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7 WAYS
CONTENT CAN
‘CHOKE OUT’
YOUR PROJECT
23. 23 5/21/2013 Building Bridges, Connecting Communities#SoHappy @jakedimare
Content = scope…
#1 FAILURE TO
APPRECIATE THE
DEPTH AND
BREADTH OF A
PROJECT.
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The Big Dig
Originally scheduled for
completion: 1998 @ $2.8B
26. 26 5/21/2013 Building Bridges, Connecting Communities
The Big Dig
Eventually completed in:
2007 @ 14.6B
Originally scheduled for
completion: 1998 @ $2.8B
27. 27 5/21/2013 Building Bridges, Connecting Communities#SoHappy @jakedimare
#2 FAILURE TO
RECOGNIZE THE
CRITICAL
IMPORTANCE OF
CONTENT.
It’s all about the content…
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#3 FAILURE TO
PLAN FOR
CREATING AND/OR
REVISING
CONTENT.
Ready or not…
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The Writing
Process
Prewriting
Writing
Revising
Editing
Publishing
Promoting
31. 31 5/21/2013 Building Bridges, Connecting Communities#SoHappy @jakedimare
#4 FAILURE TO
UNDERSTAND THE
CHALLENGES OF
DESIGNING WITH
DUMMY CONTENT.
For placement only (for dummies)…
32. 32 5/21/2013 Building Bridges, Connecting Communities#SoHappy @jakedimare
Dummy text is for…
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the
printing and typesetting industry. It has been
the industry's standard dummy text ever since
the 1500s…
…the 1500’s…
…the1500’s…
…the 1500’s…
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#5 FAILURE TO
PROPERLY PLAN
FOR CONTENT
MIGRATION.
Content on the move…
36. 36 5/21/2013 Building Bridges, Connecting Communities#SoHappy @jakedimare
#6 FAILURE TO PLAN
FOR THE
DISRUPTIVE
EFFECTS OF
OWNING A NEW CMS.
Game off!!!
37. 37 5/21/2013 Building Bridges, Connecting Communities#SoHappy @jakedimare
Let’s get specific…
Failure to comprehend the
potentially disruptive effects of
owning a new content
management system.
38. 38 5/21/2013 Building Bridges, Connecting Communities#SoHappy @jakedimare
#7 FAILURE TO
UNDERSTAND THE
GRAVITY OF
BUSINESS
REQUIREMENTS.
Create the experience business needs...
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Digital
Experience
Vision
Culture &
Governance
Technology
OptimizationContent
Operations
Plan
Customer
Insight
Seven gates for digital change
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6 THINGS YOU
CAN DO TO
MITIGATE
THESE RISKS
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2005
Web team:
• Web Developer(s)
• Web Designer(s)
• Information
Architect(s)
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2005
Web team:
• Web Developer(s)
• Web Designer(s)
• Information
Architect(s)
• Project Manager
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Present day
DX team:
• Engineer
• XD
• XA
• PM
• Digital Strategist
• MO Specialist
• Content Strategist
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Defining success today…
Targeted
Portable
Mobile
Social
Responsive
Local
Global
Relevant
51.
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Activities, Milestones and
Deliverables
Discovery Design Development
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Content audit
What: Detailed content inventory
and associated analysis
When: Scoping, Discovery
Why: The cone of uncertainty
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Content Audit
55. 55 5/21/2013 Building Bridges, Connecting Communities#SoHappy @jakedimare
Content audit pro tips
• Do Use Xenu!
• Don’t just run automated software
• Include UXA, UXD, MO, and business
stakeholders in the analysis
• Look for pockets of abandoned
content
• Compare audit against Analytics
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Message architecture
What: Hierarchy of
communication goals
When: Discovery, Design
Why: Learnin’!
