This document discusses moving away from relying solely on a single content management system and instead adopting a "web ecosystem" approach using multiple platforms. It encourages evaluating each platform based on its purpose, flexibility, and required knowledge. The document also summarizes Georgia Tech's experience of initially relying heavily on Drupal but now adopting additional platforms like WordPress and Jekyll to better meet various needs. It emphasizes documenting experiences to share knowledge with the local web development community.

1. ESCAPING CMS
TUNNEL VISION
E R I C S E M B R AT

3. ABOUT ME
Eric Sembrat
• Web Manager at Georgia Tech’s
College of Engineering
• President for the Atlanta Drupal
Users Group
• Founder of USG Web
• Lead for USG Web Tech Day
Learn more & contact me:
http://www.webbeh.com/

4. TODAY’S TASK

5. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN
ASKED TO DO THIS?

6. HAVE YOU HEARD?
Can we use {CMS system} to
do {something your CMS
shouldn’t do}?

7. HAVE YOU HEARD?
Why can’t {CMS system} act
like {another CMS system}?

8. HAVE YOU HEARD?
Can you recreate {software
package} in {your CMS
system}?

9. THESE AREN’T GOOD SIGNS!
These kinds of questions signal a
reliance and insistence on a platform
rather than looking to see if the platform
actually fits the project need.

10. I WAS ASKED LAST YEAR…
Reliance on a platform is not
sustainable.

11. I WAS ASKED LAST YEAR…
Someone asked me at USG Web Tech Day
2016:
How do you keep up with {all
the CMS systems} you work
with?

12. I WAS ASKED LAST YEAR…
Someone asked me at USG Web Tech Day
2016:
How do you keep up with {all
the CMS systems} you work
with?

13. IT IS A LOT…
Yes, learning lots of tools is non-trivial
and there are learning curves for each
platform.
Not to mention migration curves and
release updates.
However, as I have learned at my
employment in higher education, is the
truth that one size never fits all your
needs.
More importantly, most tools ease in
usability once you overcome an
introductory learning curve.

14. IT IS A LOT…
More importantly, these introduction
learning curves far exceed the custom
code maintenance and expansion to
retrofit your platform to mimic another.
In this case, an ecosystem of platforms can
meet the needs of your end-users without
overworking and draining your
development resources.

15. LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT THE
WEB ECOSYSTEM

16. IT IS A LOT…
Let’s take an example of a content
management system and see what it could
be retrofitted to do.

17. ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL APPROACH
Website As a
Service
Digital Asset
Management
News
Repository
Events
Repository
Faculty
Profile
Service
Intranets
College/School/
Unit Websites
Customer
Relationship
Management
Systems
Mailing/
Newsletter
Service

18. ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL APPROACH
Website As a
Service
Digital Asset
Management
News
Repository
Events
Repository
Faculty
Profile
Service
Intranets
College/School/
Unit Websites
Customer
Relationship
Management
Systems
Mailing/
Newsletter
Service
Theoretically, Drupal could
accomplish all these tasks.

19. ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL APPROACH
Website As a
Service
Digital Asset
Management
News
Repository
Events
Repository
Faculty
Profile
Service
Intranets
College/School/
Unit Websites
Customer
Relationship
Management
Systems
Mailing/
Newsletter
Service
Which require {a lot of} custom
code to properly implement?

20. ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL APPROACH
Website As a
Service
Digital Asset
Management
News
Repository
Events
Repository
Faculty
Profile
Service
Intranets
College/School/
Unit Websites
Customer
Relationship
Management
Systems
Mailing/
Newsletter
Service

21. ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL APPROACH
Website As a
Service
Digital Asset
Management
News
Repository
Events
Repository
Faculty
Profile
Service
Intranets
College/School/
Unit Websites
Customer
Relationship
Management
Systems
Mailing/
Newsletter
Service
And what happens when {influential
developer/maintainer} leaves the
project?

22. ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL APPROACH
Website As a
Service
Digital Asset
Management
News
Repository
Events
Repository
Faculty
Profile
Service
Intranets
College/School/
Unit Websites
Customer
Relationship
Management
Systems
Mailing/
Newsletter
Service
And what happens when {influential
developer/maintainer} leaves the
project?

23. A LOT OF US AREN’T THAT LUCKY…
Large development teams with varied
and distributed web expertise are not
common in our university system.
Yes, you can build likely all the projects
you can with custom code.
But eventually, someone else (not
you) has to step in to continue to
support the product.

