Slides from the Ann Arbor (Oct. 2013) and Grand Rapids (Nov. 2013) Understanding Group Open Houses. The importance of realizing how content strategy helps to enable an organization's core values. Hat tip to Jonathan Coleman for the inspiration for this talk.
2. HI! I’M DANIEL EIZANS
PAST LIFE: I’ve been a journalist, a
student of neuroscience, a marketer and
strategist at two of the world’s largest
advertising agencies.
CLIENT WORK: Automotive
(Ford/Chevrolet), Government (EPA, CDC,
US Mint), Non-Profits (National Safety
Council), Healthcare (Kaiser Permanente)
and Consumer Products (Olympic Paint).
TWITTER: @danieleizans
3. TONIGHT I WANT TO TALK ABOUT …
Values
People
Content
Strategy
Being Clear
8. Principles aren’t principles until they cost you
something. There are times when abiding by
them can be awkward, uncomfortable,
embarrassing, and expensive.
- Paul Saginaw, Co-Founder Zingermans
Carl Collins: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlcollins/69912897/
9. CORE VALUES ARE REFLECTIVE
1. Great food 2. Great
service 3. A great place to
shop and eat! 4. Solid
profits 5. A great place to
work 6. Strong
relationships 7. A place to
learn 8. An active part of our
community
11. CORE VALUES ARE REFLECTIVE
1. Quality: Pursuit of ever-greater quality in
everything we do.
2. Integrity: Relationships built on integrity
and respect.
3. Environmentalism: Serve as a catalyst for
personal and corporate action.
4. Not Bound by Convention: Our success and much of the fun lies in developing
innovative ways to do things.
13. IT’S MORE THAN A MISSION
STATEMENT
Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your
thoughts become your words, Your words
become your actions, Your actions become
your habits, Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.
- Mahatma Gandhi
15. STARTING WITH STRATEGY
Understanding
If we want to facilitate
Understanding we have to start
with a strategic foundation. And
while the core values, goals and
objectives of a business are part of
the story that sets that foundation,
it’s only part of the story.
Business Story
User Story
16. Let’s talk about people
sites are geared
LET’S TALKMost webattention by focusing
PEOPLE for
grabbing
on findability factors that make
it more useful for machines.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/untitlism/22800371/
23. WHAT IS “CONTENT STRATEGY?”
Content strategy plans for the
creation, delivery, and governance of
content useful for humans and
machines.
From creation to analysis, every
content type takes on its own lifecycle.
Stakeholder Goals, User
Expectations, and Best Practices
become important factors for content’s
purpose and how it lives within the
daily lives of employees, vendors, and
others who are connected.
23
24. ELEMENTS OF CONTENT
STRATEGY
Content Components
Planning and Delivery
(Goals and Substance)
Structure
People Components
People, Processes, and Content
Workflow and Rules
A content strategy enables
information architecture by
ensuring there is a reason for the
content you produce to occupy
your site.
Governance and
Measurement
The development of a content
strategy helps define how people
within an organization create and
manage content and how the
content itself is structured.
24
25. PLANNING AND DELIVERY
Planning and delivery focus on goals and substance. This element of the content
strategy process aligns content needs with the digital strategy for target audiences.
Helps To Define
•
•
•
•
•
Information
Ownership
Support
Publishing Rhythms
Messaging Priorities
Deliverables
•
•
•
•
Messaging Architecture
Intended Audiences and Outcomes
Voice and Tone
Editorial Calendars and Schedules
25
26. STRUCTURE
Focuses on prioritization, organization, and modeling. It focuses on the content’s parts
to make it findable, portable and flexible for multiple sites, applications, and uses.
Helps To Define
•
•
•
•
•
Publishing strategy
Writing methods and guides
Data models
Metadata schemas
Semantic orchestration
(CMS guidelines)
Deliverables
•
•
•
•
•
Content maps
Page tables
Taxonomy
Data models
CMS changes
26
27. WORKFLOW AND RULES
Focuses on how people create, manage, edit, and maintain content on a daily basis.