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Message Architecture
59. 59 5/21/2013 Building Bridges, Connecting Communities#SoHappy @jakedimare
Message Architecture
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Message Architecture
61. 61 5/21/2013 Building Bridges, Connecting Communities#SoHappy @jakedimare
Card sort steps
1. Sort all cards into the three
columns
2. Remove ‘Who We’re Not’
3. Confirm remaining two columns
4. Remove ‘Who We Are’
5. Prioritize remainder
6. Record
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Venn diagram steps
1. Place emotive words in the
brand attributes circle
2. Place emotive words in the
audience needs circle
3. Explore overlap
4. Record
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Message architecture…
• Contrarian
– Provocative, yet optimistic
• Empowering
– Provide tools
– Inspire action
• Innovative
– Current
– Leading edge, not bleeding edge
• Egalitarian
– Build community
– Relationship oriented
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Message architecture…
• Design Implications
– Use of Popular Memes for imagery
– No stock footage of people in offices
– Sans-Serif font for design elements
– User-centric navigation
• Copy Implications
– Use AP style guide
– Use humor liberally
– Longer sentence structures are acceptable
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Message architecture pro tips
• Set up the room
–Get chairs out of the way
–Provide snacks and refreshment
–Write ground rules on white board
• Ground rules:
–This exercise is about the brand
–Perception = reality
–This is a safe environment
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Migration planning
What: Documents detailing the
effort associated with content
integration
When: Design, Development
Why: Because migration is hard
70. 70 5/21/2013 Building Bridges, Connecting Communities#SoHappy @jakedimare
Migration planning pro tips
• Start early, update often
• Be informed by genuine workflow
• Let stakeholders know this is a
living document. It doesn’t get
‘finished’
• Make sure everyone is working
from the same sheet music.
• Have a sign off column!
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CMS governance
What: Documentation of
rules, vital information, etc.
When: Development
Why: Self preservation (Ever
Want to go on vacation?)
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CMS governance
• Hosting information
• Support information
• Content management team information
• Measurement team information
• Advertising information
• Archiving
• Security
• Information architecture
• Hiring and training
• Standards and procedures
• Legal issues (Privacy, TOS, Etc.)
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User documentation
What: How to manual(s)
When: Development
Why: Self preservation
Also: Portfolio rot…
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7 ways content can ‘choke out’
your project…
• #1 FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND SCOPE.
• #2 FAILURE TO RESPECT THE CONTENT
• #3 FAILURE TO PLAN FOR CONTENT CREATION.
• #4 FAILURE TO DESIGN WITH REAL COPY
• #5 FAILURE TO PLAN FOR CONTENT MIGRATION.
• #6 FAILURE TO PLAN FOR YOUR NEW CMS.
• #7 FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND BUSINESS NEEDS.
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6 Things you can do to mitigate
these risks…
• Hire a content strategist!
• Conduct a Content Audit
• Create a Message Architecture
• Migration Planning
• Write CMS Governance Documentation
• Write User Documentation
76. Building Bridges, Connecting Communities
Evaluate this session at:
portland2013.drupal.org/schedule.
Thank you!
and
What did you think?
Now who won those t-shirts?
Hi!Thank everyone for coming,Thanks to the DrupalCon organizers for selecting me to share this presentation. Thanks to my company for paying for my travel and giving me the time off to come share my thoughts and experiences with you. Set up the session: We’re going to do some housekeeping, Then look at Content related risks before diving into a detailed look at steps you can take on your projects to mitigate these risks.
Review slideInvite people to connect w/you
Poll AudienceOK, Big Question for this talk: How many people here think Content Strategy is vitally important to the success of website projects you are currently working on?
What I doAbout ISITEStart totalk about digital experience
About CMS MythTalk about our perspective. It’s not about the CMS, it’s about the people who work with them…And making their experiences better.
Explain the TeeShirtDrupalCon Theme: BUILDING BRIDGESExplain the contest. Going to give three tee shirts away to the first three people who successfully tweet something…So get your computers or cell phones ready…
Cut to Twitter, to see who won. Give away tee shirts.
