I am tasked with documenting the main parts of letters and forms for a client. This exercise is for future integration in to an ECM system. This process is not glamorous but is a necessary evil to set a foundation for searchabilty in the new system.
Metadata, tagging, and all the other terms that people use to describe information about content are the current catch phrases in content management.
Some would say it’s impossible to manage content because there is just too much of it. This is especially true in large organization where paper is the primary form of business production.
The challenging part of this process is corralling all of the data from different point. Without clear direction from the client and what feels like cluelessness about where things are, the project seems to drag on.
Another challenging part is the client doesn’t always see the value in the exercise and it’s really hard to convince them of the value. They can only see and feel what’s happening today in their world and how hard it is to find information.
This exercise will help alleviate that pain but that does not always give them the warm, fuzzy feeling you hope it will because they can only understand the current discomfort.
So I trudge on and hope they will see the entire forest despite the trees and realize that one day the seemingly pointless effort is actually quite golden.