These guidelines include the roles, tasks, and tools required for producing content
on behalf of an organization.
Helps To Define
•
•
•
•
Publishing processes
Editorial workflow
Creation standards
Revision guidelines
Deliverables
•
•
•
•
•
Publishing guidelines and manuals
Org charts
Metadata and taxonomy changes
Human processes
CMS workflow changes
27
28. GOVERNANCE AND
MEASUREMENT
Focuses on policy, standards, and guidelines that apply to content and its lifecycle.
Assists with the sustainment and evolution of content plans and strategy over time.
Helps To Define
• Major and medium changes to site
architecture and content strategy
• Expiration/archiving strategy
• Metrics and measurement
• Refinement guidelines
Deliverables
•
•
Governance council
Policy documents
28
30. PLANNING
Content strategy will help answer:
Planning
•
•
•
Sourcing
What messages should be communicated?
What medium supports the message?
What tone of voice should be used?
Creation
•
•
•
Governance
What content do we already have?
What kinds of content need to be created?
Who should we be creating for and why?
31. SOURCING
Content strategy will help answer:
Planning
•
•
•
Sourcing
What content currently exists on the site?
What content is missing?
What content can be repurposed, re-used,
or edited?
Creation
•
•
Governance
What content can we source from a
partner or third party?
How will we migrate existing content?
32. CREATION
Content strategy will help answer:
Planning
•
•
•
Sourcing
Who is going to write or produce content?
What guidelines do we provide content
creators?
Who is responsible for reviewing, editing, and
approving content?
Creation
•
•
Governance
What legal or regulatory approvals are
needed?
What quality control measures do we need?
33. GOVERNANCE
Content strategy will help answer:
Planning
•
•
•
Sourcing
What happens once content goes live?
How often do we need to update content?
How do we handle change requests?
Creation
•
•
Governance
How do we measure success of our content?
Should ownership/maintenance be
centralized or decentralized?
36. ASK THE HARD QUESTIONS
1. Would you keep this value if you
weren’t supported or rewarded for
it?
2. Would you still care about this if it
didn’t help your bottom line?
3. Would you still have this value if
you had to start your company
tomorrow?
4. Would you fire someone who
didn’t uphold these values?
5. Do your customers know your
values?
6. Are these values clear in your
40. LOVE WHAT YOU DO
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did, but people will
never forget how you made them feel."
- Mya Angelou
Good Evening! Thank you for coming to TUG… spending time with me and listening to me give my spiel. .
We really want to talk about driving business value today… and we can’t really do that without addressing Values, People, Content Strategy and Being Clear.
If I were to ask you to look at your organization/your clients or even your personal digital footprint and identify places that your “core values” are present, it may be difficult, like locating the source of the light in this picture. This could be for one or some of many reasons. Often times our digital experiences mirror our corporate structure and don’t bring the values of the organizaiton and its people to the experience. Other times we simply aren’t congruent with our values in communications that are public facing. Perhaps even more consistent is that our organizational values are VERY difficult to portray or we haven’t spent enough time establishing them in the first place.
Core values are the manifestation of culture. They should define your culture and personify your company. They should not change when you expand, or go through tough times. They are your own secret sauce for success.Core values are sometimes known as tenants, maxims, guiding principles or brand promises. No matter which word an organization adopts the outputs should be the habits everyone within a company must possess to consistently succeed as a business. They’re like the seeds of this this apple. All of the other elements that make an apple, an apple, grew from the seeds. if we peeled away all of the other things we’d still have the ingredients to make another apple. Core values ore the seeds to the story that makes a great company unique. They help fulfill its relevant differentiating benefit to the marketplace in which it operates and the world around them. They’re also necessary for helping to architect the places an organization makes online.
Does anyone recognize who these values belong to?