First…As I mentioned, I’m primarily project manager not a content strategist…Also…Discuss how this could be relevant to other people on project team…Finally…I’m not going to evangelize too much, hope to be practical…
That being said…Just in case there are any folks in the room who missed Karen’s talk, and haven’t been keeping up with the content strategy movement, I do want to quickly share the idea that content strategy really is a really big deal right now. My own personal acknowledgement of this fact has followed a similar trajectory as our industry, from initial awareness to the present…But for me, there was a watershed moment last year when I saw this tweet, from the Mars Curiosity Rover. If it’s tough to read it says: I’m safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!! #MSL. Some of you may be thinking: So what? The person responsible for tweeting updates about the recent Mars mission got a little excited…
However, all you have to do is go to the Curiosity’s twitter feed and you’ll see that assumption is incorrect. It is almost immediately evident the Mars Curiosity rover twitter feed has a distinct editorial style, meant to be fun and approachable. On a strategic level, I speculate someone made a very specific choice that this feed should inspire wonder and gain the interest of normal, every day citizens, who vote for the politicians that make decisions about how to fund scientific exploration. That this hunk of battery powered robot, drilling holes in a frozen ball of dirt 50 million miles away from Earth, should have a content strategy fills me with wonder at the importance of what we do. Human beings like stories. They are the ultimate meme’s if you will. They transfer from person to person like energy, far easier than cold, hard, data. Someone made a decision that the Mars Rover should have a personality…That through the exercise of a very intentional content strategy, it should be a star.
So I’d like to say thank you to KarenMcGrane, Jeff Eaton, Margot Bloomstein and the rest of the evangelists, that have been working so hard to help us understand the value of what they bring to the table… It’s my genuine belief that content strategy helps me…and the teams I work with…provide better DIGITAL EXPERIENCES.It’s about the DIGITAL EXPERIENCES – Reference the keynote yesterday.
That being said…The promise of better digital experiences is great and all…But it’s ALSO my belief that CS makes my life as a project manager a heck of a lot easier, and I’ll demonstrate why with the remainder of this presentation. We’re going change gears now and get a lot more practical and talk about 7 content related risks that may take your project off the rails and then dig into the ways you can mitigate these risks.
In order to understand how content strategy makes the life of a project manager easier, WHY I…and ALL PROJECT MANAGERS should LOVE Content Strategy…It’s necessary to better understandthe mind of an average project manager…What are our fears,motivations…
What we think about…
OK, so hopefully this is what your project manager is thinking about at work. I’d like to dive a little deeper into each of these areas of interest one at a time…
Talk about scope
Talk about schedule
Talk about budgets
Talk about managing expectations
Managing risk
Share anecdote about facing your problems… InJiuJitsu there are many problems we must face, but the biggest one is the risk of being submitted by your opponent with a choke hold, rendering you unconscious. In JiuJitsu we literally refer to this as being ‘choked out’. You don’t want to be CHOKED OUT. In PROJECT MANAGEMENT we call the act of facing our problems ‘RISK MANAGEMENT’
And so, in the spirit of mixed metaphors, I would like to identify 7 ways content can ‘choke out’ your project…
Read slide 2x
So, this image is the Zakim Bridge in Boston, Part of the famous ‘Big Dig’ or Central Artery Project Planning started in 1982The most expensive highway project in the history of mankind.
It was originally scheduled to be completed in 1998 at an estimated cost of $2.8 billion Just let that number settle in for a moment…
It eventually completed in December 2007, at a cost of over $14.6 billion Does anyone think it’s possible they didn’t know what they were getting into while planning?Team fatigue…($14.6 billion in 2007 = $8.08 billion in 1982 dollars, meaning a cost overrun of about 190%)
Read slide 2x
It seems silly to have to say this but it’s ABOUT THE CONTENT!!!Like it or not, the reason a user decides to come to a given website is because they have the RIGHT CONTENT
Read slide 2x
Creating content is difficult and complex…And it’s likely the BIGGEST THING stressing out your clients or stakeholders RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTEAll of this process is most probably happening in parallel with the design and development. Discuss effects
Read 2x
Not thinking about content variability, not understanding the CONTEXT of the CONTENT,LENGTH of LISTS, LENGTH of TITLES, LENGTH of NAVIGATION ITEMS…the list goes on.
