We were joking the other day that given the abuse and challenges that we, as Content Management Professionals, suffer every day, that working in the Content Management industry must be an addiction. How else do you explain the long hours and the gradual degradation of our basic humanity?

Hi, my name is Pie, and I keep trying to solve the Content Management/Collaboration problem.

Let’s face it. The average Content Management Professional is not entirely sane. As I discussed in the Jack Sanity Scale of Content Management, the longer we work in the industry, the less sane we become. Sometimes I think the only thing that helps us hold it together is therapy at local establishments.

But there is hope. We can find a cure and at least stop the slide into becoming Peter Monks. To do this, I have outlined a 12 step plan to help anyone who is ready to get out. It is a lot of work, but the road to recovery is not an easy one.

1. We admitted we were powerless over Content Management—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that the Cloud could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of the Cloud as we understood it.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our Content.
5. Admitted to Twitter, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have the Cloud remove all the defects of Enterprise Content Management.
7. Humbly asked the Cloud to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons and organizations we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take a Content inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through meditation to improve our use of the Cloud, seeking only knowledge of its use for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to Content Management Professionals, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

I’ve taken the first step. I’ve recognized that I have a Content Management problem and that I am powerless to fix it on my own. I may be even as far as step 3, but I’m not sure I am up to a full Content inventory.

So, are you ready to admit that you have a problem?

[Note 1: Simple writing this post has likely bumped me up one more notch on the Jack Scale. That means I rate 4 Jack Sparrows. This is a bad trend.]

[Note 2: I realize that many people are battling real addictions, even some in my life. This is meant in good fun and not intended to trivialize their challenges.]