Content Management

Changing careers can be scary, rewarding, exciting, challenging, and interesting all at the same time. I have felt each of those emotions as I have made my own transition from architect to technical communicator.

Much of the information for technical writers is for those in the software development field. Fortunately for me, my first major contract has been for a software development company. I say fortunately, because tonight I went to a workshop about content management systems. It was really geared more for people who develop or maintain web sites, which is not my main thing. I recognized many of the terms used, mainly because I have overheard the software developers use those terms. I would say I understood about 20% of what was covered.

The main thing I got out of it was a review of and comparison between some of the open-source software available. Before you select one, you need to decide what you want to use it for. Some ar good for sharing documents, and some are not. Take into consideration the learning curve...YOUR learning curve. This very blog is an open-source product. The learning curve was short, but the creativity is limited. It's basically one long page.

At the bottom (of this one long, long page), I have added a link list to the open-source software that was presented tonight.
.