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background imageflickr: thelastminute
Content strategy in technical communication
Sarah OKeefe, Scriptorium PublishingTwitter: @sarahokeefe
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Housekeeping notes
Everyone is muted except for the presenter
Please ask your questions through the Questions area in the webcast interface
The presentation is being recorded; attendees do not appear in the recording
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
What is content strategy?
Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.
Content strategy is a plan to get you from where you are now with your current content (assets, operations, distribution, maintenance, and so on), to where you want to be.
- Kristina Halvorson
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Tech comm needs more than web content strategy. Localization
Embedded help
Context-sensitive help
Code comments
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Complicated requirements
Multiple outputs
Regulated content
Coordination with product development
Versioning/conditionality
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Content strategy in tech comm
A plan for
your information
Developing
Delivering
Deploying
Destroying
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Yet another buzzword?
Theres definitely hype
Content strategy is different from technical communication (or technical writing)
flickr: anitakhart
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Content strategy
Tech comm LocalizationCommunity Training
Technical writingUI stringsVideos
ForumsWikis
ScopeProcess
Coursewaree-learning
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Our content strategy methodology Analyze an established content
workflow
Identify business problem(s)
Identify new requirements
Develop solutions to address requirements
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Analyzing an established workflow
flickr: st3f4n
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Broken workflows
PDF deliverables not meeting user needs
Current workflow cannot scale to address localization and/or new products
Need a strategy to foster and manage community participation in technical content
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Audience: What problems do you see? Describe your content problems in the
Questions tab
We will display your contributions to all attendees
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
More problems
Developing content in Agile
Workflow is inefficient and expensive
Current deliverables are of low quality
Need to align content development better with product development
Complex conditions not supported by current toolset
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Identify business problem
flickr:state-records-nsw
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
PDF deliverables not meeting user needs Users are unhappy (quality)
They call tech support, which is expensive for us (money)
We spend a lot of time formatting for print (time), but users still hate it (quality)
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Audience: Describe your business problem Describe your problem in business
terms (time, money, quality) in the Questions tab
We will display your contributions to all attendees
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Workflow cannot scale for localization and/or new products
Customers interpret English-only docs as a sign that we are not serious about selling to them (quality)
We have a six-month delay between English and localized products (time)
We are losing revenue in non-English markets (money)
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Need a strategy for community participation Our complex product needs
participation from community experts (quality)
Building a robust community is less expensive than hiring additional people to create content internally (money)
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Identify new requirements
flickr: Francisco Diez
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Requirement examples
Community participation
Accelerated deployment
Simultaneous shipment in multiple languages
New output formats
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Develop solutionsflickr: Svadilfari
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
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and other requirements
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
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Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Developing
Who is the audience?
Common characteristics
How does your audience want to get information?
What information do they need?
Use cases
Personas
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
What is the best way to deliver each type of information?
flickr: clearlyambiguous
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
The wrong approach
Current knowledge of tools and technologies
Readily available software
Personal preference
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Some delivery options
Traditional paper manual
Web-based configuration tool
Help and embedded help
Web pages
Forums, wikis, and other collaborative content
Live video, screencasts, animation, podcasts
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Break out of the book
flickr: kellymccarthy
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Community strategy
Participation
Moderation
Feedback loop
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Regulated environmentsflickr: jmrosenfeld
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Delivering
What is the best format for our audience?
How do we create this format?
Content management issues
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Deploying
How do we get our output to our audience?
How do we make sure that the audience has access to the information?
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Content destruction
What happens when information becomes obsolete?
How do we handle archiving and retention?
What about versioning? How many versions should be available?
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Change management
Consider incremental improvements
Look for flexible solutions that can grow and evolve
Componentize?
Review every 25 years, depending on your organizations velocity
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Poll: Content strategy
Fab!
Fad
Meh. Whatever.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Resources
knol.google.com/k/content-strategy#
Bibliography of Wikipedia entry on content strategy for book references
www.scriptorium.com/2010/10/content-strategy-for-technical-communication/
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Final notes
scriptorium.com/resources/webcasts for the webcast recording (allow three business days)
Check scriptorium.com/events for upcoming events
Tuesday, November 9, 2010