Ann Rockley presented this morning-ling post-conference workshop from the perspective of content marketing and mobile.
First thing to think about when considering content strategy is to always, always start with a content analysis. Suggest go out and talk to people. W call it a substantive audit. We talk to senior management, ask 3 questions. What are dangers faced if things don't change? A company never does anything unless they are in pain. The solution needs to use the words and the terms and the understanding of what's important to them. Talk to them in management-speak. Sometimes when we are in tough times, that's the best time to do things.
Some of the dangers we hear are fear of loss, competition.
The flip side of danger is opportunity.
People like to whine? No. If you're going to be making changes, you have to listen to the people who will be impacted. Then you get their buy-in. When people tell me about their problems, this is not a reflection on the organization, but an opportunity to make changes.
What is intelligent content. We need to move away from hand crafting content. Intelligent content is structurally rich and semantically categorized. Content is often stuck in formats.
When we look at content, we need to look at it differently than the way we are gong to tag (structure) it. Why structure? Make it easier for authors to author. Helps people write the same way if everyone is following the same guidelines.
25% is your main, base level reuse for most companies of content that can be reused.
XML allows us to take advantage of many tools on the market. If you're doing unstructured content now, converting to XML will require that some of your people grow technologically.
There should be enough information in a model to allow people to create their content without being rigid.
As you model your content, you'll find that about 80% consists of reusable models that you can reference.
Even the structure of your content can be part of your company's voice and brand.
In workflow, automate as much as you can. Put processes in for reuse governance. For example, if you reuse content I created, are you allowed to change it? If so, what does that do to the original? Or do you branch it? Are you even allowed to branch it? If you're in a regulatory environment, you might be very highly controlled.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Looking Ahead
The future is going to be about getting into our customer's heads, to find out what they need, where they need it, how they need it, and n what level they need it. There's been so much emphasis on devices, and we need to pull back and focus on what we are giving customers.
I used to be content wasn't really valued. Content was a necessary evil. By bringing content strategy to the fore, we have shifted content into an extremely important role.
We need people who can understand what technology can do with content. We will always need fabulous writers. We can have the best technology in the world, but if we don't have the best content, and the technology supporting that content, that it's not going to do us any good.
Looking forward to LavaCon '14, I expect we will see an emphasis on the high tech, the technologies to give customers the best experience.
I used to be content wasn't really valued. Content was a necessary evil. By bringing content strategy to the fore, we have shifted content into an extremely important role.
We need people who can understand what technology can do with content. We will always need fabulous writers. We can have the best technology in the world, but if we don't have the best content, and the technology supporting that content, that it's not going to do us any good.
Looking forward to LavaCon '14, I expect we will see an emphasis on the high tech, the technologies to give customers the best experience.
Executing Your Content Strategy: Governance, Optimization and Analytics
The content that we create that can be translated can help you break into new markets. Normalizing content eases translation and keeps costs down.
We do have to care about the plumbing, because if we don't, what we get out at the end is....effluent....
Content quality impacts brand. What used to be post-sale content is now becoming pre-sale content. People are going out and reading user manuals before they purchase, so what you write becomes very important.
What does it take? If you have an organization of any size, it takes governance. Tone, terminology, style, without a system that helps you enforce it, it's hard to manage.
The engines that drive these systems also allow you to track. Executives want data. And now you are armed with information, metrics, and reports.
Control your language. There are 5 areas: spelling, grammar, style, terminology, and SEO. Optimize your dictionaries to make it easier for your authors to succeed. Instead of training your employees on the style guide, how about programming it into your system? That also teaches your authors along the way.
Speak with one voice. No matter what your user reads, you want them to feel like one person wrote it.
We do have to care about the plumbing, because if we don't, what we get out at the end is....effluent....
Content quality impacts brand. What used to be post-sale content is now becoming pre-sale content. People are going out and reading user manuals before they purchase, so what you write becomes very important.
What does it take? If you have an organization of any size, it takes governance. Tone, terminology, style, without a system that helps you enforce it, it's hard to manage.
The engines that drive these systems also allow you to track. Executives want data. And now you are armed with information, metrics, and reports.
Control your language. There are 5 areas: spelling, grammar, style, terminology, and SEO. Optimize your dictionaries to make it easier for your authors to succeed. Instead of training your employees on the style guide, how about programming it into your system? That also teaches your authors along the way.
Speak with one voice. No matter what your user reads, you want them to feel like one person wrote it.
The Common Wisdom: Reality-Based Notes from the DITA Underground
The "common wisdom" often gets is wrong. Common wisdom today is that you have to are about CXM (customer experience management), being indoctrination on the customer experience is all that matters.
The common wisdom is that you should care because the executives say so. But executives care about retaining customers much more than getting new ones.
