How an editorial system came to life and why it’s not a CMS.

A necessity

As a publisher of inventures.eu, a small international blog focused on startups in Central and Eastern Europe, I have soon realised that there is a limit to an Excel spreadsheet. It’s might as an editorial system blunts in hands of overworked Managing Editor who juggles responsibilities for content, marketing, resourcing and general editorial direction of a publication. In the whirl of production deadlines the cells remain out-dated and a simple act of keeping them alive generates so much work that it’s just not worth it.

Several experts were called to help solve the situations. From seasoned workflow managers to renowed managing editors. They all concluded that keeping track and overview is just pain-in-the-back and that’s just how it’s always been and how it is. If you have couple of grand to loose, buy vjoon or truedit. Wait for a sales call and then spend couple of days with an integrator to set this out. Not exciting.

Not a CMS

Most people ask me: “We don’t need this, we already use WordPress.” Sure, I say. Show me how you manage your editorial flow. How you set rates and confirm terms and conditions. How do you track delivery deadlines and how you automatize sending deadline reminders. If you can do that in WordPress, then you still should think about how can you take your content into print.

Backstage as a management layer to content production. It allows you to bring all your contributors, your favourite editing tools (Word, Google Docs) and move your content between different publications with one click. If you decide to move your site to Drupal, you just add a new destination to your content and push it to your site.

Getting tight CMS is an important decisions we fully leave in hands of other people. We focus on producing content wherever it might appear.

Time to walk the right-hand path

Managing editorial shouldn’t be some dark magic that only few are privy to. It should allow talents to shine and stories to reach reader’s eye-balls. We want to introduce tools that are easy to use and process that is easy to follow. Nobody should feel intimidated by this.

As I mentioned several times in my demo’s, Backstage cannot turn a bad organizer into a good one. It can however make an average organizer into great managing editor. No mystery, just some common sense and ass-kicking design.