its approach to content – is called Venn Communications System. It's a newfangled blend of content strategy, information architecture, and information design.
    6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
       Convincing my clients to create value for their customers, staff and partners through better, more organized more accessible content.
    7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
       I think (and hope) that my membership will keep me in tune with what my peers are doing to best manage the colossal amount of content people are producing today. Trite, perhaps, but true.
    8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
       Contribute to, and facilitate, the conversation identified in point 7 (above).
    9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?I've long been a member of the Society for Technical Communication. Technical Communication is an interesting business because it's made up of so many sub-fields, all as intriguing as the next (if you're into that sort of thing). It's the industry with a thousand faces. Technical communication is secondary to some of the initiatives that I'm involved in, however. Things are moving swiftly out here and there are conversations taking place well outside the walls of established institutions. Stay tuned.
    10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
        I own a Culture Club CD.

        Interview with Shino Toshikazu, Sociomedia, Inc.

        1. How did you become a content management professional?
           Three aspects of my career led to my becoming a content management professional. First, I used to work as a corporate consultant performing work analysis and analyses of corporate documents. Second, I later became involved in my current work where as a usability and IA professional, I oversee Website and Intranet construction projects for Japanese corporations and government offices. Third, I became extremely active in the Japanese publishing industry in media-related content. I have introduced many American CMS publications and Web information to the Japanese market by translating the contents into Japanese. I also write regular columns about CMS for Japanese magazines, and I also sponsor an annual event called DESIGN IT! which brings in CMS experts from the U.S. and abroad to provide a place for Japanese IT professionals to network and exchange ideas with the CMS professionals from around the world.
        2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
           I joined CMS Pros in 2004 at the Boston conference. I joined so that I could meet and exchange ideas with CMS professionals around the world, and to be able to transmit the latest information to and from Japan and to promote similar types of CMS activities in Japan.
        3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
           I do wear several hats to a degree. I am a corporate consultant that provides solutions for Japanese corporations, as a sponsor of the event DESIGN IT! I wear all hats as content creator, manager, and publisher.
        4. What is your educational and career background?
           My undergraduate major was in Art & Aesthetics and Psychology. In terms of my career, I worked as a corporate office productivity consultant first, then moved on to groupware consultant. I then worked in marketing for software standardization, and currently work as a Website construction consultant.
        5. What kind of organization do you work for?
           I founded my own company Sociomedia, Inc. (English language site), an IT design consulting company. My title is CEO and I work as a consultant to Japanese companies and government offices. Sociomedia, Inc. is Japan's design consulting firm housing usability, IA, and information design specialists, and we serve over 200 clients consisting of major corporations and government offices in Japan. We also develop and market software that supports IT design and we conduct a great deal of information transmission events such as DESIGN IT! and other workshop on CMS and other specialized areas.
        6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
           I encounter many challenges in my own projects on a day to day basis, but the biggest challenge I must say is figuring how best to increase the number of CMS professionals in Japan. CMS professionals are badly needed in Japan and I'd like to do all I can to promote this here.
        7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
           My expectation is that CM Pros can support the creation of a CMS community in Japan. In particular, I look forward to various support from CM Pros so that we can be an effective medium in society amidst the backdrop of information exchange at the individual-level sometimes being privileged over those of experts and the various culturally-specific factors that hinder the creation of independent communities in different countries.
        8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
           I would like to provide culturally sensitive advice/know-how on creating a community that works within the framework of Japanese culture, economic, industrial, and other structural factors, as well as on procedures for information provision to a Japanese audience.
        9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
           I am currently organizing an annual conference called DESIGN IT! which is a platform for information provision, and aims to reach out to worldwide audiences through our website (Japanese or English).
        10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
            For one, I am a classical music buff! My longtime dream was to become an orchestra conductor but now I am settled as a devoted enthusiast. I always get tickets to hear major orchestras when I travel to a major city abroad. I have the deepest respect and admiration for the conductor Esa Pekka Salonen (in Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra). Also I am an avid reader and read everything from cultural psychology, sociology, linguistics, to graphic novels (an euphemism for mangas)! I also teach as an adjunct faculty on the side in the area of Web design and usability, which is a great way for me to keep up with how the younger generation interact and think about Web, IT, and design.
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        Interview with Bill Trippe, New Millennium Publishing

