Replay of “What’s Next? Socially-Enabled User Assistance, Interactive Documentation, and Location-Aware Help” with Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler

July 28, 2011 Blog 1 Comment

Here’s an on-demand recording of my recent webinar, “What’s Next? Socially-Enabled User Assistance, Interactive Documentation, and Location-Aware Help”, sponsored by MindTouch. During this fast-paced presentation, I use a story metaphor — kind of a history of documentation — to help attendees understand how businesses big and small are leveraging the power of the crowd to create exceptional socially-enabled customer assistance experiences, engaging interactive/enhanced digital content, useful mobile device apps, and powerful location-aware help. After the webinar, I answered questions from the audience that are documented here. video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo …

Where Old School Marketing Campaigns Fail, Variable Data Cross-Media Marketing Shines

July 25, 2011 Blog No Comments

by Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler It’s a fact. Most corporate marketing dollars are wasted on outdated approaches that yield astoundingly unimpressive results. Today’s marketers are spending buckets of money producing old school campaigns distributed via new school delivery channels. Newsletters now arrive via email. Special offers via Facebook. Twitter has become the new fax machine. These ‘spray-and-pray’ approaches to marketing are not impressive. Let’s look at the math. In many industries a 2-3% response to a traditional direct marketing campaign is viewed as a success. This means that 98% …

Content Strategy: Beyond the Web Featuring Kristina Halvorson

July 25, 2011 Blog No Comments

If you missed the Web Content Conference this past June in Chicago, you missed a great event! Luckily for you, the organizers recorded the sessions you missed and have made them available at no charge on the web. You can access the entire library of presentations on-demand from the Web Content Conference video archive. The video below features web content strategist Kristina Halvorson and her talk “Content Strategy: Beyond the Web”. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Managing The King: What Content Strategists Need To Know About Terminology Management

July 21, 2011 Blog 3 Comments

by Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler I recently authored a white paper entitled “Managing the King: Why Terminology Management is a Critical Component of Successful Content Strategies”. A summary of the paper is included here to tempt you to download the full version located here (registration required). Managing the King Content is king, it is commonly said. Writers, editors, proofreaders and other content professionals have promoted this line of thinking, usually when technology creeps into their turf, promising to help them better create, structure, manage, and deliver content to those …

You Are Never Too Small For Big Marketing

July 18, 2011 Blog No Comments

At ifridge many of my clients would be classified as the smaller to mid-sized companies who are quickly growing in their respective markets. This type of environment for a marketer while often chaotic is also very inspiring. The teams are full of energy, new ideas are introduced often, and everyone does what it takes to get the job done. What we also see quite often is that these types of companies are used to moving quickly with little resources and they think that is just the way it needs to …

In Review: TIMAF Information Management Best Practices

July 12, 2011 Blog No Comments

By Joe Gollner, Gnostyx Research I have already written an initial piece about the TIMAF Information Management Best Practices Volume 1 and in this piece I touch upon a theme, that of diversity of perspective, which I would like to pick up on again. I am reminded of what Forrest Gump recalled as a piece of wisdom from his mother: “Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” The TIMAF Information Management Best Practices is a bit like that box of chocolates. Open the …

10 Tips for Writing International Technical Content

July 8, 2011 Blog 1 Comment

By Michael Kriz, President and Founder, Acclaro Writing as a profession has shifted dramatically since the early days, when writers — from technical writers to journalists — had a clear, unified, culturally homogenous audience to which they communicated. Before starting a project, they could determine the nature of the audience: Are they U.S. male consumers, between the ages of 18 and 34? Doctors living in California? Mid-level engineering managers? Or, perhaps a group of Chinese-speaking New Yorkers? In these cases, they could conduct research into their target group and know …

Artist Or Criminal? Getting Down With Mashup Aritst DJ Schmolli: The Content Wrangler Interview

July 5, 2011 Blog 2 Comments

By Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler I often use music as a way to illustrate how components of content can be re-purposed or recombined in new ways to create useful derivatives of content. In my work as a blogger, presenter, and content strategy consultant, I borrow concepts from remixing music to make such examples easier to understand. My experiences as a night club dj made the move to creating music — and content — mashpups a natural progression for me. A partial library of my mashups and remixes can be …