Hey, @storyneedle! I’ve been thinking a lot about this tweet, and the comments that followed it, and I think I may have sussed out where we agree (and disagree) about it…
Could be wrong, but I think you’re talking about the divide between “mapping an organization’s communication needs to different mediums, communication styles, workflows, etc” and “chopping stuff up into fields”. Wholeheartedly agree the former is usually ignored for the latter.
“Naive” content modeling treats the work as an exercise in figuring out what web forms should map to what design templates, and that does put one’s CMS platform in the driver’s seat of fundamental organizational decisions.
I tend to think of “modeling content” more holistically, and what you describe as planning “content variation” is what I consider the foundational work of “blue sky” content modeling — asking “what are we saying? what do people want to know of us? how can we tell them?” etc.
But regardless of tech platform, those things must ultimately be manifested, realized, in concrete form: an HTML page containing a dinner recipe, a printed form for a newlywed to fill out at the DMV, a reminder popup telling me to pick my partner up from work, etc.
The “bottom up” understanding of those manifest forms, their unique strengths and limitations, and the roles they play in our communication plans, are just as important as the platonic forms that describe our goals and ideals. They need each other.
Coming back to your point about the failure of modern CMSs, I agree that the vast majority of implementations (and the default assumptions present in most CMSs) prioritize picking-a-template and ignore evaluating-your-goals or choosing-a-medium-for-your-message.
That’s crippling, but the burden of changing that is on us, as professionals who plan and develop content strategies, to help shape those things as much as it is on CMSs to change their tooling (or implementation teams to pick new kinds of tools).