        1. How did you become a content management professional?
           I was trained as a writer, and spent eight years doing technical writing and course development. But then I found myself developing courses and doing training for Xyvision, which had one of the earliest SGML content management platforms. I began doing much more direct support and consulting with Xyvision's customers, and eventually managed the department that implemented SGML solutions at major publishers.
        2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
           I was one of the founding members, at the encouragement of some of the folks who really got things started, like Bob Doyle, Tony Byrne, and Frank Gilbane. I participated in some of the earliest discussions about the shape and goals of the group, but--skilled consultant that I am--I managed to find a way to let everyone else do the hard work of getting the group going.
        3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
           All of the above I guess. I write regularly for publication, I blog, and I have written a couple of books, so I think that makes me both creator and publisher. I also, through my consulting, help publishers manage their content through the use of key enabling technologies such as XML, content management, and enterprise search.
        4. What is your educational and career background?
           I have a BA in English and an MA in Professional Writing and at one point was on track to be an English professor. But I liked making money too much, so I went from a career in technical writing to stints on both the vendor and publisher side of the content management business. I had technical leadership roles for two vendors, Xyvision and Inso Corporation, and for two publishers, Houghton Mifflin and Ziff Davis. In 1997 I made the leap to independent consulting.
        5. What kind of organization do you work for?
           New Millennium Publishing is me and a part-time operations person. I am incorporated in Massachusetts, and have my office in Cambridge a few miles from my home. I split my time roughly 50-50 between writing projects and content management consulting projects. I also work closely with The Gilbane Report. I am a senior editor for the report, and work with Frank Gilbane and the rest of the team on the conferences, the blog, and on the vendor and end user consulting. (I was a fan of Frank's and the report long before I became involved. Sort of like the guy from the hair club for men, not only am I a senior editor for The Gilbane Report, I am also a client.) Finally, I have a growing relationship with the folks at Really Strategies. They do content management consulting with major publishers, and I have supported them on a number of projects.
        6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
           Well, if I think of the most common issue among my clients, the biggest challenge right now is the whole question of a common data model or common content model. Can publishers use XML, for example, to model all of their content and all of their metadata? And if they do, do they arrive at something useful to their business? I think all of my clients are asking this question and answering it in different ways.
        7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
           The published resources are probably the best resource for me so far. I refer to the Web site a lot--both the public resources and the members-only section. I also really value the contacts I have made. The members I have dealt with are the smartest people in the business, and every time I have reached out with a query or a request, I have received excellent responses.
        8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
           I have been a slacker in terms of volunteer efforts, so I try to help out by promoting CM Pros whenever I can. I mention it on my blog and the Gilbane blog whenever possible, and Bob Doyle tells me I provide some good traffic, so I hope that is a help. I am also an obsessive and excellent professional networker, so if a CM Pros member thinks I can help out with something in the field, by all means get in touch and I would be glad to discuss it.
        9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
           There are activities outside of the content management industry? Why didn't I get the memo?
        10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
            Outside of work, I am a thuddlingly dull person. I am married, with two teenage boys, two dogs, two cats, and a 126-year old creaking barn of a house (with a view of this beautiful oak tree) where something breaks every day. If I am not working, I am driving to a soccer game, feeding an animal, or writing big checks to plumbers and electricians.
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        Interview with Laura Walker, Executive Director

        1. How did you become a content management professional?
           From 1983-1990 I worked in the graphic arts industry. Projects that necessitated time-consuming conversion of data from one proprietary system to another (word process to typesetting, for example) inspired a passion for information interoperability.
        2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
           In March 2005 I was honored to accept the organization's offer to serve as its executive director.
        3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
           Combination, but only indirectly as it relates to my business and marketing management activities.
        4. What is your educational and career background?
           I'm currently President of Grow Strategies Inc, a consulting practice that helps businesses maximize their growth opportunities. I've had management positions with the Federal Reserve, the eBusiness consortium OASIS, InFocus, Chrystal Software, and Intergraph Corporation. I have a bachelor's degree in business administration.
        5. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
           It can help business executives understand the business value - and strategic significance - of content management expertise.
        6. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
           In my role as executive director, I plan to secure and extend CM Pros' position as the premier conduit of information about content management.
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        Interview with Lisa Welchman, Welchman Consulting

        1. How did you become a content management professional?
           I always had an interest in data information and the meaning of language, natural extension, right/left brain activities. I cut my teeth doing web content management while at Cisco Systems. So, I learned first-hand the difficulties and concerns related to managing large quantities of web content.
        2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
           I’m one of the founding members. I felt there was a need to put some structure around what people like me do for a living and start developing some standards around web content management.
        3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
           No, I’m a consultant.
        4. What is your educational and career background?
           – I actually started in the performing arts then went on to major in Philosophy at University of North Carolina. I was first introduced to the web and basic HTML scripting in the early 90’s and from there became immersed in managing and consulting on large-scale web sites.
        5. What kind of organization do you work for?
           Welchman Consulting was founded in 1999 as a Content Management Strategy consultancy. Over time, we have evolved the practice to encompass a holistic approach to managing the web, which we call Web Operations Management.
        6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
           Our biggest challenge is getting clients to understand that managing web content is not solely a technology issue. So often clients come to us with questions about selecting CMS software-- but realistically technology is only a small piece of a sound web operations model. If you don’t have effective web governance, content authoring strategy and processes in place, then technology may not be the most effective solution.
        7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
           CM Pros offers me the chance exchange ideas and best practices with colleagues. Understanding what other folks are struggling with, and sharing some of our day-to-day challenges helps us all become better professionals.
        8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
           I’m always happy to contribute content to the newsletter and offer up some of our best practices through training and seminars.
        9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
           Yes, Web Operations Management is not just about content management, so we participate in professional organizations like the DC Web Managers Roundtable, National Women’s Chamber of Commerce and various vertical business associations.
        10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
            I am the host of a popular podcast, CMS Advisor and also on the Board of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society.
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        Interview with Mira Wooten, Lasselle-Ramsay

