Media » Presentation

When Content Management Needs a Content Strategy

What does content strategy mean to the well-established field of content management?

About This Presentation

Gilbane Boston 2009
Follow the discussion

What Is This?

I was invited to speak at Gilbane Boston 2009 last week on the following topic:

Getting ready for a redesign? Overhauling the CMS? Technology is one hurdle, but the real hurt comes in the huddle: how can technology, marketing and the business all communicate and collaborate? Get set for effective project results by establishing your content strategy first.

In 2009, content strategy–a small, decade-old field of practice hatched within the web design community–exploded into newfound prominence. This session will provide you with an instructive account of how and why content is increasingly dominating the conversation there, and what it means to the content management community at large.

Combining the principles of user experience design, content management and product development, content strategy plans for all aspects of the content lifecycle, from concept to modeling and production to reuse. A leading content strategist will demonstrate with clear examples how effective content management for your organization or clients starts with a sound content strategy.

Credits

Many thanks to Scott Liewehr and Joan Lasselle, with whom I shared the session, for the great post-presentation discussion.

Specific credit is due the following folks whom I quoted during the presentation:

Further Reading on Content Management

In this complex domain I find myself continually returning to the wisdom of Seth Gottlieb, the insight of David Hobbs, and the contrarianism of The CMS Myth. Read them closely and frequently.

  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Reddit
  • Twitter


Comments from Convotrack

2 Responses to “When Content Management Needs a Content Strategy”

  1. Meanwhile, in other 2010 WCM prediction news… « CMSish says:
    December 11, 2009 at 10:30 am

    [...] vendors will start bolting on interfaces targeting content strategists Partly because they watched this presentation and saw it was good. I’ve got some more specific thoughts about this, but hey, I don’t [...]

  2. Breaking more than just news | Richard Ingram | Shut the door on your way out Cicero… says:
    February 2, 2010 at 12:08 pm

    [...] “When Content Management Needs a Content Strategy” – Predicate, LLC, presentation from Gilbane Boston 2009 [...]

Leave a Reply

  • “ Thanks to Jeff's skillsets and speedy translation of our business needs into a workable editorial structure, we not only got it right but also landed on a content strategy that provides scalability and flexibility as our needs evolve in the future. ”

Notes on Content

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

Over the past few years, the magazine publisher has bought up a series of digital-ad agencies to create a full-service marketing shop. Called Meredith Integrated Marketing, the operation has created custom publishing, email, social media and mobile campaigns for major marketers, including Kraft Foods, Chrysler and Wells Fargo.

via Meredith Makes Inroads on Madison Avenue – WSJ.com.

03.10.10 | Advertising & Marketing, Agencies, Custom & Branded Content

 

To push for quick word choices by playing down their consequences, I’ve watched more than one web professional shrug and say “We’re not saving lives here.” Sometimes, I even nodded in agreement. Not anymore.

Colleen Jones, A List Apart: Articles: Words that Zing.

03.09.10 | Content Strategy, Theory & Practice

As a newsletter editor, you’ll sometimes feel like you’re stranded on a desert island, without a good story idea anywhere in sight. Actually, you’re swimming in a sea of material, if you know where to look. Here are 18 ready-made story ideas to choose from…

Ahern Communications, Ink.: Content / / 18 Newsletter Story Ideas: A Checklist.

03.08.10 | Editorial & Programming, Resources

Today I want to share the story of what one business media brand is doing to get closer to their audience, and how they are leveraging social media to drive editorial strategy.

Dan Blank: Publishing, Innovation & the Web » Blog Archive » How to Use LinkedIn to Drive Editorial Strategy.

03.05.10 | Editorial & Programming, Products & Services, Theory & Practice

via Stephanie Clifford, Survey Finds Slack Standards at Magazine Web Sites – NYTimes.com.

Slack Standards in Web Editorial

03.05.10 | Editorial & Programming, Organizational Effectiveness, Resources, Theory & Practice

As you might’ve seen, our friends at Engadget have shut down their comments, which had become overrun by troll hordes. Trolls lurk everywhere, but our system—often mystifying to newcomers—is designed to keep them out. Here’s why it’s better.

via Ryan Sholin, Gizmodo’s Comment System: How It Works and Why It’s Better.

03.04.10 | Theory & Practice, User-Generated Content

Liz Gannes, Chart: The Web Video Money Pit – GigaOM.

The Web Video Money Pit

03.03.10 | Industry Shift, Products & Services, Resources, Video

 

Has there ever been so much public blowback from a magazine’s own writers about a site redesign?

via Gillian Reagan, Atlantic Bloggers Blowback On New Site Design, Editors Say The Site Is User-Friendly, Needs To Make Money.

03.02.10 | Editorial & Programming, Launch/Relaunch

 

[T]reating blogs as a series of headlines, designed to maximize pageviews, is a deep misunderstanding of blogs, their reader communities and their integrity. I hope they get restored to their previous coherence, and these amorphous “channels” gain some editorial identity. I hope writers like Fallows and Goldberg aren’t treated as random fodder – anchors! – for “channels”. I believe in the Atlantic as a place for writing. The redesign seems to me to ooze casual indifference to that and to the respect that individual writers deserve.

via Andrew Sullivan, quoted by Adrian Chen, Borg-like Atlantic Redesign Sparks Blogger Identity Crisis – The Atlantic – Gawker.

03.01.10 | Editorial & Programming, Interaction Design, Launch/Relaunch

 

“Creating content for the web is an art and a science. There has been a lot of talk now about the science,” said Break.com CEO Keith Richman. “Those guys studying the science of it will be forced eventually to focus on the art of it.”

via Michael Learmonth, Lowered Expectations: Web Redefines ‘Quality’.

02.26.10 | Editorial & Programming, Industry Shift

Beet.TV: Online Video Search is "Next Wave" for Madison Avenue, says Amanda Richman.

02.25.10 | Advertising & Marketing

 

Big premium content producers allow these third parties ["horizontal-ad networks"] to aggregate their impressions and their data and pay mere pennies in return is one of the most value-destructive practices imaginable.

It is, in fact, these kinds of misguided practices that are at the root of the problems around making content organizations successful in the digital world.

via Jim Spanfeller, Think Technology Trumps Content? Well, You’re Wrong | paidContent.

02.24.10 | Advertising & Marketing

This content has been aggregated from external sources. Learn more about linkblogging and my use of it here. Authors, publishers and tipsters are welcome to contact me.