Web Content 2009

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.

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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