Archive for June, 2011
Content first!
Exclamation point and all, it’s a rallying cry that’s been bandied about the internet for a few years now – first by those early pioneers of content work, but lately echoed more and more by smart design-and-dev world folks like Jeremy Keith and Luke Wroblewski.
Total win, right? Seriously, high five, you guys. They finally care about the content! Exclamation points all ‘round! But then, last week, I happened upon a post from James Callan questioning the usefulness of this oft-uttered phrase:
“Content vs. web-design-elements-that-aren’t-content is not a chicken and the egg argument. It’s not about evolution. It’s about genetics. Which came first, your mother’s genes or your father’s genes? Silly question. You need them both in order to be you.”
I can’t help but agree. I, too, have heard lots of newly minted content folks recently take up the phrase to claim that all content should be there, finished, before a single design decision is made.
That’s not just silly; it’s unrealistic – and unhelpful.
The rallying cry has served its purpose, but this is content strategy’s belle époque. As the discipline gains ground, the way we talk about it needs to advance as well – moving from broad calls to arms to specific, more nuanced sets of ideals and corresponding practices.
Wrapping up a vacation, unwrapping a sense of purpose: Or, my time with CS London
June 20, 2011
Sara Wachter-Boettcher
A couple weeks ago, at the tail end of an 18-day family reunion/beer vacation/work trip across Europe, I joined the London content strategy crowd for an evening of lightning talks covering takeaways from May’s Confab conference and looks forward to September’s CS Forum.
For five (in my case, very rushed) minutes each, eight of us made our way through narrative arcs ranging from data-driven content strategy to corporate communications’ role to translating strategy to tactics to, of course, cake.
But being neither a presenter at Confab nor scheduled to attend CS Forum, I didn’t have a talk to either summarize or preview. What I did have was some whiskey, and the dubious honor of going on first.
