Avoid Long-Term Strategies

When it comes to information management or content management strategies, particularly at the enterprise level, there is a strong tendency (and desire) to create long-term plans. This briefing will explore some of the issues encountered when creating and executing long-term plans, and will argue for an approach that delivers benefits on a much more frequent basis.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2007). Articles>Content Management>Content Strategy

Avoiding the Content Silo Trap™, Enterprise Content Management  

Organizations frequently fall into the content silo trap, multiple authors creating similar information, in many areas of the organization. Authors rarely share their information (they work in silos) or are even aware that this information already exists elsewhere in the organization. Technical communicators have been single sourcing for years, this session looks at how to move beyond technical publications to assist your organization with enterprise content management. This session includes a case study from Eli Lilly.

Rockley, Ann and Jodee Clore. STC Proceedings (2002). Design>Content Management>Content Strategy

Better Content Management through Information Architecture

Content Management Systems promise so much: content is easier to publish, easier to update, and easier to find and use. Lots of promises, but do CMSs really deliver? Masood Nasser examines why Content Management Systems often fail and shows how Information Architecture can come to the rescue.

Nasser, Masood. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>Content Strategy

The CAA: A Wicked Good Design Technique

Discusses Category Agreement Analysis, a card-sorting technique to help create usable information architectures.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2003). Articles>Information Design>Content Strategy>Card Sorting

CMS Wiki

CMS Wiki is a knowledge base for Content Management.

CMS Wiki. Resources>Content Management>Information Design>Content Strategy

Companies Struggling with Unstructured Content

Firms wrestling with unstructured data such as emails and spreadsheets don't see enterprise content management as the answer to their problems.

Milne, Janine. Computer Business Review (2008). Articles>Content Management>Content Strategy>Metadata

Content Management and Information Architecture

Content management is information architecture writ large.

Boiko, Bob. ASIST (2001). Presentations>Content Management>Information Design>Content Strategy

A Content Management Project Presents Unique Challenges

At a basic level, implementing a content management system (CMS) is like deploying any other large software package. Fundamental project management principles must be followed, along with best practice technical guidelines. Beyond this, however, a CMS project presents a number of unique challenges. These must be recognised and addressed for the project to be successful.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2003). Design>Content Management>Information Design>Content Strategy

Content Management: Web Publishing Needs Real Discipline

Too many organizations take an unprofessional approach to the content they publish on the Web. Many web managers still seem to believe that if they get the technology right the publishing will look after itself. Quality publishing requires skill and discipline. Unfortunately, discipline is something many web teams are lacking.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2003). Articles>Content Management>Content Strategy

Content Strategy: The Philosophy of Data

As interactions proliferate, so does the content that supports them. Why should software professionals take a step back and examine their content from a philosophical perch? Rachel Lovinger takes a look at content strategy and the benefits of its perspectives.

Lovinger, Rachel. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>Content Management>Theory>Content Strategy

Content: What is it and Why Should You Manage It?

A unified content strategy can help your organization to avoid the Content Silo Trap, reducing the cost of creating, managing, and distributing content, and ensuring that content effectively supports your organizational and customer needs. A unified content strategy is a repeatable method of identifying all content requirements up front, creating consistently structured content for reuse, managing that content in a definitive source, and assembling content on demand to meet your customers' needs.

Kostur, Pamela. STC Chicago (2005). Articles>Content Management>Content Strategy

Defining 'Value-Adding Work' of In-House Information Development Groups  

Many in-house information development groups are redefining their role (or seeking to justify their existence) around the concept of 'value-adding work.' But which tasks are value-adding? Finding an answer to this question is critical for the survival of information development groups. Unfortunately, there is no easy, 'one size fits all' answer, because the response depends largely on your point of view. Thus, deciding what is and isn't value-adding may require technical communicators to do more project-by-project task, audience, and media analysis than ever before.

Collins, William L. STC Proceedings (1998). Careers>Content Management>Information Design>Content Strategy

Developing an Information Strategy  

The role of the technical communicator has been changing dramatically over the past few years. Gone are the days when hefty user manuals are considered desirable. Technical communicators must now think of ways of building intuitiveness into products to obviate the need for reams and reams of hard copy documentation. This understanding forms the basis for developing an information strategy.

Florsheim, Stewart J. STC Proceedings (1997). Design>Documentation>Information Design>Content Strategy

Don't Start With Technology

I've seen dozens of companies waste hundreds of thousands of dollars because they chose their management tools before they had a clear understanding of their business needs, information life cycle and content.

