According to research from Gartner, less than 10% of enterprises have a content strategy. Although they don’t use the term “content” (they say “information”), the result is the same: strategic thinking about the information we provide our customers is just starting to gain traction among upper management. In most enterprises, it is non-existent. Business leadership [...]
By Cheri Mullins Note from Cheri: With profound apologies to Michael Jackson in memoriam, Michael Jackson fans, songwriters, lyricists, and technical communicators everywhere. “XML” (set to the Michael Jackson classic, “Billy Jean”) [1st Verse] DITA has a lovely theme Using Schemes I Don’t Mind, But What Do You Mean You Are The One? That Will [...]
Margot Bloomstein, Brand and Content Strategist at Appropriate, Inc. shares what she does from the editorial side of content strategy, helping brands effectively communicate their value propositions. In this interview, filmed at the Intelligent Content Conference in San Francisco (February 2013), Bloomstein explains that her work centers around helping clients solve “thorny content strategy problems,” [...]
By Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler Most marketers just don’t get it. Twitter is not a fax machine. A PDF is not an eBook. Brands aren’t inherently interesting. Millions of people rely solely on smartphones to access the web. And nobody—except maybe your boss—checks your Facebook page in hopes of discovering your latest product announcement. [...]
Editor’s Note: Join us May 17, 2013 at 10:00AM PT for our BrightTALK webinar, Language Matters: How To Write Powerful Sentences & Paragraphs, featuring Marcia Riefer Johnston. Register today! It’s free. By Marcia Riefer Johnston Many thanks to The Content Wrangler, Scott Abel, for introducing me to Guy Kawasaki’s inspiring work and for encouraging me [...]
This is a summary of The Content Wrangler 2012 Technical Communication Industry Benchmarking Survey, an informal, web-based survey that compared responses from over 500 companies from countries around the globe. The results are not scientific, but do provide us with meaningful data points and help us spot trends. For instance, one major trend we noticed [...]
Interactive eBooks leverage the latest mobile and graphic technologies to take readers beyond the printed page with captivating interactive experiences to deepen the impact of the written word. Check out the workflow involved in converting a printed book to an interactive eBook (brought to you by Aptara). Aptara – Transforming Content into Knowledge
Robert Glushko, Adjunct Professor at University of California, Berkeley, School of Information opened the 2013 Intelligent Content Conference on Corporate Publishing. His talk centered around a recent project he undertook — the making of an interdisciplinary textbook. “It’s a hard project to write [an interdisciplinary text book] because it changes what a book is, a [...]
by Mark Lewis, Special to The Content Wrangler Yeah, I know. The title is a pretty strong accusation, but I stand by it. The journey that led me to this conclusion began with my family at a restaurant in the Deep South. The bowl of gator chowder in front of me had been conquered. The [...]
Social media communities, rating and review sites, wikis, blogs, eBook creation software, and other free or inexpensive web content production tools have enabled anyone with a desire (and a web browser and a decent connection to Internet) to become a publisher. But, in a world in which everyone is a publisher, how do we know [...]
It’s time to take content strategy seriously. In order for the discipline to move forward, we need skills. Serious skills. Skills that will enable us to solve complex content challenges without introducing a boat load of new ones. Skills that most other content professionals lack. Skills that will differentiate us from the competition. That’s why [...]
Robert Rose, Chief Troublemaker at Big Blue Moose, knows a lot about content marketing. He’s spent the last few years helping organizations think strategically about how they will leverage their content to accomplish their marketing vision. In this quick take video, recorded at the Intelligent Content Conference on Corporate Publishing, Rose, spells out clearly what [...]
Check out this conceptual art project that explores the use of digital rights management (DRM) in unorthodox ways. In this example, the artist, Thibault Brevet, ponders by what would happen if we attached self-destructing DRM to chairs. DRM is already attached to some eBooks, limiting the number of times they can be checked out of [...]
by Ian Cleary, RazorSocial Delivering great content is increasingly important, especially if you want it to be found by others in Google search results. The world’s most influential search engine rewards authors of great content with improved search result listings. And, most recently, they’ve rolled out Google Authorship, a new feature designed to connect authors [...]
