Content Strategy Articles and Blog Posts via JColeman

The process of publishing content, particularly when it includes content destined for the web, continues to be a mysterious process for corporate stakeholders, and sometimes for those involved in the process of publishing. The simplest of project plans I've ever been given came from a program coordinator, circa 1995, and looked like this: This was woefully inadequate from a production perspective.

You may say that all this is fine and good to position content strategists as the management consultants of the content world, but what does an aspiring content strategist do with that information? What concrete steps can you take to make the move to content strategy?

A story that drives home the place of content strategy in the field of user experience is about my mother. When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, I, being the eldest child, went into research mode.

A web CMS: a system that manages web content. It sounded like a dream come true. But what they failed to mention is that the system simply facilitates the management of the content, not its creation. You solved a technical problem and created a human one- real people with little or no experience are now creating official institutional content on your behalf.

Yesterday at Web Directions South in Sydney, I gave a talk about Adapting to Responsive Design. I didn't talk about media queries, responsive images or fluid grids (yes, I know - that's not like me). Instead, I talked about some of the other things that responsive design challenges: process, business, advertising and content.

In 1927, Jan Tschichold published his seminal manifesto: Die neue Typographie. As with all manifestos, it's a work of vision, new ways we should think; a work of unwavering principles on how we should design printed material.

There's a lot of drum-beating going on about content strategy these days-some of it good, some of it just noisy. It can be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. So, I'm going to talk about some of the wheat: The good parts of the content strategy trend.

How do content strategists work with IAs/designers/writers? I get this question a lot: How do content strategists work with IAs/designers/writers? Truthfully, they often don't. But, they can and they should. Not only should they work together, they should do away with the typical web project process that leaves content until last, resulting in a mad scramble.

It's a question being asked a lot these days. By clients, the industry, fellow colleagues, creatives, technologists; the list goes on. So in June I attended an EConsultancy course on Digital Content Strategy delivered by Catherine Toole, CEO of Sticky Content to find out from a seasoned content strategist.

I know this will likely come as a shock to many of you, but I have a Twitter alert set up for "content strategy." It's really extraordinary how the tweets about content strategy have EXPLODED over the past few months. A year ago, maybe I'd see one or two a day.

It's time to stop pretending content is somebody else's problem. If content strategy is all that stands between us and the next fix-it-later copy draft or beautifully polished but meaningless site launch, it's time to take up the torch, time to make content matter. Halvorson tells how to understand, learn, practice, and plan for content strategy.

As we throw away our canvas in approaches and yearn for a content-out process, there remains a pain point: the Content. It is spoken of in the hushed tones usually reserved for Lord Voldemort. The-thing-that-someone-else-is-responsible-for-that-must-not-be-named.

The estimated time to read this article is 8 minutes I have a confession to make. Sometimes people ask me, casually, what it is that I do. And up until now I have always shuffled my feet, crinkled my brow for a second and settled for 'I'm a writer.

Your podcast purchase helps pay it forward to colleagues in Emerging UX Communities who may not have access to the same in-person learning opportunities as those in North America. Proceeds will help bring Follow The UX Leader training to countries where awareness and adoption of best practices can make a significant contribution to their governments, economies, and society.

What's all the fuss about tone of voice? By Barnaby Benson Every now and then in business, something we'd all been taking a bit for granted suddenly becomes a hot topic. In the world of branding, that something is tone of voice.

Enough with only user-centered design. It's terribly unpopular to say that, but it's more naive to avoid the issue. Yes, for too long we ignored our users. Some ill-fated brands still do.

Over the past year, the content strategy chatter has been building. Jeffrey MacIntyre gave us its raison d'être. Kristina Halvorson wrote the call to arms. Panels at SXSW, presentations at An Event Apart, and regional meetups continue to build the drum roll.

We have to start somewhere. Something has to come first. In 2001, I started working for the BBC in Cardiff. I worked alongside journalists and project managers for four years on all manner of web sites and applications; ranging from small niche content sites about surfing, through to redesigns of the homepage.

What goes into a content strategy is well defined. But what comes out? Recently, as I was getting to know a new client and going over what to she could expect from the content strategy process, she asked about content strategy deliverables. Specifically, she wanted samples.

Summary: In which I attempt to clarify content strategy by doing it in terms I understand: my own. Content strategy is the the kind of thing that loses clarity when I try to look at it directly. I can glimpse it out of the corner of my eye, but attempt to stare it down, it hops away.

Meghan Casey is The Nerdery's first official content strategist. She ventured away from Brain Traffic, the world's leading agency devoted exclusively to content, to help build content strategy into The Nerdery's user experience practice. She helps a wide variety of clients-start-ups, nonprofits, colleges and universities, Fortune 50 companies, and everything in between-solve the messy content problems most organizations encounter every day.

Chris Detzi is an accomplished user experience professional with over 15 years of experience spanning design, user research, and business strategy. He's lead a number of large design and research programs throughout his career as both a consultant and employee of Fortune 500 companies.

Bridging the gap between design and content As web designers and information architects, we often dismiss deep consideration of content when we design interactive experiences. By content I'm not only referring to the various forms of text (e.g., headers, body copy, error messages) but also imagery, graphics, and videos or audio that make up the full interactive experience.

The migration is the move. In our house, when we recently moved, my stepdaughter packed up her own room and decided where some of her belongings were going in the new house since she had more space. She also threw a lot of stuff out (as we all did).

Your podcast purchase helps pay it forward to colleagues in Emerging UX Communities who may not have access to the same in-person learning opportunities as those in North America. Proceeds will help bring Follow The UX Leader training to countries where awareness and adoption of best practices can make a significant contribution to their governments, economies, and society.