Rockley, Ann. Transform (2004). Articles>Content Management>Content Strategy

Everything is Connected

These are exciting times and we have a great opportunity to finally leverage technical communications into the spotlight. The value of information is finally being properly realised, and we are ideally placed to help any organisation make the most of what information they have and help them understand and create the information they really need.

McLean, Gordon. One Man Writes (2008). Articles>Content Management>Content Strategy

Fundamental Concepts of Reuse  

Content reuse is fundamental to a successful unified content strategy.This chapter defines content reuse and the benefits ofits use.It explores how other industries have employed reuse for decades to improve their processes and the quality oftheir products. Content can be reused in many ways. The choice ofthe different methods and options for reuse are dependent upon your organization’s needs and technology.This chapter details the pros and cons ofusing each method and the associated options,and it provides the concepts that underlie the remainder ofthe book.

Rockley, Ann. AIfIA (2003). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Content Strategy

Information Architects and Their Central Role in Content Management

The process of content management begins when an organization comes to the realization that it needs a system to manage content. While the interpretation of the term content management (CM) can be as simple as a set of guidelines for organizing and maintaining content, more typically today it means a sophisticated software-based system. A full-featured content management system (CMS) takes content from inception to publication and does so in a way that provides for maximum content accessibility and reuse and easy, timely, accurate maintenance of the content base.

Warren, Rita. ASIST (2001). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>Content Strategy

Information Architecture of Content Management

When people think about content management, they generally think about it from a systems perspective, focusing primarily on tools and technology. While it is true that content management usually requires a technological solution, it also requires that content be designed for reuse, retrieval, and delivery to meet your authors' and customers' needs. Content management requires that tools be configured to support authoring, reviewing, and publishing tasks, but first, those tasks must be designed. Designing content and the processes to create, review, and publish it is what information architecture is all about. The Information Architecture section of The Rockley Report will focus on the different aspects of information architecture for content management. This article introduces you to some of the components of information architecture that we will cover in The Rockley Report over time.

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>Content Strategy

Integrating Content Management with Portals: Meeting Enterprise Information Needs  

Effective communication is a top priority for most businesses. To help create, manage, and access information that is used to conduct e-business, technologies such as content management (CM) and enterprise information portals (EIP) are dominating IT and CIO discussions. We will review how these rapidly evolving technologies come together to provide benefits for enterprise implementers. Given the historical deployment of these technologies, many associate the application of content management solutions to externally facing sites, serving transactional e-business needs; and the application of portals to internally facing sites for general employee access to a wide range of information sources and applications. However, both technologies can provide support for the complete information lifecycle, from information creation to management to delivery.

CAP Ventures. Articles>Content Management>Information Design>Content Strategy

Issues in Information Modeling  

A brief overview of a unified content strategy.

Kostur, Pamela. STC Region 7 Proceedings (2002). Articles>Information Design>Content Strategy

Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy  

Today's businesses are overwhelmed with the need to create more content, more quickly, customized for more customers and for more media than ever before. Combine this with decreasing resources, time, and budgets and you have a stressful situation for organizations and their content creators. To reduce the costs of creating, managing, and distributing content and to ensure content effectively supports your organizational and customer needs, organizations can benefit from a unified content strategy. A unified content strategy is a repeatable method of identifying all content requirements up front, creating consistently structured content for reuse, managing that content in a definitive source, and assembling content on demand to meet your customers' needs.

Rockley, Ann. E-Doc (2002). Design>Content Management>Collaboration>Content Strategy

Planning and Analysis Articles and Surveys

Provides you with several resources you may find valuable during the planning and analysis phases of implementing content management.

Abel, Scott. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Content Strategy

Storage and Enterprise Content Management  

Almost one-third of the users reported that more than 40 percent of the storage spending is for unstructured documents and information--I think that percentage will continue to grow annually. Further, AIIM President John Mancini, who prepared the report, found that larger organizations especially are aggressively pursuing consolidation and rationalization of their storage and archiving strategies--but that cost is not the prime motivation behind those activities.

McKellar, Hugh. KMworld (2006). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>Content Strategy

Structured Content Management in the Enterprise  

As other areas within organizations begin to consider structured content for the same reasons as technical communication departments, technical communicators have a golden opportunity to assist others in their move toward structured CM.

Rockley, Ann. Intercom (2007). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>Content Strategy