Data or content? A corporate journey to embracing content strategy, by Alan Miller and Rahel Bailie
The conundrum
- They recognized the importance of the content – but didn’t know what to do
- Asked for an outside opinion
- Assessed, and determined the content wasn’t bad
- BUT they needed a content strategy
- Strategies take time
Made a transition
- Began the discovery path
- Lots of knowledge about their users
- Not much content knowledge
- Even knowing all they knew, it was hard to put the pieces together
- Very data-centric – but where is the breakdown between content and data
Definitions:
- Data: Numerical or other information representing a suitable for processing by computer.
- Assumpting: Data is organized in “sets” that can be processed like-for-like in a database.
- Content: “Stuff” contained in a receptacle; human-usable, contextualized data
- Assumption: Nuance and context create complexity, which needs management in a content repository
- A repository is different from a database in that it has metadata – specific functions
- Data is like spice jars. Content is like cooked food – with spices.
Governance
- People don’t like governance, because it means stopping work
- The debate on data vs content is too aggressive
- Governance is a way of quality control
- It all comes down to people
Lessons learned
- There are guidelines
- Those guidelines are situational, and therefore change
- Be transparent and engaged
- This takes away some of the fear of governance
- Many ways to have the data/content debate – keep having those discussions
- It will be a constant evolution
Share on Facebook
Tweet
Follow us