24. A LOT OF US AREN’T THAT LUCKY…
Plan your
escape
(today).

25. SO, LET’S THINK OF WEB PLATFORMS AS JUST
THAT..
We should think of a Content
Management System (CMS) or web app
as just that - a platform.
The platform is made for {X}, {Y}, {Z},
but not necessarily {A}, {B}, or {C}.
Our Web Ecosystem, then, is a
combination of platforms leveraged for
particular purposes.
These platforms are meant to survive,
even after you have left the project.

26. A PLATFORM IS MADE UP OF THREE
ASPECTS…
Purpose: What is its purpose in life?
What can it do?
Flexibility: What can it be easily shaped
to do? What does the platform support?
Knowledge: What does it take to gain
expertise in the platform? What
software, languages, and tools help you
conquer it?

27. A PLATFORM IS MADE UP OF THREE
ASPECTS…
Where do you find these answers for a
platform you’re evaluating?
Look at what your peers are doing.
Ask in a community-of-practice.
Scour documentation on the platform.
Read case studies on {your project
need}.
Perform your own case study.
Test with a proof-of-concept.

28. EXAMPLE: GEORGIA TECH

29. GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
For platforms…

30. GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Georgia Tech has been singularly
Drupal since its adoption in 2009/2010.
No prior CMS or toolset centrally
leveraged prior.

31. GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Various tools have been built using
Drupal:
Centralized news/events service.
Daily email distribution service.
Pseudo custom layouts creation tool.
Slideshow
College Digital Asset Management tools.
Project Management tools.
Application workflows.
Wikis.
Intranets.

32. GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
However, staffing changes in 2014 and
2015 began to reveal some troubling
trends in web development.
Custom-supported services and tools
were becoming more fragile to updates
and upgrades.
Central services were seeing degraded
service and extended upgrade windows.
Projects were being shelved due to a
lack of expertise in maintenance.

33. GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
A perfect example being the website-as-
a-service offering, called Drupal
Express.
Initial offering promised features,
variants, and scaling-ease for Drupal
usage.
Staffing changes occurred on the
project.
Real offering was a one-size-fits-all that
didn’t include any of the scaling-ease
beyond pre-established work.

34. GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Today, Drupal Express looks very much
as it was when it was introduced in
2014.
Upgrade paths for migrating the design
of the product into a Drupal 8-equivalent
are missing.

35. GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
However, during this same time,
academic units on campus were piloting
additional platforms and systems for
web projects.
Based on needs-assessments on
campus, focused on mitigating an issue
with long-term branding support.

36. GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Two points were considered:
Multisite: Lots of websites under one
codebase. Drupal can do this, but it is a
rigid mess.
Static: Providing a template-able
platform for layering content. Easy for
migrating static websites without
reinventing HTML or learning a CMS.

37. GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Drupal WordPress Jekyll
Ease of Use
Flexibility
Knowledge Needed

38. GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Development time on the Multisite was
not trivial.
However, the platform is very much a
‘set it and forget it’ model, especially as
a free service.
WordPress’ sandboxed plugin model
scaffolds well for feature requests.

39. GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
For tools…

40. GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Georgia Tech is heavily decentralized
and silo’ed.
That being said, many web development
practices still echo 2000’s best-
practices.
However, there are unit-steered
movements to accelerate tools for
development.

41. GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Sass/Less/PostCSS - CSS processing
and reusability is niche work on campus
but provides chunked styling on
demand.
Grunt/Gulp - JS and project delivery
and compilation for projects using
cutting-edge features.
Twig/Symfony - Drupal 8 heavily
leverages these tools for theme/plugin
development.
Github - Our biggest success for code
repository and sharing.

42. SO, HOW DO I BEGIN?

43. GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
So, how do you build an institutional web
ecosystem?

44. HAVE YOU HEARD?
1. Take a survey of your
currently-used platforms.

45. HAVE YOU HEARD?
2. Take a similar survey of
your current/upcoming needs
and projects.

46. HAVE YOU HEARD?
3. Consider the health and
maintainability of each list
item, and if it’s the right tool
for the right job.

47. PASSING YOUR PLATFORM
KNOWLEDGE ON

48. TITLE
A secondary goal of adopting the Web
Ecosystem strategy is to codify your
experiences, knowledge learned, and
takeaways into your local web
development community.
For larger institutions, this is your IT or
web professional group.
For smaller institutions, this is your
regional professional groups (USG Web,
for example).

49. TITLE
The purpose of this is both to pass on
the knowledge to a larger group from
your experiences, but also to
document your project and
successes/failures.
This can take the form of a mailing list
community, a Wiki/documentation
repository, a document portal, a blog, or
even a tweet(s).

50. TITLE
PLEASE DOCUMENT
YOUR WORK

51. QUESTIONS?

52. QUESTIONS?