Gadgetopia

Great presentation on content modeling: Seth made some nice comments about my presentation.  He also cut to the absolute core of the situation with a point that I’m somewhat astonished I didn’t make in the actual talk.

This is why evaluating the content modeling facilities of a CMS is so important before buying it (emphasis mine):

The reason why I find this topic so important (aside from the fact that I am a recovering DBA myself) is that content modeling capability is one of those difficult to change characteristics of a content management system. It is what I call a “load bearing wall” in the customization of a CMS. That is, while it may be possible to remediate a content modeling limitation, all the buttressing required may make such an effort impractical. Content modeling architecture is so difficult to change, in fact, that the products themselves tend to live with what they have and change very little in this area

I forgive him for stealing the term “load-bearing wall” in relation to content management.