Content strategy day at tcworld11/tekom11

Scott Abel hosted a full day of content strategy talks with many big shots of the industry at tcworld11 (the international half of tekom11). Strategies and case studies by Joe Gollner, Ann Rockley & Charles Cooper, Aaron Fulkerson (of MindTouch), Rahel Ann Bailie & Geoff Roberts, and Noz Urbina were followed by a panel discussion for which Ray Gallon joined them.

The content strategy panel, left to right: Scott, Joe, Rahel, Ray, Ann, Noz, Charles. Click to enlarge. Photo by @umpff, used with permission.

Highlights of the sessions

Joe Gollner on intelligent content strategies

Intelligent content, said Joe, is actionable information that exposes itself to people and machines. Such content (think tool-independent XML) is shareable, portable, resuable, findable and hence manageable. This makes content a strategic asset that can be leveraged to achieve business goals.

An integrated content solution requires 7 steps:

1. Define the content strategy as a goal-oriented action plan
2. Analyse what content you need
3. Design how you put your content together
4. Explore and learn about your content
5. Transform your content to make it intelligent (and loop back to 4.)
6. Validate your content to confirm it’s intelligent
7. Deploy and use it (and loop back to 1.)

Aaron Fulkerson on help 2.0 strategy

Documentation should live up to marketing’s promise, said Aaron, but instead it’s too often a crappy pamphlet in the shiny box. A better, a 2.0 version of help lifts customers over Kathy Sierra’s passion threshold in a social help center.

Aaron presenting benefits and key features of the Social Help Center. Click to enlarge.

A social help center turns documentation into a social learning experience, and it doubles as your customer relationship management center. Supply the documentation basis and empower your existing client base to augment it: Enable peer-to-peer learning for all the unique search terms on the documentation long tail that your documentation does not or cannot cover. Once you install success metrics, you can even use documentation to find what customers use and need to drive sales.

For an example of a social help center (built using MindTouch), visit http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/.

To read more about Aaron’s argument, see his Forbes’ article “The Evolution Of User Manuals“.

Two dimensions of content strategy

I came away with a extended take on content strategy. I still believe that content strategy means to break down silos between different producers of content within an organization, for more efficient and effective communication with consumers, whether they are customers or colleagues.

But now I think there are two dimensions of content strategy, with different scope:

• Breaking down content silos among content stakeholders is a daunting task for a technical communicator: You need to get product management and marketing, training and customer service, along with your colleagues, all in the same boat. But depending on your corporate culture, this might still be something that can be driven from inside tech comm, with enthusiasm and a clear mission.
• Larger corporate content strategies, as Joe and Noz presented them, essentially change the way an organization works. You still need all stakeholders on board, but you also need a mandate from management, a budget, and most likely some consulting help.

I asked the panel whether such a corporate content strategy could be taken on from within the organization, for example, by the tech comm team. They replied:

• Better not. You only get one shot, so you can’t afford to blow it. Better get the help of an experienced consultant who speaks management’s language.
• Most of it. Because consultants don’t do the actual work, they teach and enable technical communicators.

In the end, I think I saw the vanguard of content strategy and learned as much about this exciting field in a day as possible. I may well have seen one future of technical communications and will benefit from knowing its principles and objectives.

But a mismatch between the message and the audience remains: Much of what I learned seemed directed at managers, but not something I could apply in my current job as technical communicator.

So for now, I’ll stick with breaking down the silos which is more within my reach. For a more applicable example, check my post on Ray Gallon’s webinar about “Content Strategy for Software Development”.

But I’ll watch out for the corporate content strategy, so I don’t miss the boat when it sails… 🙂

Your turn

How do you think content strategy applies to technical communicators? Feel free to leave a comment.

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