CXM leaders are aware that our technical communication needs to be tailored for customers. 30% are already doing so, and they are seeing a 13% year=over-year increase in revenue.
We have to talk to marketers. They know how the customers are segmented, and we have to segment our content the same way.
If you don't have the ability to measure your content to find out how it is affecting customers, you can't know how to improve your content.
Your organization has a structure, which means that you'll never be able to completely get rid of silos, but you can learn to communicate and collaborate between them.
When you use DITA, you have content that can be delivered dynamically. A PDF isn't going to look good on Google Glass.
Think about analytics on the content, not the pages. How are people getting to your content? You need analytics that go beyond basic web analytics.
Listen first when you're going social. The conversations are not happening in company-controlled locations. If your customer leaves a comment, you should reply. It's terrible to not reply.
The common wisdom is that you should care because the executives say so. But executives care about retaining customers much more than getting new ones.
CXM leaders are aware that our technical communication needs to be tailored for customers. 30% are already doing so, and they are seeing a 13% year=over-year increase in revenue.
We have to talk to marketers. They know how the customers are segmented, and we have to segment our content the same way.
If you don't have the ability to measure your content to find out how it is affecting customers, you can't know how to improve your content.
Your organization has a structure, which means that you'll never be able to completely get rid of silos, but you can learn to communicate and collaborate between them.
When you use DITA, you have content that can be delivered dynamically. A PDF isn't going to look good on Google Glass.
Think about analytics on the content, not the pages. How are people getting to your content? You need analytics that go beyond basic web analytics.
Listen first when you're going social. The conversations are not happening in company-controlled locations. If your customer leaves a comment, you should reply. It's terrible to not reply.
Lean UX and Agile: More Content in Less Time
We're going to be talking about principles, not practices. If you take lean or agile as just a set of practices and expect to succeed, you won't.
Productivity is the key, from manufacturing to development. Toyota looked at lean product development and figured out how to produce a new vehicle in one year, as opposed to North American companies taking two to three years. It was not just the manufacturing process. It applies to design. Toyota has a process for inventing things, for how you plan to envent things and put it on a schedule.
Agile programming methods have been applied very badly in many situations. The principles include specify value, identify the value stream, flow, pull, and perfection. The only thing that counts is what adds value to the customer. For example, moving something in a factory is waste. You are always looking for waste, which means you have to know what value is.
We often don't know all the processes that go into something. Identify the whole process by which value gets created. The key principle is flow. You want things to flow smoothly. Nothing is created until it is needed. For that to happen, you need a perfect flow.
In software development, the principles translate too eliminate waste, amplify learning, decide as late as possible, deliver as fast as possible, empower the team, build integrity, and see the whole. Why decide as late as possible? The later you make a decision, the more information that decision is based on.
These principles as applied to software development work also on content development.
We want content pull: We won't write soemthing until it's needed.
Taking this approach promotes learning.. Errors are found sooner. Errors in content result from defects in knowledge. The stuff in your head is inventory. Fix the defects in your knowledge so you can produce better content faster. this results is more efficiency--including no crunch at the end of a project.
The sooner you send your content for review, the more errors will be caught. A reviewer reading a book can't see the trees for the forest, but if you send content a chunk at a time, reviewers can focus on the one issue.
When you send stuff in pieces, it makes people who get it aware that documentation is part of the process. As a result, they are more likely to inform writers of design changes. When you make your doc process more visible, you get more feedback, more support. And that can make you more productive without changing any processes.
Waterfall fails because you're making decisions at the beginning, when you have less information.
Embrace change. Information increases throughout the process. Rather than building a system that doesn't let change in, build a disciplined process of learning. It means iteration. What is the most efficient way? It's a process that recognizes that you're trying to generate information.
Agile development includes iterative development, user stories, frequent deliveries, keeping your options open, doing the simplest thing that works, refactor constantly. The reason for an iteration is to generate information. And of course, agile content development is similar.
Evenness is the key. Different techniques optimize different parts of the process. Optimize the whole, rather than just the parts.
Best practices aren't best unless they meet your context or your objective.
Productivity is the key, from manufacturing to development. Toyota looked at lean product development and figured out how to produce a new vehicle in one year, as opposed to North American companies taking two to three years. It was not just the manufacturing process. It applies to design. Toyota has a process for inventing things, for how you plan to envent things and put it on a schedule.
Agile programming methods have been applied very badly in many situations. The principles include specify value, identify the value stream, flow, pull, and perfection. The only thing that counts is what adds value to the customer. For example, moving something in a factory is waste. You are always looking for waste, which means you have to know what value is.
We often don't know all the processes that go into something. Identify the whole process by which value gets created. The key principle is flow. You want things to flow smoothly. Nothing is created until it is needed. For that to happen, you need a perfect flow.
