There has been a move in the last couple of years to change the acronym for Church Management Software (CMS) that was coined by Steve Hewitt in the 1980s to ChMS. The reason given for the needed change is that many now think of something different when they hear "CMS". Other meanings of the acronym CMS:- Content Management System
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (I know, it has two Ms, but only one in the common acronym!)
- Convention on Migratory Species
- Compact Muon Solenoid
- Comparative Media Studies
- College Music Society
- Clay Minerals Society
- Course Management System
I'm sure there are more, but when I recently learned about Course Management Systems I couldn't help grinning. In today's push to reduce our carbon footprint and recycle, maybe using the same acronym to mean many different things is a good thing!
Posts
1 comment:
So your argument is...disambiguation and clarity is bad? :-D Let's not forget that as long as different industries use the same acronym it's generally less confusing. But churches use both Content Management Systems and Church Management Systems, and there's even overlap.
Oh, I know! We should call Content Management Systems "CoMS" (I'm sure no one will confuse it with "Com" or "Comms" short for Communications, not like there's a MinistryCOM or anything...). Get rid of CMS from churches entirely and make it CoMS and ChMS.
Once those both become ambiguous we could just go to using Church Management System and Content Management System without any abbreviation...should the Lord tarry :-D
Post a Comment