I quite dislike the laundry list approach to skill sets, and avoid the allure of “top ten” lists  that are supposed to be a one-dose-fits-all remedy. However, in an attempt to provide a succinct resource that can be useful to those wanting to round out their knowledge, I’ve created a suggested reading list. It is not meant to be a definitive list, and likely has more benefits to technical communicators who want to manage large bodies of technical content with more efficiency. However, I stand by my belief that those wanting to make the transition to content strategy will benefit from havin some knowledge  in each of these areas. I’d be interested in feedback and additions.

Requirements Analysis

• Identify business needs
• Understand corporate motivations and goals

Deliverables:

• GAP analysis
• Requirements matrix
• Process models

Learn from:

International Institute of Business Analysts – Body of Knowledge

Information Management Center – Information Process Maturity Model

User Analysis

• Identify key audiences
• Understand user motivations and goals or tasks

Deliverables:

• Needs assessments
• Personas and scenarios
• Flow diagrams

Learn from:

Ethnography

The User is Always Right

UI Flow Diagrams

Content Analysis

• Take inventory of existing content and documents
• Categorize content

Deliverables:

• Content inventory
• Content audit
• Metadata taxonomy
• Content models
• Content architecture
• Wireframes
• Delivery design

Learn from:

Adaptive Path on inventory

The Rockley Group on audits

Gerry McGovern on metadata

Content modeling

Content standards

Information Architecture Institute

Multi-channel publishing

Get Content, Get Customers

Content Design and Production

• Production workflow analysis
• Create content business rules
• Design content
• Develop content

Deliverables:

• Business process maps
• Topic maps
• Customization and personalization maps
• Localization plan
• Page tables/layout templates
• Standards and style guides
• And, of course, the content

Learn from:

AIIM Training Programs

Steve Pepper on Topic Maps

Letting Go of the Words

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

The Culturally Customized Web Site

Content and Technology

• Managing content
• Content standards
• Content management systems

Deliverables:

• Technology recommendations
• Implementation strategy

Learn from:

Content Management Bible

W3C Standards

OASIS Standards

LISA standards

Wikipedia review of CMS types

There are a few resources not included in this list, only because they span multiple areas mentioned above. These are the books about content strategy, whether or not called by that name:

Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy, by Ann Rockley

Web Content Strategist’s Bible, by Richard Sheffield

Content Strategy for the Web, by Kristina Halvorson

Information Development: Managing Your Documentation Projects, Portfolio, and People, by JoAnn T. Hackos

As a final note, hats off to the founders of the content strategy knol (unit of information) where practitioners are welcome to contribute resources, to consolidate information into a central location.

Previous posts in this series:

The extraordinary world of content strategists

Abilities and aptitudes for a content strategist

Content strategy: the skills conundrum

For example, a content strategist in the user assistance field – technical documentation, help, training, support, and related content – should know enough about the differences between major content development processes and technologies to be able to know about content migration, optimization, workflow, delivery, and management within that realm of content. Does that mean a deep knowledge of RoboHelp, Flare, Author-It, Vasont, SiberSafe, XDocs, XMetaL, XML Mind, RenderX XEP Processor, Antenna House Formatter, DITA Open Toolkit, and whatever other Web CMS, SharePoint, or collaboration tools are out there? No, absolutely not. However, the strategist needs to have enough experience with a range of these tools to know the differences between how they process content (and the determination to find that information). The strategist also needs to know how to exploit the content, and how to determine which system works in which situation.

A typical job posting for a content strategist focuses on the abilities needed to make strategic decisions. Here is one such example, which asks for:

• 2-3 years experience in online content strategy, particularly as an Information Architect or Web Content Manager
• Ability to develop user scenarios to better sort and display various types content
• Ability to create and edit prototypes and IA deliverables
• Experience writing and editing content for the Web
• Knowledge of web standards, including W3C compliance, accessibility (section 508) and the SEO implications of information architecture
• Understanding of the capabilities and limitations of Web technologies, including cross-browser compatibilities, HTML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, AJAX, PHP, Flash, Flex and mobile computing
• Ability to clearly articulate to internal team as well as clients the reasoning behind usability choices and recommendations
• Strong organizational skills and a basic familiarity with [a popular CMS]
• The ideal candidate will also have work experience in providing content strategy recommendations.