        1. How did you become a content management professional?
           Working for Lasselle-Ramsay, a consulting company that develops content and learning solutions for multiple Industries, it was a natural progression to move into the content management arena, particularly for documentation groups that have a lot of volume and localization requirements.
        2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
           I joined a couple of years ago when the organization first formed. I thought It was Important to share best practices in an area that was relatively new for many of us.
        3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
           Personally, I wear many hats, from project/account manager to content management consulting. As a company, we consult with clients on all phases of a CMS Implementation, from discover/education, to the business plan and ROI analysis, through the information design and implementation. We also have a hosted model using Siberlogic's SiberSafe CMS to assist some of our clients with moving to XML without the big investment in the tools.
        4. What is your educational and career background?
           I have an undergraduate degree in business and have completed a master’s certificate in telecommunications management. My career has moved from programming and technical writing before moving into management and consulting.
        5. What kind of organization do you work for?
           Lasselle-Ramsay is professional services organization that develops content and learning solutions for high-tech, bio-tech and pharma, and the insurance and finance industries. We work with new product information, business initiatives and regulatory compliance. We develop custom solutions to help our client maximize the value of the content they are developing by integrating the content, learning, business procedures, and other Strategic information.
        6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
           As a consultant, I would have to say that the biggest challenge is being tool agnostic.
        7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
           I like to read the postings that have solutions to problems, recommendations for reading or conferences that are applicable. I think the job postings are a value benefit to users, but it would be great to see an area where prospective clients can quickly find the consultants who specialize in a specific area. For example, if I'm looking for XSL programmers, I would like to be able to come to the web site and quickly find consultants who specialize in that. (I like that search capability of LinkedIn.)
        8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
           I have helped in the past at the SF Summits and would be willing to do so again in the future. I frequently refer clients and colleagues to the organization as a great place to network and find consultants. I would volunteer as part of the board, but my experience with other organizations is that when the board is run by consultants it doesn't hold as much value to members because of the assumption that they're there to find business.
        9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
           Yes, I belong to STC, AIMM, and IA.
        10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
            Well, we discovered this at one of the CM Pros summits that a large majority of the members were singers of some sort or another. I write and perform folk, blues, and country… anything that sounds good. You can download a sample of my work at www.mirawooten.com.
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        Interview with Tomoko Yamato, Daitec Co., Ltd.

        1. How did you become a content management professional?
           Our company produces technical documentation (high volume and localization requirements). We encountered many problems managing content and in the localization process. We believe that content management is the next step toward solving these problems. This is the reason I am involved content management field.
        2. When and why did you join the CM Pros organization?
           Since December, 2005 when I participated Gilbane Conference in Boston. The reason I joined CM Pros is that we wanted to start content management project in right direction. Learning and collecting information from experienced people helped us get started and helped to ensure our content management efforts stay on the right track.
        3. Are you a content creator, manager or publisher (or some combination)?
           I used be content creator for few years then moved to technical support of a system based on SGML/XML. I worked with clients to implement our SGML/XML based solution. My work is providing authoring tool (Arbortext EPIC Editor) environment, technical support, explanations or recommendations to client, cross-media publishing training based on SGML/XML technology.
        4. What is your educational and career background?
           I am university graduated. I have studied Education and English at school. I have experience in technical support, training, translation, writing user and reference guides, and creating authoring tool environments, etc.
        5. What kind of organization do you work for?
           I work for a documentation company called Daitec Co., Ltd. Our company started with documentation business first, then developed SGML/XML documentation solutions based on our experience. We have experience implementing and developing documentation solution based on SGML/XML in the automobile, semiconductor, and various industry machinery fields.
        6. What is your biggest content management-related challenge?
           The challenge is that learn trends and technologies, bad or good experience from those who have implemented CMS so that we can accumulate our experience of content management with correct knowledge.
        7. How can CM Pros help you in your professional life?
           CM Pros provides lots of information, resources and a chance to keep in touch with experienced industry members. CMS related community and information is still limited in Japan, so a community like CM Pros is nice to have. We know we can utilize CM Pros to keep up with what's new and what others are doing.
        8. How can you help CM Pros grow and prosper as a professional organization?
           My contribution will be mainly web translation for a while. After I become more experienced and confident, I can contribute to increasing CM Pros activities in Japan.
        9. Are you involved in other professional activities outside of the content management industry?
           No.
        10. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most CM Pros members do not know.
            I like traveling to places that have beautiful nature (mountains, rivers, etc). And I also like cooking any food I ever tasted and liked. After I get experience and learn technology more, I hope that I can do volunteer work somewhere in the world.
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