Read 2x
I love this image. It’s so optimistic and aspirational…Can’t you just envision a content migration working out like this?You’re up there in the ultra-light waving in joy, While everything migrates from the old site to the new one in perfect order…Has anyone worked on a migration effort that felt like this?
Does this feel a little more realistic to anyone?YOU GUYS - Migration is hard!And it’s a huge client risk…This is another one of those things keeping your stakeholders up at night. Be a Jedi and make it easier for them……the time it takes to move content into the site is a really big deal and it requires careful planning…
Read 2x
Talk about the disappointment of a game delayPeople don’t like waiting…And if you fail to plan for the disruptive…
Read 2x
So, we talk about this diagram when we do strategy engagements. The idea is CMS, Content, Operations, Optimization, These are all just parts of the big picture that rolls up to Business Needs. We could spend hours talking about this subject itself…Point is…It’s necessary to understand business requirements.
For the remainder of this talk we’ll explore what we can do to mitigate the risks associated with complex, large-scale, technology projects.
Step 1 – HIRE A CONTENT STRATEGIST!!
To help MAKE THE CASE for the importance of simply adding this team member, Let’s take a quick look at the evolution of interactive project teamsfrom my perspective... This is the original web page put up by CERN on April 30th 1992. Obviously, not very sophisticated.
In terms of what it took to make a web page like this a reality…here’s what we are talking about. By the way, THIS WAS ME….My FIRST WEB RELATED JOB was ‘web master’ for the BRICK AND MORTAR company I worked for in the 90’s. Then became a DEVELOPER.
Here’s a screenshot of the Apple website, circa 2000. As you can see, design is starting to play a much bigger role. Other important details:ImagesVideo!
It was my experience around this time the team was made up of some number of designers and developersShepherded by an account manager
Here’s a typical webby award winner in 2005. Getting more complex in terms of design, content, Also login accounts, rate quote tools, etc. By the way, by this point STATIC CONTENT is practically DEAD…certainly among major corporate web sites. Also: Beginning to wrestle with the very first wave of smart mobile devices around this time. Think Palm treo and blackberry.
2005 and everyone is talking about Information Architecture...or User Experience Architecture. A few years earlier Jakob Nielson and Jeffrey Zeldmen had worn out the conference circuit and by 2005 all anyone could talk about was usability.
And as project teams got bigger, they eventually needed full time project managers to keep all these interdependent moving parts in synch. Please note, in addition to casting project managers as the King of Middle earth with a light saber, this portion of the presentation can either be a gross over-simplification or overly complex version of your reality at the time… Websites were becoming exponentially more complex with user accounts, language localization and targeted marketing while simultaneously looking better and better as time went on. Here’s a typical consumer facing ‘webby award winning’ website from 2005…
Enter the content strategists, etc. Along with project teams, the web is getting more complex.
We’re building digital experiences…not websites…And Content needs to be…
And let’s not forget the significance and influence of search results… which has been growing steadily right alongside the complexity of digital experiences this whole time. Content teams need to think about how content is consumed by machines, in addition to human audiences.
So, what if you don’t have access to a digital strategist? Then it’s necessary to make sure the right activities, milestones and deliverables are included in the project process.
Introduce the content auditAddresses the risk of not properly understanding scope
Explain Xenu Link Sleuth
Pro tips in either case
Introduce message architecture
Talk about Margot Bloomstein’s bookContent Strategy at WorkSet up what happens in a card sort…Fast click through next slides
The other approach Margot outlines is this Venn Diagram method.Supposed to be quicker…Less complicated.
Explain steps
Message architecture continued…
Explain this is output in either case
Pro tips in either case
Explain Migration planning
Review columns, talk about importance
Talk about content object modelingContent template
Share migration planning pro tips
Explain governance…What it is what it isn’t
Here’s some topics that could be included in a governance deliverable
