LavaCon UX 2020 is a virtual content strategy conference with a New Orleans flair. Scriptorium is sponsoring and presenting at the conference. Bill Swallow will present Smart content in weird places. Gretyl Kinsey will be presenting a case study, A match made in DITA, with Karen Brothers of 3M. Presentation times coming soon!
Contact us to schedule a virtual meeting during the conference.
Introducing The Content Strategy Experts webcast!
Getting ready to set up a taxonomy? Join Bill Swallow and Gretyl Kinsey as they share some of the most important steps to take when planning for your taxonomy.
In episode 74 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Gretyl Kinsey and Simon Bate continue their discussion about the benefits of establishing a taxonomy.
“Communicate with the stakeholders. Don’t just get their input and then go away. Communicate all along what you’re doing and identify your benefits.”
—Simon Bate
In episode 73 of The Content Strategy Experts Podcast, Gretyl Kinsey and Simon Bate talk about the benefits of establishing a taxonomy.
“Filtering is possible through the use of taxonomies. They have a real world benefit for people looking to find something.”
—Simon Bate
Looking for ways to save your company time and money? Content reuse allows you to write content once and use it again in multiple places. Do these use cases for reuse apply to your content?
Do your customers know the right words to search for? Does marketing refer to your product one way while the tech team refers to it another? Inconsistent word use causes confusion within your company and negatively affects customers’ perception of your brand. So what causes the inconsistencies, and how do you fix them?
In episode 64 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Gretyl Kinsey and Alan Pringle talk about content strategies that have a limited or smaller scope.
“When you are limited it may slow you down, but at least you’re moving forward. It’s baby steps. It’s increments. It’s important to realize, yes it’s limiting, but you can take that and make it an advantage.”
—Alan Pringle
Content value is a hot topic in marketing and technical communication. In the publishing industry, the connection between content and value is clear. A publisher sells a book (or film or other piece of content) and gets book sales, ticket revenue, or streaming subscriptions in return. But what if your content is a part of the product (like user documentation) or used to sell the product (like a marketing white paper)? In these cases, measuring content value is much more challenging.
It is tempting to fall back on measuring cost instead of value. The cost of content development can be a trap, though. Eliminating wasted effort and optimizing content workflows is sensible, but too much focus on cost leads us toward content as a commodity.
If done properly, a new content strategy will bring added value to your organization. The transition itself is not always easy, and the success of the projects depends on your stakeholders. Much like trick or treating, you never know what to expect when someone “opens the door” to change:
In episode 62 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Gretyl Kinsey and Bill Swallow continue their discussion from episode 61 and talk about best practices for planning.
“You need to be mindful about how what you’re doing is going to impact other groups. You can’t just assume they’re going to play ball when you start rolling out a new strategy. Make sure they’re not only on board in theory, but that they are pretty much committed to the success of the project because they should have a stake in it in some form as well.”
— Bill Swallow
