How "StartWithWWW" might make more sense than "StartWithXML"

UPDATED... AND, ANNOUNCING: We'll be raffling off Free tuition for one lucky person to attend our Web Content Management for Publishers workshop at SFU Vancouver, Aug 4-6. If you'd like to enter our draw, come to the XML Production Workflow session (Saturday at 9:15am) and drop your business card into our hat. We'll draw for the winner at the end of the session. And, talk to me about discounted tuition for the workshop if you don't win. - JMax

UPDATE 2

I've posted a paper which covers all this material, and itself demos the processes I'm describing. See http://thinkubator.ccsp.sfu.ca/wikis/xmlProduction

StartWithXML is the name of a big push (popularized by O'Reilly) for book publishers to re-organize their workflow and production processes to start with XML content, and derive outputs (like printed books) from that. Sounds great, maybe later. The reality of this is a ton of complexity. For starters,

• which XML? what Document Type or Schema or tagset are you going to 'start with,' exactly?
• content conversion? this is hugely labour intensive, regardless of the software or tools chosen
• core competencies and existing culture? are we to turn 40- and 50-year old businesses around on a dime, devaluing generations of process and expertise (and also the kind of culture that makes this a desirable industry for many of us to work in)?

Our work at SFU's Master of Publishing program shows that there may be a kinder, gentler way to approach this than trading in your seasoned professionals for software developers. The web itself has developed into a fairly robust content-management toolkit. Why not use it? In fact, you already are (right now while you're reading this!). If ubiquitous web tools and standards are followed carefully (e.g., XHTML) you can claim a good deal of the benefit of 'real' XML without having to go blindly into the bright lights.

This session would demo recent R&D work in this area from the SFU Master of Publishing Program, in which we are exploring the possibilities of building an XML toolchain and workflow out of the things you may already have: web content management systems and Adobe CS4, using web standards and common sense to hold it together.