Web Content 2009

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A Conference Review

Everyone's a critic when it comes to professional conferences—and why not? Most are terrible. But that's another post. I simply ask you count me as a confirmed skeptic (with a dash of hopeful idealist). Why? Because it's the broader matter of knowledge exchange and professional growth that lies near and dear to my heart. And it's always a pleasure to meet people in your profession doing surprising and good work. Last week I was in Chicago, attending Web Content 2009. I was there at the generous invitation of Scott Abel, who is, along with Duo Consulting, the series co-founder and organizer. The event certainly won over this dour delegate in a few areas, and I'm hopeful you'll get a sense why from this report.

Sidebar: What We Talk About When We Talk About Content

There is a genuine dearth of conferences speaking directly to the content specialist community. [quote text="There is a genuine dearth of conferences speaking directly to the content specialist community."] What we do have, by and large, splinter along the lines of related professional associations for the following audiences:
  • technical communicators;
  • content management professionals;
  • information management executives;
  • online marketers; and
  • user experience and interaction designers.
At this time, content strategy fields no such events, not even panels—which helps to explain its limited visibility in this mix. Which is premature anyway, as there are leading practitioners in these adjacent fields whose work bears strongly upon our own. These are folks who, like Joe Pulizzi, are individually taking up the conversation around content strategy now, and will be our associates in helping communicate the message further afield. And they are, like Ann Rockley, the authors of some of the best books content strategists don't study. Yet. (Due to a side project of my own, I have a tall pile of such texts I'm steadily plowing through this year.) The chief value of Web Content 2009 was that it gave me a front-row opportunity to listen to and speak with a bevy of these folks, and to take a fresh accounting of their ideas in person. An additional point in this event's favor? It doesn't stand in exclusively for any of the above stakeholder groups. Judging from its '09 slate, it balances between the technical communications, content management and online marketing communities principally. And that counts as laudable diversity in the present conference landscape.

Highlights

Beyond Publishing: Exploring What We Are Really Doing With Web Content

Speaker: Joe Gollner
  • Gollner's genial keynote kicked off the conference with a lightning history of the information sciences from the perspective of content.
  • He proved an adept guide, and while much of the information was pitched at a novice-level audience, it was an appropriate landscape perspective on the problems we face daily.
  • Those interested in this presentation would do well to read Glut by Alex Wright, a superb cultural history of information management.
  • [Abstract.]

Engineering Web Content: A Workshop in Two Parts

Speaker: Joe Gollner
  • Gollner used this workshop to frame his methodology as content engineering.
  • Which was more than lip service. The deck is a feast of info-dense slides and an altogether successful feat of extended metaphor: the applicability of engineering to content management. All that's missing, alas, is his voiceover.
  • This is not for everyone. A colleague of mine, not in attendance, referred to this presentation as "bizarre" and I would agree in spirit—but it was the good-humored rigor of his thinking that shone through most in person.
  • [Abstract.]

Just Put That In The Zip Code Field...: The Ins and Outs of Content Modeling

Speaker: Deane Barker

  • This is an apt primer for anyone interested in content modeling, or in explaining it to others.
  • Chief takeaway: No less than requirements gathering, content modeling is a key exercise to undertake prior to CMS selection. Few organizations make the investment and pay for it later, handsomely.
  • Barker is an engaging speaker. His affection for content management clearly shows, much to his credit.
  • [Abstract.]

Who Put Video In My Content? Or How To Become A Video and Rich Media Superhero

Speaker: Todd O’Neill
  • O'Neill's presentation surprised for not being as elementary and rote as I'd expected.
  • He exuded the experience of a seasoned practitioner. From strategic considerations of international deployment and bandwidth to shot composition, there was no limit to the level of detail he was interested in addressing, which is for me the hallmark of a great consultant.
  • I was struck time and again through his presentation by the applicability of his thinking to the video strategy work I've undertaken repeatedly for clientele. For someone looking for a subject matter expert in this area, O'Neill is a candidate.
  • It would be intriguing to see him present on a more focused topic in future, and to reflect on his own client work.
  • [Abstract.]

Building a Scalable XML-based Dynamic Delivery Architecture: Standards and Best Practices

Speaker: Jerry Silver
  • Silver brought serious chops to a commanding overview of and rationale for XML technologies.
  • He didn't evangelize so much as communicate. He eschewed the hard sell.
  • He scrupulously demonstrated and supported his argument throughout with examples and observations on emerging best practices in the developer community.
  • [Abstract.]

Honorable Mentions

Needless to say, I was unable to take in a number of sessions from the dual-track program, but I should flag that:
  • Stewart Mader gave the most sublime sales pitch for wiki content imaginable;
  • Pulizzi made a candid plea for marketers to bring quality content to the table; and
  • To judge by Twitter and coffee break conversations, many of the most popular sessions were ones I didn't attend.
All that and Rockley opined on why Canadians seem to comprise so much of the vanguard among content management consultants. (See also: SGML.) Congratulations to all those involved with the conference.
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Notes on Content

A running report on must-read news, analysis and resources from the content industry. Updated frequently. »

via Alexis MadrigalThe 5 Keys to Tumblr for Media Outlets - Science and Tech - The Atlantic.

