Content strategy and engineers
When developing a content strategy, you consider marcom, techcomm, and other groups whose primary role is creating content.
But don’t forget about engineering. Just ask the NASA Mohawk Guy.
Content strategy burdens: cost-shifting
In assessing an organization’s requirements, it’s important to identify content strategy burdens. That is, what practices or processes impose burdens on the organization? A content strategy burden might be an external cost, such as additional translation expense, or it might be an internal cost, such as a practice in one department that imposes additional work on a different department. A key to successful content strategy is to understand how these burdens are distributed in the organization.
Content without a face: anonymity, egos, and corporate content
The novels of Italian author Elena Ferrante are getting a lot of attention, but “Elena Ferrante” doesn’t actually exist. The writer behind the pen name prefers anonymity and shies away from publicity. Creators of corporate content should take a few pointers from the author when seeking recognition for their work.
XML workflow costs (premium)
Everyone wants to know how much an XML workflow is going to cost. For some reason, our prospective clients are rarely satisfied with the standard consultant answer of “It depends.”
This post outlines typical XML projects at four different budget levels: less than $50,000, $150K, $500K, and more than $500K.
The companies described are fictional composites. You should not make any major budgetary (or life) decisions based on these rough estimates. Your mileage may vary. Insert any other disclaimers I have forgotten.
Three factors for evaluating localization vendors
Localizing content can be a frustrating and expensive effort. In addition to per-word costs and turnaround times, keep these three key factors in mind when choosing a vendor.
Fall 2014 Scriptorium conference round-up
We have a full schedule of stellar conferences coming up this fall. We hope to see you at one or more of these events.
Engage before change: your content strategy mantra
If you’re about to revamp your content strategy, repeat after me:
Engage before change.
Content strategy failure in ten easy steps (premium)
Here’s how to ensure content strategy failure in ten easy steps. Follow these steps to guarantee that your project disintegrates in spectacular fashion. The top three are:
- Pick your tools first.
- Don’t talk to stakeholders.
- Make bad assumptions.
Content strategy mistake: replicating old formatting with new tools
When remodeling your kitchen, would you replace 1980s almond melamine cabinets with the same thing? Probably not. (I certainly wouldn’t!) Then why make the content strategy mistake of using new tools to re-create the old formatting in your content?
DITA content strategy
How can you implement DITA content strategy? Is DITA itself a content strategy?
