Show me ten thousand different editorial organizations and I'll show you ten thousand different workflow requirements. The ones we just saw for editorial and production workflow examples are among the many possibilities. Thus a key additional requirement must be:

The tools must not define the workflows, the workflows must define the tools!

Many web businesses are operations in a constant state of change: new business deals, acquisitions or being acquired, new editorial directions, cross-media integrations and on and on. Workflow processes should be open and flexible to accomadate all of these contingencies.

At least 90% of the web publishing shops operating now are using ad hoc workflows and software setups. Content management and publishing is not dominated by any company or technology despite the fact that commericial publishing tools have been on the market for years. Why haven't these tools succeeded?