CONFLICT. Not only are the values that Enron chose REALLY, REALLY nebulous, they weren’t something that the company, or the people that were part of it, believe in. And because they weren’t something the company or its people “felt” It showed in multiple places and lead to major inconsistency. So how does this happen?
A company’s values/principles/etc. should be a reflection of the company itself…and should help guide everything the company does, from hiring to communicating to the structuring of its digital communications. We start to understand core values when we start to ask ourselves questions. What do we do? Who are we? (3) Who are we doing it for? (4) Why do we do it?
A company’s values/principles/etc. should be a reflection of the company itself…and should help guide everything the company does, from hiring to communicating to the structuring of its digital communications. We start to understand core values when we start to ask ourselves questions. What do we do? Who are we? (3) Who are we doing it for? (4) Why do we do it?
This is value number 8 in action.
These are the values of Patagonia.Truly Exceptional companies don’t just sell products, they sell their process, because their core values are present in EVERYTHING they do.
These are the values of Patagonia.Truly Exceptional companies don’t just sell products, they sell their process, because their core values are present in EVERYTHING they do.
Or as Dan Klyn would paraphrase it… “Thoughts become things.” Ghandi has another famous quote, “We must be the change we want to see in the world,” Being the change means taking up action, which req
They give you reason for the things you want to say, and start to frame how you say them. They’re a crucial part of the story and a key element to consider before publishing anything online… Ethnographer, Author of Start With Why and TED Speaker Simon Sinek Says people don’t buy what you do, they buy how why do it. That means the business story is only part of the equation.
People
When we architect an experience for a user, context is crucial in the content strategy phases of a project. For me, the most important elements of context can be addressed if we focus on: BehaviorsSituationsEnvironments
Physical Factors:Doing: Environmental factors, physical activity levels, habits, disabilities, preferences and sensori stimuliEmotional Factors: Feelings: - Psychological state the content or information puts them inUsers stress level, wants, desires, needsCognitive Factors:Learning: Cognitive assumptions, learning abilities, educational level
Situational context is in reference to the actual or perceived situations that users are facing when they need to access our content. How do we deliver content differently to someone who has to buy a new car because theirs has been destroyed in a crash, vs. someone who may be car shopping for a convertible they intend to use only on weekends?
When you blend situational and behavioral contexts together, you have the basis for a contextually relevant content strategy, or at the very least, a place to begin when forming questions for research.
But not just device type, it’s download speed, time, place, temperature and season.
In the middle of all of these are the Core Values of an organization
Planning helps to define:• Information• Ownership• Support
Planning helps to define:What we haveWhere the gaps are
Planning helps to define:• Who should produce thingsWhat they need to produce successful things
Helps to define:Guidelines for content managementSuccess Metrics and workflow
Content Strategy ASKS THE HARD QUESTIONS and facilitates the happy marriage of the business and user story… because the core values of a company aren’t what we WANT them to be. They’re simply what they are… we owe it to ourselves to use the process of content strategy to Add value for users, AND enable the business to be CONGRUENT WITH ITS VALUES… BEING CLEAR ON BOTH OF THESE THINGS HELPS FACILITATE UNDERSTANDING AND BUILD VALUE FOR A BRAND THAT’S MEASURABLE
Content Strategy ASKS THE HARD QUESTIONS and facilitates the happy marriage of the business and user story… because the core values of a company aren’t what we WANT them to be. They’re simply what they are… we owe it to ourselves to use the process of content strategy to Add value for users, AND enable the business to be CONGRUENT WITH ITS VALUES… BEING CLEAR ON BOTH OF THESE THINGS HELPS FACILITATE UNDERSTANDING AND BUILD VALUE FOR A BRAND THAT’S MEASURABLE
To express who you are… not who you think you are or who you should be. To support a more passionate work culture.
To express who you are… not who you think you are or who you should be. To support a more passionate work culture.
To express who you are… not who you think you are or who you should be. To support a more passionate work culture.