Structured content
Full transcript of finance in tech comm podcast
00:00 Sarah O’Keefe: Welcome to the Content Strategy Expert’s podcast, brought to you by Scriptorium. Since 1997, Scriptorium has helped companies manage, structure, organize and distribute content in an efficient way.
Hi, everyone, I’m Sarah O’Keefe. In episode 15, we have a special guest, Erin Vang. Erin is the owner and principal pragmatist of Global Pragmatica, which provides statistical management and content strategy consulting to Fortune 500 companies. Erin’s been doing that since 2008 and has also held senior management positions at Dolby Labs, SAS, and SYSTAT, in software technical communications, QA, program management, and localization. Erin, welcome.
Content strategy: you’re doing it wrong
This post is part of Scriptorium’s 20th anniversary celebration.
You know you’re doing content strategy wrong when…
- You focus on tools and not business requirements:
Content strategy, a food analogy
If content is like food, then content strategy is the delivery system, whether a restaurant or a home cook feeding a family. Scriptorium is full of people who like to eat and cook, so food analogies are always popular around here.
It’s never too late for content strategy
We often talk about building content strategies from the ground up: first, coming up with a strategy to address your content problems, and then implementing a solution. But not all implementations happen that way. If you’ve already started implementing a new system, it’s not too late to think about content strategy—in fact, it’s crucial to make sure your new processes will be sustainable.
Full transcript of the content strategy ROI podcast
00:00 Bill: Welcome to The Content Strategy Experts podcast, brought to you by Scriptorium. Since 1997, Scriptorium has helped companies manage, structure, organize, and distribute content in an efficient way. In episode 13, we discuss measuring the return on investment in a content strategy implementation. Hi, everybody. This is Bill Swallow, the Director of Operations here at Scriptorium. I am here with Sarah O’Keefe, the founder and CEO.
Defining a content strategy
The scope and practice of content strategy is ever-expanding. From marketing to user experience to technical content development, the need for a strategy governing content creation and production grows. With this growth, the definitions of content strategy can vary, but they all recognize that the need for effective and targeted content is critical.
Back to school: measuring content strategy ROI
Here in the United States, the summer is now officially over and students are back to school. For many, this means a change in routine and a fresh outlook on the remainder of the year. This is an excellent time to direct that fresh outlook to your content by measuring your content strategy ROI.
Full transcript of transitioning from strategy to implementation podcast
00:00 Bill Swallow: Welcome to the Content Strategy Experts podcast brought to you by Scriptorium. Since 1997, Scriptorium has helped companies manage, structure, organize and distribute content in an efficient way. In episode 11, we’ll talk about transitioning from a developed content strategy to implementation of that strategy.
Change management during mergers
Last year we wrote about content strategy after mergers and acquisitions. While many infrastructure decisions and changes need to be made, change management on the personnel side is critical for success.
Things have changed since we wrote this! Check out new insights from our team in this post.
Full transcript of client-consultant relationship podcast
00:00 Sarah O’Keefe: Welcome to The Content Strategy Experts podcast brought to you by Scriptorium. Since 1997 Scriptorium has helped companies manage, structure, organize, and distribute content in an efficient way. In episode 10, we discuss the client consultant relationship. What does it look like when you bring in a content strategy consultancy like Scriptorium? Hi everybody, I’m Sarah O’Keefe, I’m the principal at Scriptorium, I’m in our podcasting studio in Durham, North Carolina on a sweltering July and I’m virtually at least with Bill Swallow. Bill are you there?
00:35 Bill Swallow: I am here.
Full transcript of 20 years of content strategy
00:00 Announcer: This is the Content Strategy Experts podcast produced by Scriptorium. Since 1997 Scriptorium has helped companies manage, structure, organize and distribute content in an efficient way.
00:13 Bill Swallow: Welcome to the Content Strategy Experts podcast brought to you by Scriptorium. In episode eight we consider how the industry has changed over the past 20 years. Welcome, this is Bill Swallow from Scriptorium Publishing. I am here with Sarah O’Keefe, who is the founder and CEO.
Content: Is it really a business asset?
Assets have long life, and their value depreciates over time. Does content meet that definition?
Your content is not special
You. You over there with the finicky formatting and the inability to use templates and the hours of adjusting graphics when you add a paragraph.
Yes. You.
Structured authoring and XML
Coauthored by Sarah O’Keefe and Alan Pringle
First published in 2001.
Structured authoring and XML represent a significant paradigm shift in content creation. Implementing structured authoring with XML allows organizations to enforce content organization requirements. The addition of hierarchy and metadata to content improves reuse and content management. These benefits, however, must be weighed against the effort required to implement a structured authoring approach. The business case is compelling for larger writing organizations; they will be the first to adopt structured authoring. Over time, improvements in available tools will reduce the cost of implementing structured authoring and make it affordable for smaller organizations.
Content strategy success: from technical to tangible
A content strategy implementation requires you to address multiple technical facets: tool and process integration, specifications for how content is delivered, and so on. These technical details, however, are of little interest to the executives who control funding. They are much more interested in seeing results to justify continued spending.
2017 content strategy trend: the rise of the machine (translation)
My 2017 trend is the impact of machine translation on content strategy.
The horror! More content strategy monsters!
The ghoulish nasties I depicted two years ago in Content Strategy vs. The Undead continue to haunt content strategy implementations and information development projects.
They just… won’t… DIE!
However, they are not the only monsters that can terrorize your content strategy implementation.
Easy ways to undermine marketing with content strategy
Does your content deliver on your marketing promises?
Before XML, improve DTP
Thinking about migrating unstructured content to XML? Take a hard look at your existing desktop publishing workflow. The maturity of your DTP process will have a big impact on a move to XML.
Following a template-based DTP workflow is not just about implementing best-practice processes. Templates make a potential move to XML less expensive and painful.
Tech comm, content strategy, and coaching
Earlier in the year, I was chatting with Sharon Burton. As an aside to our knitting-focused discussion, I asked her what new services we should offer.
Going for the gold with your content strategy
Now that the 2016 Olympic Games have come to a close, countries are tallying up their final medal counts. Athletes are assessing their performances, celebrating their victories or mourning their losses. After you’ve implemented a content strategy, you should also assess the project to determine how successful it was.
Content strategy after mergers and acquisitions
Mergers and acquisitions often result in a new content strategy. In a typical scenario, the merged company needs to align disparate content organizations. Before the merger, the companies had different tools, technologies, workflows, deliverables, and content culture. A goal of the merger is to unify company products, and therefore, the merged organization must also unify content development.
Your content strategy easy win
You have a content strategy plan. Management has agreed to fund implementation. Time for the happy dance, right?
A little celebration is in order. But you still have to prove your new strategy will work in the real world. Showing early success with an “easy win” during implementation will give you momentum.
