surprise! you're a content "engineer"

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PREPARED BY

SURPRISE! YOU’RE A CONTENT “ENGINEER”

@MARSINTHESTARS

October 18, 2015

BOLO Conference

Marli Mesibov, Director of Content StrategyMad*Pow

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• Director of Content Strategy at Mad*Pow

• Managing Editor of UX Booth

• Not an engineer. Not even a little.

BOLO | @marsinthestars

Who am I? Why am I here?

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CONTENT STRATEGY

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What is Content Strategy?BOLO | @marsinthestars

“Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.”

- Kristina Halvorson, Brain Traffic

5BOLO | @marsinthestars

What is Content Strategy?

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The End Goal: get the content to the right people, in the right places, at the right time.

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THE TECHNICAL SIDE


The role of a content technologist



Workflow is a process followed by a team. A good workflow accounts for everyone who needs to have a say in the content without slowing down the creation process.



Governance is a team’s process for managing content. Governance tactics streamline the editing and retiring of content according to when it stops being relevant.



Substance includes the voice and tone as well as the message the content conveys.



Structure is intertwined with technology and development. We decide on a structure for our content, which informs the technology we choose, which in turn shapes the structure of the content.

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THE PROBLEM(S) WITH STRUCTURE


Problem #1: Technology changes quickly

• We can’t possibly keep up with it• There are hundreds of content management

systems in existence• They are changing (upgrading, changing

features, or shutting down) daily


Problem #2: Chicken and the egg

• We need to use a CMS to understand what we want out of a CMS, which means we first need a CMS in order to choose the right CMS to use…

• Ain’t nobody got time (or budget) for that


Problem #3: Blind selection

• The people with the purchasing power are not likely to be the people who will be publishing on the system

• They don’t have the same needs we do• They don’t know what to look for• They choose based on price or

recommendations rather than customized criteria

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10 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW


10 things you need to know

“While intelligent content is all about the content ‘plumbing,’ people don’t have to be plumbers themselves to think strategically about making content more intelligent.”-Marcia Riefer Johnston



#1 The technology you need? It already exists.

This list is only half the PHP systems.



#2 Every system offers add-ons, for additional functionality.



#3 Start with what you want the content to do.



#4 Build personas.



#5 Next, figure out what the personas want to do with the content.

Share it? Contribute? Review?



#6 Work with a developer to match goals to functionality.

Make use of others’ knowledge.



#7 Ask questions. Ask your manager, coworkers, development team, users, everyone.

You don’t know what you don’t know.



#8 Make the functionality into your CMS requirements checklist.



#9 Demo. Demo. Demo.

You would never buy a car without a test drive.



#10 Build a governance plan.


Resources

• Training the CMS, by Eileen Webb

• The 5 Ws of Adaptive Content: A New Look at Making Content Contextually Appropriate, by Noz Urbina

• Author Experience: Bridging the Gap Between People and Technology in Content Management, by Rick Yagodich

• The New Definition of Content Strategy, by Ryan Johnson


Thank you!