The first time I encountered the term "content strategy" was at a UX Intensive workshop run by Adaptive Path in December 2008. Another participant at my table described herself as a "content strategist". When I asked "What's that?", she replied, "It's like a cross between a web designer and a copywriter." At the time, it sounded like title inflation, but I've since learned that content strategy encompasses a great deal more than that.
The field of content strategy emerged as a sub-discipline of web design, when some practitioners realized that the "stuff" in the boxes of a web design deserved at least as much attention as the layout and styling of the boxes themselves. Many credit Rachel Lovinger for first giving voice to this discipline in a March 2007 article in Boxes and Arrows. She described the goal of content strategy as using "words and data to create unambiguous content that supports meaningful, interactive experiences". The notions of content management and content management systems have been around for a long time. They deal with the life cycle of creating, modifying, approving, publishing, and retiring content, (or, ahem, information assets). Content strategy, as its name implies, takes a strategic view of those assets, examining how the goals of the organization are served by the information assets it produces. Many content strategists are primarily concerned with web-based information. However, as technical communicators will immediately recognize, not all of the information that an organization produces is web-based. Therefore, the terms "enterprise content strategy" or "unified content strategy" are sometimes used to refer to applying the content strategy lens to all the externally-facing information of an organization:
A unified content strategy is a repeatable method of identifying all content requirements up front, creating consistently structured content for reuse, managing that content in a definitive source, and assembling content on demand to meet your customers’ needs. — Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy
On a certain level, my reaction to these ideas is "Well, duh. Of course you want to do that." But as an individual technical writer, it's usually easier to complain about how those folks over in Marketing never coordinate with us over here in Tech Pubs than it is to step up to solving content-related problems at an organizational level. Taking the big-picture view is easier said than put into actual practice. On the other hand, I believe that taking the big-picture view is essential for providing long-term value to the organization. Tech writers who focus on just writing the docs will find that their jobs can be done more cheaply in other parts of the world, while those who help ensure that all of the organization's information needs are identified and addressed effectively will continue to find employment.
Content strategy is getting increasing attention from technical communicators, for whom there is a natural progression from managing technical information to managing broader sets of information. The Society for Technical Communication 2010 Summit (getting under way in Dallas this weekend), has a number of items on the program related to content strategy.
- The Content Strategy Institute is a series of four program sessions on content strategy
- The Content Strategy Progression on Tuesday afternoon offers a discussion-oriented format, where attendees pick topics of interest and migrate to their chosen speakers' tables for 20-minute chunks with each one.
- The STC Content Strategy SIG hosts a networking breakfast on Wednesday, and will have a presence at the Welcome Reception on Sunday and Communities Reception on Monday. These events provide opportunities to meet like-minded folks and discuss content strategy issues in a relaxed setting.
I'll be presenting a topic at the Content Strategy progression on building consensus with other content strategy stakeholders. I'll be giving a presentation on Monday entitled Building an Empire from the Grassroots Up, on helping other groups in your organization see the value of content management and content strategy.
I hope to see you in Dallas. If you're not attending the Summit, you can follow attendees' on Twitter with the hashtag #stc10; or you can follow me specifically, @jmswisher.