Tumblr Guide for Media Outlets

09.03.10 | Platforms & Channels

[O]ne could easily use Drupal's built-in user access controls, content types, and taxonomy capabilities to create a simple style guide involving several contributors. For different or specific functionality, you could even use book features or add wiki-like behaviors with other modules. We did something similar to this with our own firm handbook; it's meant as a collaborative repository of Digett's own policies and procedures. Our own style requirements—few as they may be—could easily be included, if I ever get tired of housing them in my own noggin.
via Where are all the Web-Based Style Guides? | Digett.

09.02.10 | Content Management, Editorial & Programming

About Earth-Touch.com

09.01.10 | Custom & Branded Content, Platforms & Channels, Products & Services

Whether on the supply side of content and applications, or on the distribution and run-time side of the equation, what is abundantly clear is that reach is still king. For platform makers, these battles will continue as they all seek to drive sufficient reach for their open and proprietary standards such that they can exploit this distribution for their core commercial goals. Likewise, and more important, whatever standards and models deliver the broadest reach will ultimately drive what is adopted by publishers, developers and ISVs.
via Jeremy AllaireThe Future of Web Content – HTML5, Flash & Mobile Apps | TechCrunch.

08.31.10 | Business Strategy, Content Specialists, Platforms & Channels, Video

via Leen Jones, Time & Our Focus on Content « Winning Content.

Viewing Content in Time

08.30.10 | Content Strategy, Organizational Effectiveness

via Patrick Burgoyne, Creative Review - Distill on your iPhone

08.27.10 | Launch/Relaunch, Platforms & Channels, Products & Services

 
I read lots of articles from mainstream media but I don't go to mainstream media directly to read it. It comes to me […]. More and more people are choosing social filters for their news rather than professional filters. We're tuning out television news, we're tuning out newspapers. And we still hear about the important stuff […]. It's news that matters. I figure by the time something gets to me it's been vetted by those I trust. via Henry Blodget, Chris Anderson's Unbelievably Annoying Interview with Spiegel

08.26.10 | Emerging Media, Industry Shift, Platforms & Channels, Social Media

Infographics Gallery | Information Graphics Designs | Data Visualization - Style & Flow.

Infographics Gallery

08.25.10 | Resources

I can tell you how I’d like to work with a content strategist as co-designers. I need you, Content Strategist Person, to tell me the following 10 things about content: 1. Range of priorities: The range of priorities within a given content type. For example, is every press release going to be equally important (or unimportant), or is there a big spread between the most important and the least important press release? 2. Algorithmic prioritization: Whether the relative priority among its peers can be determined by a rule, or if a human needs to decide. That is, given a set of five press releases, is there a rule I can reliably apply that will prioritize them? (For example: release date.) 3. Inherent prioritization: Whether there is an inherent prioritization between content types. That is, is every press release going to be more important than every white paper? 4. Plans for growth: The organization’s plans for growing or changing the content. 5. Level of effort: The complexity of the production process for each content type. Which content is hard to produce? Which content is easy to produce? Which content can I count on to always be up-to-date? Which content should be prioritized when it appears, and otherwise remain in the background? 6. Metadata authoring: The organization’s capacity for applying metadata, and what’s realistic in terms of populating a metadata framework. We’ll have lots of good ideas on how to link content together, but those ideas probably won’t work unless we understand the organization’s ability to tag the content. 7. Metadata parameters: Parameters for different metadata fields. As we’re designing wireframes, let’s be smart about how much text we need to display. 8. User needs: The need for transparency to the users about some of the underlying structures. How much do users care about content type? Help me distinguish administrative metadata from metadata that actually contributes to findability. 9. Users needs (2): How the content fits into user scenarios. Is this transient content (stuff just to get them just to the next step) or destination content? How will people use the content once they find it? What are you doing to align the content with requirements specified in personas or elsewhere? 10. Sample content: Finally, if you want me to put sample content in my wireframes, I’m totally game. Just give me the sample content. via Dan Brown, Letter to a Content Strategist « Greenonions.

08.24.10 | Content Strategy, Interaction Design, Organizational Effectiveness

“At this point it was a huge Excel spreadsheet,” says Schmitt. “For some weird reason, the data started in January of ‘04 and it ended in like April of ’09. And we couldn’t figure out why does it end there? Assange later comes and says it doesn’t end there—you just gotta open up a new screen or whatever… It was clear that we were going to need some technical assistance”.
via Clint Hendler, The Story Behind the Publication of WikiLeaks’s Afghanistan Logs : CJR.

08.23.10 | Editorial & Programming

via David Hobbs, 3 Step Check for New CMS.

08.20.10 | Content Management

via Richard Ingram, Get a firm grip of your web content –  on Flickr.

Get a Firm Grip of Your Web Content

08.19.10 | Content Management, Content Strategy

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