In software development, the principles translate too eliminate waste, amplify learning, decide as late as possible, deliver as fast as possible, empower the team, build integrity, and see the whole. Why decide as late as possible? The later you make a decision, the more information that decision is based on.
These principles as applied to software development work also on content development.
We want content pull: We won't write soemthing until it's needed.
Taking this approach promotes learning.. Errors are found sooner. Errors in content result from defects in knowledge. The stuff in your head is inventory. Fix the defects in your knowledge so you can produce better content faster. this results is more efficiency--including no crunch at the end of a project.
The sooner you send your content for review, the more errors will be caught. A reviewer reading a book can't see the trees for the forest, but if you send content a chunk at a time, reviewers can focus on the one issue.
When you send stuff in pieces, it makes people who get it aware that documentation is part of the process. As a result, they are more likely to inform writers of design changes. When you make your doc process more visible, you get more feedback, more support. And that can make you more productive without changing any processes.
Waterfall fails because you're making decisions at the beginning, when you have less information.
Embrace change. Information increases throughout the process. Rather than building a system that doesn't let change in, build a disciplined process of learning. It means iteration. What is the most efficient way? It's a process that recognizes that you're trying to generate information.
Agile development includes iterative development, user stories, frequent deliveries, keeping your options open, doing the simplest thing that works, refactor constantly. The reason for an iteration is to generate information. And of course, agile content development is similar.
Evenness is the key. Different techniques optimize different parts of the process. Optimize the whole, rather than just the parts.
Best practices aren't best unless they meet your context or your objective.
Building Global Content Collaboration
If you can learn how to collaborate with each other, you can work better.
One aspect of getting funding for a CMS is that content was scattered around the world.
Don't forget to assess the corporate culture. For example, in startups, everyone has a real sense of ownership, of the product and of the content. Sit down with marketing and product development, partner with them, find out what their pain points are. Do this also when you acquire a company, rather than just telling them that you're the content people and their content is now yours.
Have to have a central place for content and a solid process so you can begin delivering content from disparate places. Content process looks a lot like product development process. Essential to automate the publishing cycle.
Mergers and acquisitions are the order of the day in today's business. Figure out that things are gong to change. Do you current business processes scale?
One aspect of getting funding for a CMS is that content was scattered around the world.
Don't forget to assess the corporate culture. For example, in startups, everyone has a real sense of ownership, of the product and of the content. Sit down with marketing and product development, partner with them, find out what their pain points are. Do this also when you acquire a company, rather than just telling them that you're the content people and their content is now yours.
Have to have a central place for content and a solid process so you can begin delivering content from disparate places. Content process looks a lot like product development process. Essential to automate the publishing cycle.
Mergers and acquisitions are the order of the day in today's business. Figure out that things are gong to change. Do you current business processes scale?
Breaking Bad Content
We are always struggling against bad content. No matter how much we struggle the problem doesn't go away. The problem seems to just get worse. How do we break the cycle that produces bad content? How do we discover what that cycle is?
We're using better and better tools,, and we seem to be digging a deeper and deeper hole.
You cannot subordinate content strategy to UX design. The nature of content is that it is a precursor, and predecessor, and a survivor. An overemphasis on the interface leads to content chaos.
Yeah! Science! One of the themes of this year's LavaCon is data and metrics. Focus on the data, use the data as a tool as the first step to breaking bad content. Get excited about quantification.
Build a good team. It doesn't need to be big, but build a good interdisciplinary team.
What's important about the process is thinking about the whole process. When you look at only a part, that investment we degenerate, especially as things change. Look at how your content is being used, not just how it's delivered.
If you over-invest on one part of a project, you will create imbalance and not survive. Balance and integration are what's important.
There is no "easy" button. Balance and integration are extremely hard. It's the communicators who have the opportunity, even the obligation, to connect the dots within their organization.
We're using better and better tools,, and we seem to be digging a deeper and deeper hole.
You cannot subordinate content strategy to UX design. The nature of content is that it is a precursor, and predecessor, and a survivor. An overemphasis on the interface leads to content chaos.
Yeah! Science! One of the themes of this year's LavaCon is data and metrics. Focus on the data, use the data as a tool as the first step to breaking bad content. Get excited about quantification.
Build a good team. It doesn't need to be big, but build a good interdisciplinary team.
What's important about the process is thinking about the whole process. When you look at only a part, that investment we degenerate, especially as things change. Look at how your content is being used, not just how it's delivered.
If you over-invest on one part of a project, you will create imbalance and not survive. Balance and integration are what's important.
There is no "easy" button. Balance and integration are extremely hard. It's the communicators who have the opportunity, even the obligation, to connect the dots within their organization.
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