a content management system supports collaborative production and maintenance of informative web sites.

• it enables division of labor
  • by speciality
    • style
    • content authoring
    • infrastructure - organization of style and content
    • automation - programming
  • by authority
    • who can do what on the site
    • workflow - mechanisms by which roles regulate
    • mechanisms which enable orchestrated release process (staging)
• it provides tools for authoring:
  • to write content and styles
  • to form and use categorization, organization
  • to incorporate and convert from external formats
  • to inteconnect
• it enables doing things systematically:
  • regulation - who can do what - create/edit/delete/manage
    • ownership
    • delegation of authority
  • templating
    • styles
    • content-well vs site/section wrap
  • content types
    • structured information
      • news site items - of different types, eg article, weather report, tv listing, ad, horoscope, etc
      • problem/solution item (tracker)
      • business profile, personal profile
    • rich media - office document, video, audio, mixtures, etc
  • supports automation
    • categorization and cataloging of content for organization
    • basic facilities can be built upon to implement applications
    • and accommodate/incorporate external applications
      • wrap superficially
      • integrate deeply - database, calculation, communication, etc

CMS can do lots of different things lots of different ways

therefore, there's not one product for each thing being done

rather, you adapt the system to your organization's needs, and grow it/them from there

need to be clear about what those needs are

so you embark on and with something that will suit you