However, the temptation of organizations to simply ask for a laundry list of software skills has already begun. This approach, known in professional development circles as lazy recruitment techniques, confuse knowledge of a tool with quality work. A quick Web search revealed this post from a recruitment agency who seem to think that a Web developer with some creativity and the ability to articulate to stakeholders makes for a good content strategist:

Required skills:

• Drupal, CSS, Photoshop, Flash, Action script, Adobe CS2+, Google Analytics, WordPress development. Experience in Joopla recommended.
• Proactivity: A key part of what this role involves innovating the way of communicating our content through the web. Success in this role will require the ability to articulate, argue for and proactively push through your own creative solutions to problems.
• Proven track record of success in prioritizing and managing multiple projects, project forecasting, and resource planning
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills – comfortable explaining problems, options, and decisions to stakeholders

Education/Experience Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree required
• 5+ years’ experience in a web management environment

This  organization (and many others like it – this example is by no means unique) may say they have a “strategic position requiring excellent project management and user interface expertise, as well as strong collaboration skills and a strong passion for [our] mission of principled performance. The ideal candidate will have experience visioning and implementing strategy to align content with the user experience and has the technical skills to work with the Drupal content management platform” but is that really what they mean?

What they are actually saying is that they’re not sure what a content strategist does, so they will list some software packages and a few skills having little to do with the actual development, management, or delivery of content (and that tend to be mutually exclusive – big picture thinkers are rarely detail-oriented) and see what happens. In the vein of “the music is not in the violin,” the ability to use a range of software tools is not what makes a good strategist. Many industries “hire for aptitude; train for skills.” This seems like sound advice for the emerging practice area of content strategy, particularly because so much of the work is tied to aptitude.

Related posts:

The extraordinary world of content strategists

Abilities and aptitudes for a content strategist

Skills to transition to content strategy (coming June 16th)

Putting myself in the hiring chair, I would look for someone who works well within a T-shaped creative process.  The linked graphic is from David Armano, and meant for professionals working at the intersection of interactive marketing and experience design. However, these are the same talents distinguish content strategists from smart writers or smart technologists. These are the people who have insights into content, can develop a big idea from a content corpus, and articulate that idea in conceptual terms. They have to care that content is not just useable, but useful and desirable.

Let’s face it, a single strategist likely can’t be a master at all the details in every aspect. However, the strategist is not the person who asks: how do you want this content delivered, but after an analysis, tells you how the content should be delivered, and why, and to what benefit. The strategist should be able to do so using core consulting methodology, simplified here for sake of space: determine current state, analyze the requirements (of the business, content, and users), determine future state, identify gaps, and create a roadmap from current to future state.

Understanding the nature of content – from genre analysis to taxonomy to delivery models to line editing  – is a given. Processing content is not like processing data; it’s a lot more subtle and complex. A content strategist needs to have some sort of content background – English, writing, journalism, library sciences, translation, or related fields -  to understand the qualities and properties of content. You may be able to inventory content without understand a lot about its nature, but undertaking any sort of content analysis or taxonomy effort or content rewrite implies some measure of skill at content development.

The content strategist should be able to work as part of the larger team, whether that be a CMS project team or an ongoing user experience or creative group or product development team. More importantly, a strategist should understand how important it is to be part of the big picture, and understand how to integrate the content strategy within the larger organizational plans. This means an understanding of traditional and emerging business models, and communication paradigms that support various types of marketing and customer relationship efforts. It also means that sometimes the strategist may be called upon to create what are generally thought of as information architecture artifacts: conceptual IA models or wireframes. Though this may be a small part of the overall activities, knowing user-centered and experience design processes is an important part of a content strategist’s toolkit. Knowing how to apply these techniques to content is definitely worth bonus points.

It also helps when content strategists are technology aware – in other words, knowledgeable enough about current and emerging technologies that they can recommend strategic ways of implementing content. In other words, they are not the carpenters to whom every problem looks like it needs the same hammer-and-nail solution. I’m not talking technical acumen – there are way too many complex software apps out there to be both a content strategist and technologist. But the strategist should have enough conceptual knowledge to understand how content should or could flow through a system, and which types of systems will deliver the goods for a particular business need. This means system awareness, knowledge of implementation best practices, content migration  techniques, content standards, and an understanding of the interrelationships between people, processes, and technology.

Related posts:

The extraordinary world of content strategists

Content strategy: The skills conundrum (coming Jun 14th)

Skills to transition to content strategy (coming Jun 16th)

Content strategy is a little like that. We are practitioners who understand content. We understand it at a level that many people never stop to consider. We understand the potential of content in ways that others overlook. We understand how content connects to other content, how the development and delivery of content affects, and is affected by, practices connected to our profession, and how content connects to content consumers.

Where content strategy differs from the medical metaphor is that our understanding comes, not from a common educational background or some content boot camp, but from a wide range of professions. There is no Bachelor of Content Strategy upon which you can build a specialization in technical communication, marketing communications, social media, or enterprise content. Instead, practitioners come to the content strategy table with their specialties already in place, and stretch their wings to embrace ideas beyond the confines of their existing fields of practice.

Makings of a content strategist

The model for content strategy is more like  that of management consulting. Every management consultant has come from a different background – accounting, operations, technology, communications – with the commonality of understanding industry best practices, and being able to apply them appropriately, according to the situation. In fact, the Wikipedia definition of management consulting is both the industry, and the practice, of helping organizations improve their performance, primarily through the analysis of existing business problems and development of plans for improvement.  Using this paradigm, then, a content strategist is a management consultant with a specialty in improving performance of content.

The Wikipedia article on management consulting goes on to explain that “consultancies may also provide organizational change management assistance, development of coaching skills, technology implementation, strategy development, or operational improvement services. Management consultants generally bring their own, proprietary methodologies or frameworks to guide the identification of problems, and to serve as the basis for recommendations for more effective or efficient ways of performing business tasks. ” This sounds a lot like what we do as content strategists:

The skills to look for in a content strategist, then, can be specialized – for example, a content strategist working with newspapers concentrates on areas different than the strategist dealing with website marketing, who concentrates on areas different than the strategist dealing with user assistance content – but share some common underlying qualities.

Next posts in this series:

Abilities and aptitudes for a content strategist (coming Jun 11th)

Content strategy: the skills conundrum (coming June 14th)

Skills to transition to content strategy (coming June 16th)

If you haven’t gotten on the blogging bandwagon, don’t worry. Blogging is on its way out, replaced by microblogging and social media. Or is it? The music is not in the violin, the saying goes. Instead, the music comes from the way the musician plays the instrument, either eliciting the sweet strains of a symphony or cacaphonic screeching. The same applies to the social media tools you choose and use to network, advance your career, and connect with those who consume the content you publish.

A friend asked me to do something similar here. She felt she’d gotten so busy doing her work that when she looked up, there were all these new career “things” she was supposed to have kept up with, and she could use a crash course in how to figure all the pieces out. If you’re in that same boat and want to kick-start your public presence without waiting for October and going to New Orleans (although Bourbon Street at Hallowe’en is a lot of fun), I’ve put together an inexpensive, 1-day workshop that you can take this month.
The workshop is limited to a maximum of 8 participants, for maximum learning and interaction.

Date: April 30, 2009
Time: 8:30 to 5:00
Cost: $120 per person (includes morning, afternoon refreshments)

Register by contacting Rahel Bailie.

Another article is Think Weird and Prosper, which I’m reviving as a resource for those progressive thinkers who, like nails that stick up from the wood, get pounded down when they try to act on innovative ideas. This is a companion piece to the other article, and provides some ideas for alternative careers during hard economic times. While everyone else is concentrating on the same old, same old, you can be promoting yourself in a whole new way, and during hard times, your employer or clients are more willing to listen to new ideas.